Strategic advice | November 2024 Smart investments to strengthen customer relationships

If you’re looking to deepen your relationships with existing customers, personalization should be at the forefront of your business strategy. The majority of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% of consumers express frustration when it doesn’t happen.³

Design thinking—one aspect of which means thinking like a customer and crafting experiences that anticipate their needs—can help inject personalization into your business strategy. Combined with a constant flow of customer feedback, design thinking helps product teams create highly personalized offerings.

Stanford Hospital used a design thinking workshop to simulate the experience of patients and patients’ families in the emergency department before opening its new hospital facility. What they learned led to changes in how the healthcare organization designed nursing units for cancer patients.⁴

The customer insights you can glean from a design thinking approach have the potential to help you leapfrog competitors. Companies that grow faster drive 40% more of their revenue from personalization than their slower-growing counterparts.³ Meanwhile, almost 60% of businesses have seen an increase in retention and conversions of customers based on personalization strategies.²

Sharing insightful and educational content about industry trends and your company’s perspective is an excellent way to add value to prospects and customers and offer them more than just your product or service.

A study of Fortune 100 executives found that the annual value of thought leadership efforts, including increased revenue, a boost in reputation, and other factors, was $3.6 million per year, with 91% of executives saying the strategy directly impacts revenue. With companies spending an average of only about $200,000 per year on creating thought leadership, it points to a high return on investment.⁵

Business owners should never underestimate the power of simply reaching out to their customers for feedback. Thoughtful touch points such as checking in post-purchase, sending a how-to video, or asking your customers to write a review are genuine and effective methods of both gathering feedback and building affinity.

Responding quickly to customer concerns is also associated with increased retention and loyalty. Companies that offer an enhanced customer service model drive more than triple the revenue growth of those that view customer service as a cost center.⁶ Negative experiences with companies, on the other hand, put $846 billion in sales per year at risk.⁷

Customer experience and the ability to respond to challenges can be increased through digital tools. For instance, AI chatbots can bring technology and the idea of human interaction together and make the customer service experience more convenient and quicker. Even less expensive solutions can have results. Chewy, an online pet supply retailer, has made a name for itself in the marketplace with handwritten notes and even pet portraits as a way of showing they care about their customers.⁸

A Truist relationship manager can explore the cost of various solutions designed to improve customer experience and help you determine where capital could be deployed to provide the best return on your investment.

Studies across numerous brands and categories show the possibility of precisely measuring and strategically targeting the emotions behind customer behavior. Known as emotional motivators, these factors can offer a more accurate assessment of a customer’s future value to a company than traditional metrics such as brand awareness or customer satisfaction. Additionally, these emotional motivators have the potential to serve as a significant new source of growth and profitability.

At a foundational level, your company can initiate a structured approach to understanding your customers’ emotional motivators and look for ways to harness these insights. Industries such as financial services, retail, healthcare, and technology are currently using a nuanced understanding of emotional connections to attract and retain high-value customers. Leading firms are integrating emotional connection into comprehensive strategies that include all aspects of the value chain, including product development, marketing, sales, and customer service.

Your Truist relationship manager can help you understand the potential return on investment of different strategies and analyze the impact of an improved customer relationship strategy for your company.