Today’s customers want to feel special. You may have a great product at a great price and a fantastic location, but that’s not always enough to have a successful business. While price is important, it’s not the only factor, especially when trying to build a relationship with your customer. More than 50 percent of an experience is based on emotion. Building a relationship with your customers and connecting with them on a personal level will help you beat the competition, rather than competing on price alone. Don’t believe it?

According to an article from Neil Patel on Quick Sprout, emotionally engaged customers are:

✓ 300 percent more likely to recommend you;

✓ 300 percent more likely to become repeat customers;

✓ 44 percent less likely to shop around; and

✓ 33 percent less price sensitive.

In order to build that connection and relationship with customers, you and your organization have to commit to putting customers first. While there is no quick-fix for that — it has to be an organizational mindset — there are structures a business can put in place to support that mindset. The 3-S approach provides a blueprint for better understanding your customers, better serving them while they’re onsite and better connecting with them when they’re online.

Surveys

The first S in the 3-S approach sets the foundation for a strong relationship. Creating an experience for your customers that encourages them to connect with you and your brand isn’t easy — unless you know who your customers are and what they want. How well do you know your customers? Do you know their pain points? Do you know why they visit your business over the competition (or vice versa)? Surveys are one way of capturing that data.

“Surveys allow businesses to identify customer needs directly,” said Reuben Yonatan, CEO, analyst and editor-in-chief of GetVoIP, which provides guidance and assistance to voice over IP consumers, in an article from CIO. “Once customers’ needs are known, companies can steer their offerings toward filling these needs.” Once you’ve fulfilled those needs, you’re on your way to creating an experience that tops your competitors.

If you decide to survey your customers, consider the best approach for conducting that survey. You can do it online, with a link to the survey located on your receipts or distributed via email (if you collect customer email addresses). You could also allow customers to complete surveys in-person at your location, either using electronic devices or paper and pen/pencil.

Phone surveys are another option, but can be time-consuming for your business, and many customers find these burdensome. No matter which method you choose, consider offering an incentive to customers who complete the survey, such as a free or discounted product or service. This increases the chances they’ll participate in the survey AND return to your business.

Staff

The second S in the 3-S approach is almost just as critical — if not more so — than the first. If you’re in the service industry, the staff who interact directly with your customers are the key to the success of your business. How do your employees make your customers feel? The answer to that question is likely the same answer to whether customers have a relationship with your brand.

“One of the most powerful tools an organization has to connect with its customers is its employee base,” said Rick DeMarco, managing director, West Coast Operations, Inward Strategic Consulting, a marketing, branding and positioning firm, in an article for CIO. “Every interaction between a customer and employee provides an opportunity to either add or detract from the equity of your brand and company. Significant empirical evidence exists that makes a direct connection between employee engagement and satisfaction and customer satisfaction and loyalty.” DeMarco’s advice? “Turn your employees into company ambassadors and brand advocates who deliver on your brand promise and business strategy at every single customer touch point.”

Staff who create this kind of experience for customers will pay off. If you’ve never heard of the social construct of reciprocity, pay attention: Reciprocity is the practice of exchanging things with others for mutual benefit. According to an article from Buffer, when you or your staff go out of your way to show some love to a customer, it creates a subconscious desire for that customer to return the favor, such as sending a tweet, sharing their experience with a friend or continuing to do business with you as a loyal customer. It’s no surprise, then, that 81 percent of companies with great customer service outperform their competition.

If your staff don’t put customers first and develop those relationships, it can be bad for business. According to a study from American Express, more than half of customers have abandoned an intended purchase because of a poor customer service experience. In its North American Customer Experience Report, Right Now reported that 86 percent of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a poor transaction or service experience (up from 59 percent in 2007).

The success of the 3-S approach to building meaningful customer relationships hinges on your organization’s commitment to putting customers at the center of everything you do. How you develop your products and services, train your staff and shape your operations must have the customer’s needs and pain points in mind. Studies have shown that businesses that do this internally, but also make an extra effort to make their customers feel like VIPs, will reap the benefits. This has to do with another social construct called labeling, which is closely related to loyalty programs.

In a study featured in the “Journal of Consumer Research” and summarized on Buffer, two researchers gave out loyalty cards to customers at a local car wash. Customers would receive a stamp on their card each time they came for a wash, and once the card was full, they would receive a free wash. The experiment involved two groups of customers, one set with blank cards requiring eight stamps in order to get a free wash; the other set received a card with 10 slots, but two stamps were already filled in. This meant both groups needed eight washes in order to get a free wash, but one group perceived that they got a “head start.”

The result: customers with the head start completed their cards 34 percent of the time while the other group only completed their cards 19 percent of the time – a 44 percent improvement based solely on a perceived head start.

The researchers concluded that the closer people get to completing a goal, the more effort they are willing to put into achieving it. If you make your customers feel important (and ‘label’ them as VIPs) and reward their repeat business, they’re more willing to spend their money with you. The experience you provide — and the relationship you build — is more important than the price you charge: nearly 90 percent of U.S. consumers will pay more to ensure a superior customer experience.

Building relationships with your customers leads to a greater likelihood of brand loyalty and customer recommendations, as well as a willingness of customers to pay more for your services and products. If you put your customers at the center of everything you do by learning what they want (surveys), providing them with superior service (staff) and staying connected (social media), you’ll be on your way to developing a deep relationship that will last a lifetime.

According to an article from Neil Patel on Quick Sprout, emotionally engaged customers are:

300% more likely to recommend you

300% more likely to become repeat customers

44% less likely to shop around

33% less price sensitive

One thing customers really love to see? Themselves! Consider sharing photos from your locations, especially if the photos feature your staff and your customers.

Social Media

The third S in the 3-S approach to meaningful customer relationships is all about communication. Social media provides you with an opportunity to build a relationship with customers 24 hours a day, seven days a week — keeping you top-of-mind even when they aren’t intentionally looking for you.

Using social media channels like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram allows you to share valuable content — and you know it’s valuable because you used your survey data — that can help position you as a thought-leader, expert or problem-solver for your customers. While it’s tempting to post information about your own business, including sales and promotions, it’s important to have a balance.

If your organization has a lot of news to share — about expansion plans, internal promotions or new-hires, or other organizational announcements that are relevant to your customers — consider posting it on your website and adding a link to your announcements page on your social channels, or use an opt-in newsletter to announce these developments and promote the newsletter on your social channels (periodically).

One thing customers really love to see? Themselves! Consider sharing photos from your locations, especially if the photos feature your staff and your customers. Be sure to get your customers’ permission first, and ask if you can “tag” them in the photos (this increases the visibility of your posts by having the posts show up in your customers’ newsfeeds for their friends/families to see as well).

One important thing to remember with social media is that the customer service angle is just as important here as it is in your brick and mortar locations. According to a 2012 report from American Express, 83 percent of consumers who have used social media for customer service walked away from an intended purchase because of a negative customer service experience.

And according to that same report, those unhappy consumers each tell 53 people about their bad customer service experiences. But the good news is that social media-using consumers are willing to spend an additional 21 percent for excellent service, and they’ll tell 42 people about those good experiences.