Love Languages Let Your Customer Relationships Flourish

When you use the concept of love languages in your personal relationships, it creates a space for clearly expressing their value to you. Now is the time to apply the love languages to your customer relationships.

The Trick To Good Relationships

If you ask any relationship counsellor or couple who’ve been together for 50 years, there is one simple thing that keeps popping up as the key to a good relationship:

Communication. Good, honest, clear and continuous.

You can’t build a relationship or even dream about maintaining one if you can’t communicate with each other.

While this is the month of love, we’re not here to offer personal relationship advice.

However, we can help you improve that other important relationship in your life:

Customer Relationships And How To Help Them Flourish

You might be familiar with the five love languages

• Words of affirmation
• Quality time
• Physical touch
• Acts of service
• Receiving gifts

You might even already be using them in your own personal relationships. But did you know that they can be applied to your business?

Words of affirmation:

This might sound silly or unorthodox, but a service provider should thank their customers.

It does not matter why you’re showing your gratitude. It could be for returning business, a referral, or simply being a loyal customer. A simple thank-you message, e-mail, or note left at the job site will go a long way towards building up your relationship.

Quality time:

There is nothing worse than feeling rushed. It doesn’t matter how busy you are and how many other appointments or commitments you have for the day. When you are with a customer, be WITH them. Do not answer your phone unless it is an emergency and do not rush through the meeting. The customer will pick up on this and you will lose their faith.

An important part of this is also: be on time, and do not reschedule at the last minute for no good reason.

Physical touch:

No – we don’t mean you should get personal. We simply mean that appearances matter. Covid-19 restrictions are easing, and in-person meetings are slowly coming back. Take a second and think about what you look like. Is your mask clean? Dusty workwear isn’t a problem, but a shirt with remnants of yesterday’s lunch on it is a no-no. Worse, mud-encrusted work boots on a living room carpet definitely aren’t OK.

Acts of Service

This one is simply about going that extra mile. If you have had to dig up a lawn to complete your work, try to rehabilitate it as best you can. Did your team eat lunch on the job site? Remember to dispose of your rubbish at the end of the day. Do you perhaps see the need for a small repair that you can easily complete for the customer? Bring it to their attention and offer to do it free of charge.

This builds goodwill and shows that you take pride in your work.

Giving gifts

If some job-specific material has been leftover that you obviously can’t use or re-sell, why not offer it to the customer? They will thank you in the event that they need it in the future. It may sound like a small thing, but it will show your thoughtfulness and once again improve the overall relationship.

With these love languages mastered, you’ll soon be wooing your way into your customers’ little black book, and next time they need help with a project, they might just swipe right on you!