28 Feb What is Customer Intimacy?
‘Customer intimacy is key to gaining customer trust and loyalty.’
Do you ever feel uncomfortable in your conversations with clients? If not, you are likely sticking to one or more of your safety zones. Many conversations start in a personal-personal zone—revolving around superficial chats about the weather, sport, what you did on the weekend and other typically ‘ safe’ conversations. There is nothing wrong with these. Finding the right topic or a point of commonality can be great for building rapport, which leads to building trust.
The only problem is that these conversations will only get you so far. They usually stay at the superficial level before eventually drying up. This will then prompt you to move on to the technical zone of dealing with business specifics or technicalities.
What is missing from the superficial personal zone is genuine customer intimacy, which is an opportunity to build deeper levels of trust and loyalty that truly strengthen client relationships. One definition of customer intimacy is that it’s a business strategy that involves building relationships with customers by understanding their needs and tailoring products or services to meet them. But it goes much further than that.
A human-emotional connection is the most powerful element in building deep, high-trust customer relationships. In the personal-professional zone, you seek to develop a deeper understanding of your customers’ hopes and fears, anxieties and pressure points, stresses and motivations, and personal value priorities.
Customer intimacy isn’t about sharing personal information but about understanding the human emotional side of business life. Shifting customer discussions onto the personal/professional level helps focus conversations on what really matters—how people feel about their personal goals or career/employment/business goals and how you might be able to help them.
Of course, shifting conversations onto personal or emotional levels isn’t easy. You can’t just dive in and ask people about their problems at work or how they feel about different challenges without the appropriate opportunity. You can, however, be alert for the opportunities.
The benefits of customer intimacy
Customer intimacy is a highly valuable strategy in the business world. It can:
- Increase customer loyalty: Customers are more likely to stay with your business if they feel valued and understood.
- Give a higher lifetime value: A loyal customer is often a repeat customer, which can lead to higher profits over time.
- Offer a competitive edge: The business world is super-competitive — offering a personalised experience will set you apart.
- Lead to referrals: Happy customers don’t just return. They often bring friends and family along, too, and act as brand advocates.
- Enhance your reputation: A reputation for providing superb customer service can elevate your brand to new heights!
Tips for improving customer intimacy
1. Listen for and respond to emotional language
When it comes to a customer intimacy strategy, the first tip is to listen for and respond to any emotional language. When you hear emotional language like ‘annoyed’, ‘stressed’, ‘frustrated’, etc., empathise, ask questions to truly understand why they feel that way, and then ask what you can do to help. If they respond unemotionally, ask them how they think or feel about it. Make sure you’re actively listening and focused on their concerns, needs and feedback. This will show them you genuinely care about their opinion and foster trust. If you sense they are frustrated, but you’re unsure if you can ask a more intimate question, start by asking, “Do you mind if I ask …?”
2. Express your own emotions
Sometimes, it’s better to go first by getting customers to relax into a more intimate zone by lowering your defences. Talk about your worries, anxieties, or hopes for your work, career, or business situation. If you can do this, there is a greater chance they will reciprocate, and you will have built trust and moved the conversation and relationship onto a more intimate level.
3. Be honest and transparent
If the situation is uncomfortable, be honest about it — acknowledge your concerns, embarrassment or nervousness. This will often lead to feelings of either respect or empathy in the customer, and you can use the situation as a way to move forward. Your business should also offer multiple ways to contact you (email, phone, live chat) so that you’re able to respond efficiently and effectively. Real-time support via live chat is extremely valuable, and extending this to 24×7 chatbot customer service will take it to the next level. Responding to customer comments and concerns on social media can also often improve brand perception and loyalty.
4. Follow a customer-centric policy
Today, great customer service is more important than ever. Businesses that are focused on their customers witness long-term benefits. However, being customer-centric involves more than just saying the customer is top-of-mind. It’s about understanding them, creating meaningful experiences, anticipating their wants, needs, and communication preferences, and building lasting relationships with them.
5. Combine operational excellence and customer intimacy
Operational excellence and customer intimacy are two different business strategies that focus on different aspects of a company’s operations. The first focuses on delivering products and services with the highest efficiency, and the second on providing a superb customer experience by understanding individual customers’ specific needs and preferences. And yes, both can be done together! The key is to find ways to optimise both strategies for optimal results.
6. Understand the customer journey
Understanding the different stages of the customer journey is one of the significant challenges businesses can face in improving customer intimacy. It involves identifying target markets, defining the ideal customer profile, understanding what kind of ‘value’ message will resonate, and taking steps to implement what you learned in your customer engagement. A customer journey map can result in more than just a one-time purchase. It can be a journey through the customer experience.
7. Make it about more than just the sale
Customer intimacy can be enhanced if your customers feel like your interaction is more than just a transactional one. Create value pre-sale by offering a free trial or helpful content, and after they’ve purchased, make sure you follow up with an email, survey or a useful tip related to their purchase. This will show them you are still invested in their happiness. One of the best ways to make your customers feel valued is by asking for their feedback. It is simple, but it works, and it shows them that you value their opinions. Choose your timing (like after a chat session of a successful transaction), and, of course, always thank them for their time.
8. Empower employees
Moving relationships onto the personal-professional level often involves taking risks and opening up yourself before you can expect a customer or client to reciprocate. It means that customer conversations can get uncomfortable, but the payoff in terms of genuine trust and deeper customer relationships can be significant. Train your staff to move out of their rapport-building or technical comfort zones to help gain customer intimacy and create a culture where everyone is aligned on the goal of building more meaningful relationships with customers.
At CX Training, we are dedicated to working with you to engage your customers and build a better strategy geared toward customer intimacy. For companies looking to move up and to the right with customer intimacy strategies, get in touch with CX Training on our website or by calling us on 0404 266 174.
References
- Snigdha Patel (April 2024), How to Build a Customer Intimacy Strategy? (With Examples), Revechat article, accessed 18 November 2024.