In-person meetings have been used by businessmen and their clients to promote projects and strengthen relationships for decades. Virtual relationships are the new normal, even if you live in the same city as your clients.
According to 78 percent of the roughly 700 CEOs polled in PWC's CEO Panel Survey, remote work is here to stay. While the recent pandemic promised to put a strain on business-customer connections, communication, and productivity, FlexJobs' remote work research revealed the exact opposite. Having said that, the rise of remote labour has unquestionably altered the commercial landscape.Even those who have polished their in-person communication abilities to strengthen client connections will need to widen and alter their approaches to work in a wholly remote environment.
Advice on Building Relationships Over the Internet
Let's look at some key points for developing virtual relationships:
In a relationship, building trust
Developing a reputation as a reliable and trustworthy business partner can help you attract new customers, close agreements faster, and market more effectively through recommendations from happy customers.
Here are some considerations to keep in mind when creating trust with clients over the internet:
Provide a user-friendly website
Your website should be easy to navigate and provide clear contact information so that customers know how and when to contact you. Instead of phone calls, have video meetings. When you see your client during video conferencing, you may have a more intimate relationship with them and create trust more quickly than if you just hear their voices over the phone.
Follow your customers' social media accounts and engage professionally when applicable. By following their social media accounts and interacting professionally where appropriate, you demonstrate your awareness of their ongoing work as well as your own involvement in the industry.
Follow them on Twitter
Subscribe to your client's newsletters, keep up with product and service updates, and learn about their marketing activities. Clients will have the most faith in you if they perceive that you spend time outside of your direct interactions keeping up with their industry's current advances.
When your client does business with you, these acts might help them feel confident and secure.
Decide on how you'll communicate.
Because remote work diminishes customer involvement, having numerous channels for meetings, updates, and check-ins is crucial. It may be useful to mention preferred project and task management tools, video chat platforms, and other means for communicating and sharing documents in addition to email addresses and phone numbers. You may need to install new software or coordinate an alternative to ensure compatibility with your client's favourite apps.
Take the time to find out what your clients are most comfortable with. Certain people may prefer voice calls over video calls. Others may prefer written communication to face-to-face interaction. If you work in multiple time zones, you'll need to schedule early meetings—which will be the default? By answering these questions ahead of time, you may develop confidence and save time by avoiding any potential confusion during virtual communications.
Set clear expectations and deadlines.
Deadlines are more than just product and service delivery dates. Depending on the nature of your work, you may need to share your findings with your client. Do you provide consultancy services, for example? Do you want to help with a marketing campaign? Perhaps you're an attorney or therapist who will be working with a client indefinitely. Set explicit expectations for the duration of your partnership, as well as your goals and the metrics you'll use to track your progress.
Setting expectations for your virtual work partnership entails stating what will happen, when it will happen, and why it is important on both sides.
Actively listening
Staying present when actively listening involves focusing on learning and understanding rather than looking for a space to respond. When using a video chat platform, it's easy to get distracted by other emails and messages and fall into the trap of waiting patiently for your turn to speak to avoid cross-talk. Some of us are distracted by our own appearance on the screen, as cyberpsychologist Andrew Franklin discusses at Insider. These barriers may make it difficult for you to fully comprehend what your client is saying.
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relationship building, building trust in a relationship, building trust in a virtual relationship
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