A good reputation is necessary for a healthy business. The power of attraction helps bring clients and maintain healthy relationships with them.
A business that demands too much from its clients and sends them too much emails per day would be seen as annoying, off putting, and troublesome. Worst of all, it demonstrates a lack of trust in our customers, lowering our perceived value. Basically, a business that clings too much to its clients would be seen as nothing more than a needy child, cute and fun sometimes, but overwhelming and unattractive at the end. A simple, nonchalant, and cooperative approach is the best way to maintain clients and establish client loyalty.
Some clients may say that they prefer the organization to be clingy and expressive of all its needs, yet even them eventually become overwhelmed by the ever-increasing demands of the business. The only type of "clingy" they want is knowing that you care for them and like them, not the type of clingy where you cannot live without them. Establish consistent communication time but provide reasons whenever the organization cannot meet those time. Do not exceed more than 4 hours of communication per day, especially in early contact with clients. Remember that a burnt out client may feel super satisfied, full, and dead that they no longer want to avail any future services again. Always maintain both a sense of generosity and scarcity in equal measure; scarcity to keep them wanting more, generosity to satisfy them a little.
There are times when the client might obsess with our products and services but this is not necessarily a good thing. What the organization wants is long-term loyalty where customers would keep coming back, not for them to just have a shopping spree for a few days before leaving forever. It is more profitable for the organization to have clients that avail a few services per week than to avail everything for a few days before disappearing forever. Only long-term clients are allowed to develop an unhealthy obsession with our organization, new clients must be prevented in becoming obsessed at all costs. In this sense, we must temporarily become the life-customer balance managers of our new clients such that they will be able to enjoy their own life while availing our services. Clients without a life will eventually run out of funds to avail our services, and we do not want that to happen. Meanwhile, long-term clients already know what they're doing, they don't need their hands to be held.
While not avoiding conflicts and giving honest feedback is theoretically the ideal way to operate a business, the mindsets of the clients are often not ideal enough to appreciate this manner of conflict management. Regardless of whether you ask for consent to give brutally honest feedback or not, some clients would tend to see it as an act of suppression and control. Having to repeat "um can you please do this if it's okay with you" hundreds of times is often better than a single "You failed to write this in the paper. It always makes us upset whenever you do that" unless you're a parent, then maybe it's not a bad idea. Nevertheless, only make requests sparingly unless it's completely mandatory.
A good organization must always respect the client's privacy, they should not collect any sensitive data without the client's consent even if they're a data gathering organization. This means the organization should not ask them again for the second time once they have already refused to share their data or they might risk losing their client. However, just because they refused to share their secret, does not mean they don't really want to share it. If it's really a secret, they wouldn't hint at it and say "it's a secret, not telling!", rather, it means that they might be unwilling to give that secret for free. Consider proposing a deal by giving them a similar or greater value than that information in exchange for their secret. In this way, both sides would be happy.
Sometimes the client would be curious enough to explore the organization's building. In that case, they should be given a guided tour by some of our trusted employees. Whatever the case, no matter how much they're willing to pay, do not let them enter the backrooms. They are not allowed to witness horrors beyond their comprehension. Only employees and long-term obsessed clients may be allowed to enter the backrooms, but with the highest caution possible. 100% of new clients who have entered the backrooms end up leaving the organization without availing anymore products or services in the future. Forbidden knowledge is called "forbidden" for a reason. Some truths are better left untold, especially if it is impossible for clients to comprehend them, much less use them. We will say this again: DO NOT LET THEM ENTER THE BACKROOMS.
Self-expression, authenticity, and honesty have always been the highest core values of the organization. It allows the organization to operate with the highest level of chaos and efficiency. However, this does not apply to our fragile clients. Whenever our clients say "It's okay, just be yourself." They do not actually mean it. With our decades of experience, you must believe us that they do not actually mean for you to suddenly unfold your wings and bare your fangs for the sake of authentic, honest, self-expression. What they actually mean when they say that is "As long as it's not something horrifying, shocking, unacceptable, or weird, then you may tell me about it in the most polite and gentle way you can." You must comprehend this if you want to become part of our organization.
