Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), in their quest to maximize profits, often end up ignoring one of the most essential contributing factors toward the success of a business—happy customers. The entire process of keeping costs low, increasing financial viability, organizing the supply chain, etc. is important for an enterprise, but focusing on customer relationships is a low-investment, high-return strategy.

There are several reasons why investing in customers is bound to be fruitful. However, many entrepreneurs fail to understand the true extent of customer relationships. For starters, an enterprise’s bond with its customer is not merely transactional. Genuine bonds extend beyond the exchange of goods or services. The businesses that stand out and inspire loyalty among customers are the ones that take that extra effort to ensure their satisfaction.

The entrepreneurs who think long-term will ensure that customers are approached for their feedback even after they have made their purchase. This is beneficial in multiple ways. Not only does it help a business understand their customer’s mindset, but it also serves as a reminder to customers who, even if for brief moments, think about the business and their experience. Needless to say, it also gives customers the impression that the business cares about them. I would even venture to say that if the customer wants a non-related product but still asks your business representative for personal advice, the bond is made.

Apart from customer feedback, MSMEs can also come up with innovative means to market their endeavors. New schemes, new features, and new facilities can all be announced through personalized emails, messages, and in some exceptional cases, even through phone calls. Every element where a business spends time and effort to enhance the efficiency of goods and services deserved to be marketed before customers.

Apart from the other methods of creating customer relationships, such as gifts and discounts on special occasions, another benefit of forging customer relationships is to use them for market research. By overlooking their existing customers, many enterprises lose out on understanding the changes in their demand, their new needs that can give the enterprise ideas of expansion, and their shortcomings.

Micro and small enterprises have a huge advantage in all these domains. They enjoy the benefit of not having to invest the kind of time, effort, and expenditure that large-scale enterprises require.

The importance of customer relationships can be gauged from the growing CRM branches of large enterprises. Micro and small businesses can recognize the advantage of easy access and greater visibility over their customers to build lasting interpersonal customer relationships. Be it through handwritten notes, token freebies, or personal follow-ups, these enterprises can inspire immense loyalty and goodwill among their customers.

It should not come as a surprise that even in this day and age, word-of-mouth holds an overwhelmingly great value in growing a business. Therefore, a satisfied band of customers can eventually bring a whole party.