Once you’ve established a good relationship with your clients, as long as your outreach remains consistent, your business relationships are golden, right? People’s opinions are always changing. While a solid start to a business relationship, followed up with continuing effort, is part of what it takes to maintain customer loyalty, you can’t forget the details, says Shep Hyken in a CustomerThink article.

In Everyday Life

Little details can be all someone needs to rethink a decision they had previously been excited about. Hyken gives the example of dining out. Imagine you’ve just sat down at a restaurant you were really excited to try. The menu listed online looked amazing, the décor and atmosphere are perfect, and the waiter is so friendly. But then you look at his hands and realize that there’s dirt and grime under his fingernails. This man is going to be handling your food. Wouldn’t that observation make you feel a bit uneasy about eating there now?

In Business

Similar problems can happen during your customer outreach. If your emails are full of grammatical errors or you misspell the client’s name (or use the wrong name!), your clients may start to question what else you’re not paying full attention to or if they should feel valued by you. Similar thoughts will be made if you send your clients articles that don’t pertain to their business, misremember personal details about them, or seem bored during your calls. The details of your interactions with your clients reveal more to them than the outreach as a whole ever could. 

So, the next time you’re ready to send your client an email, run it through spell check first. If you even begin to doubt the spelling of their name, double check that, too. Keep a notebook of details from your conversations with each of your clients so you don’t accidentally ask someone with children and no pets how their dog is doing. When it comes to client loyalty, the little details are just as important as everything else.