What is most important to customer marketing?

[mjstrand]

Have you ever wondered what the most important aspect of marketing to your customers is? After a few years in business with many ups and downs, I've discovered that the most important aspect is your relationship with them. You can have a great product or a poor product (we had both ends of the spectrum over our 14 years at StrandWare). You can have great marketing. Competition for your products will always appear with a lower price. As your installed base gets larger, your level of support will automatically decrease. Other "storms" will appear in your business (making a move that your customer channel doesnt like, a key employee leaving, bad publicity, etc). I've experienced major declines when we didnt focus on the needs of the customer, and I've experienced the other side when we did. Your relationship with your customers will determine how well you weather the storm. Listening to your customers (and making sure that they know you are listening) is probably the most important thing to building great relationships. Everyone likes to know that their needs are being addressed - even if it takes a year for the result, if you update your customer on the progress, they will stick with you. Nobody really likes to change products unless they have to. Knowing where the pitfalls are in a product is much better than acquiring a new product and having to learn everything about it all over.

If you have other ideas of ways to build relationships with customers, please add them to this post. Please add your ideas of the most important thing for customer marketing too. Thanks much and have a great day!