Imagine the scene.
Bill walks into the local hardware store – a small mom-and-pop shop in the middle of the town square. It’s the only hardware store available for miles, where Bill and all the locals visit regularly. John, the shop owner, greets Bill with a wave from across the room and asks how the new roof is coming along. Bill saunters over to where John is sweeping the floor and they chat for 30 minutes before there is even mention of what Bill has come in looking for today.
You won’t find this scene at Lowe’s these days. No, this was a simpler time – 40, 30, even 20 years ago. Back then (not so long ago, really) it was easier to foster a relationship with all of your neighbors. Whether you lived in a small village of 50 people, or a large city – most everyone took the time to find out who crossed their paths each day and what their lives were about.
Business owners most certainly knew the value of fostering strong business relationships with their customers. Even if it was an automatic reflex or social ability, rather than a conscious effort to make the sale, the benefit was obvious and long lasting. Nowadays, transactions have become mechanical and lifeless, but there is hope as the traditions of the past surge forward and envelope the present.
Evolution, Change and Anonymity
There’s no question as to when things began to change in our daily culture. As technology advanced, people became wired with an inherent desire to accomplish tasks as quickly as possible. Chats between John and Bill at the local hardware store became obsolete. John was busy calculating and budgeting to expand his business in order to accommodate the growing population. Bill had far too many things that he had to do to keep his farm running and avoid foreclosure, so he had to buy what he needed and get back to work.
Social-political statements aside, life suddenly (it seemed) got stuck in fast-forward. Then, the dawn of the World Wide Web in the early 1990s heralded a time of anonymity, as consumers began purchasing more and more items online, with little to no interaction with business owners. The time of business relationships passed away, and everyone simply became the cut-and-dry business owner and customer.
Electrifying the Present with Yesteryear
Fortunately, the business model of a simpler past is making a comeback. Business owners are beginning to see just how effective an established relationship – dare I say, friendship – with customers can be. Relationships often result in extreme customer loyalty, and word-of-mouth recommendations professionals could never dream of coming out of simple Internet interactions.
Today’s technology is now infused into those established business relationships between service providers and service seekers. Take Facebook, for example. Business owners are now connecting with their fans on personal profiles, allowing fans to get to know who they are outside of “the office.” New sites like Commonfig seek “to change the one-way direction of modern marketing by creating a cyclical, open-ended marketplace, not a one-time transaction.”
However, that doesn’t mean that the face-to-face interaction with customers has to be all business. It’s only by taking the time to get to know your customers – by learning about their families and their passions – that you’ll discover the gold mine of customer loyalty developed through genuinely interactive relationships.
