Foreign traders how to maintain your old customers as well as potential customers

With the unsatisfactory performance of the foreign trade industry, many companies are unwilling to spend time and money on developing new customers. Instead,choose to maintain old customers with lower cost and better effect. Veterans have their own methods of maintaining customers, but novices may still be unfamiliar. This article shares novices how to maintain the relationship with customers in their daily work?


 
Old customers in cooperation
Many foreign trade salesmen have the habit of contacting customers which is very closely before signing a contract, sending 3-4 emails a day. After the customer signed the contract and paid the advance payment, the foreign trade salesman disappeared as if he had disappeared from the world, and then  contacted the customer frequently only when the goods were about to be shipped.
 
During the production phase, there is very little contact with the customer. Although old customers may not have any opinions on your approach, if we add such a process, will we gain the favor of customers.
 
I believe the answer is yes, the more you reassure your customers, the closer your cooperation will be. How should the schedule be arranged? Let's take a look at the following table:



One advantage of this is that it gives customers a sense of control and increases their trust in you.
 
Pre-production relationship maintenance is good, but don't contact customers too frequently. Because it will affect the normal work of customers, which will lead to customer boredom. But it doesn't work if you don't contact once, the frequency can be controlled to every half month.
 
The content of the contact can be:
1) Product Highlights. The product is your latest flagship, and it is a product that is involved with the customer's business.

2) New product launch information

3) Major news of the company, such as what big project won or what new market was developed, etc.

4) Notification of promotional activities

5) When the price fluctuates, the adjusted price can be sent to the customer, especially the products that the customer frequently orders.
 
Potential customers who have not yet cooperated
For such customers, the focus of our work is to gain the trust of customers. Before that, it is difficult for us to take further "actions".
 
Generally, before communicating with such customers, I usually go to some social media websites to find out the preferences and characteristics of the target customers. Therefore, we can also talk about some content that customers are interested in  in business communication, so as to narrow the relationship with customers.


 
Example: I used to have a client who loved photography. When contacting this customer at the beginning, many suppliers have already contacted them. I also tried to send several development letters, but the results were either not opened, or opened without reply. I tried to follow the client's social media and found out that he is a photography enthusiast. I tried to send some photos of going out and having fun, and gradually we started to communicate, and the topics were nothing more than exchanges on shooting equipment and shooting techniques.
 
After a long time, he also knew the industry I was in, and gradually established some cooperation later. After the cooperation, he would still share their travel photos with me from time to time, and also asked me which places in China were suitable for taking pictures. Until now, this client still accounts for a large proportion of my performance.
 
The most important thing to maintain customers is to chat with customers. Note that chatting is not a short-term communication, but a long-term communication. It is best to become friends with customers, but this kind of relationship is difficult to achieve. The easiest way is to "stimulate" customers from time to time, let customers know your existence, so that they can think of you when they need it.