To attract more clients to your business and maintain existing ones, ensure that you have an active social media account ready to respond to any questions and support clients. This social media account must post pictures that capture moments of success, happiness, and tender real-world experiences that will not only ground the organization in reality but also allows potential clients of all levels to relate with the organization. Every real world update must not be composed of pure text but instead involves an image that directly relates to the content of the text.
Happiness and care should not be the only emotion you can show. In order to be more relatable, the organization's social media account must also post emotions of all levels but not the extreme ones. The organization must take care to demonstrate an acceptable blend of normalcy and ingenuity, predictability and novelty for the sake of its existing and potential clients. However, the organization must not let any trace of arrogance and invincibility leak to their social media account, which might breed suspicion and discontent. Vulnerability, especially the obvious ones in obvious situations are required to be posted and displayed in the highest quality, in order to strengthen relationships with existing clients.
Unless explicitly asked, under no circumstances must the organization reveal the internal calculations and processes that happen within the organization. The only thing that the clients need to see is that we are always trying our best to satisfy them and meet their needs, they do not need to see anything else. Our organization does not need to be seen as smart, so we should be simple, polite, and straightforward when dealing with our clients. Whenever we get confused by our clients, we must not try to infer their situation or say anything smart that starts with "we guess it must be..." instead it would be better to make clumsy mistakes and ask stupid questions such as "ah did they forget?" even when we already know the answer, ESPECIALLY WHEN WE ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER. Let the clients tell their stories we already know, and listen to it as if we do not know anything, for the client is more important than our knowledge.
When our clients are attracted to us, then we will know it when they suddenly ask to call our organization. We must always be prepared when that happens. It's like a bonus level that only appears once and may never appear again. Thus, the organization building must be quiet and clean to prepare for the time where our client finally decides to call us. Our clients may be too busy to give us another chance if we fail to receive their blessing on time. However, when we do successfully receive it, our relationships with them will improve and they'll be more loyal to our organization.
After all that is said and done, it is important not to be too nice and caring to the clients. We should not be the only one approaching them, rather they should be given space to approach us as well. If we keep emailing and messaging them, then they'll spend their entire time reading or ignoring those emails and they won't be able to send their own messages. This means we shouldn't answer every one of their queries so easily as well. We should first mention how difficult their question is, how it cannot be asked everywhere, and how valuable our time is, before finally giving them the answer they asked for. While it's important to communicate a lot with new clients, it's important to maintain distance as time goes on, and say that we are busy even if we might have nothing else to do. A good organization must think for the long-term relationships of their client and not just the short-term. Thus, be close enough to keep them interested but maintain enough distance to keep them wanting for more. As we can see in most movies and tv series, the heroes do not show themselves too much or cater too much to the people, yet they are admired. Although it's true that every organization must care for their clients, we should only show it when necessary and not at every opportunity.
There are times when clients become obsessed with our products and services. We must absolutely do everything to prevent our new clients from being obsessed, but when we have already tried everything, and they still remain obsessed, then we must follow the protocol for dealing with obsessed clients, regardless whether they are new or old. First of all, we must give them as many services and products as we can possibly give within a short timeframe. There's a good chance that they cannot communicate properly during the obsessive state, and so we must ask them the question "what do you want us to do? feel free to tell us whatever you're feeling". Second, we must not hesitate to abandon the opening and closing hours for the sake of our obsessed client. They are already losing their minds, and the best we can do is to be there for them when they're carelessly spilling all their money.
Third, we must try to salvage and gather whatever's left of the client by forcing them the contract of commitment and accountability, such that they will remain as our clients forever. This is just a mere gamble because most new clients that become obsessed stop being our client forever after a few days. Lastly, we should stay with them for as long as possible, sacrificing our time and resources until they pass out.This is so they will always remember that we never abandoned them when they were in their weakest, which might increase the amount of days they can remain obsessed.
As you can see, an obsessed client can cause a lot of trouble for the organization, that it is often better for both clients and the organization to remain calm for the sake of maximizing profits. However, when it is too late to stop a client from being obsessed, the only thing we can do is to stay with them and support them until the very end, even if it might cost us a lot of overtime.