There’s an old saying you only have a few seconds to make a great impression. Once you’ve made that great impression, however, the way you communicate with your clients can strengthen that relationship or cause it to die on the vine.

The first step in this process is to ask the most important question you can ask: “How would you like me to communicate with you?”

If they want phone calls, call them. If they want text messages, text message them.

The second step is to always respond to your clients in the way they contacted you. If they send you a question via email, respond by email. If they reach out on Facebook Messenger, use Messenger to respond.

There’s another very important point here. You can’t always communicate adequately via text and email. There are times where you do need to pick up the phone. If your clients don’t respond to phone calls, explain that if you’re calling them, it’s something extremely important that can’t be handled by text or email.

Matching your client’s style of communication is the foundation for providing your clients with excellent service that can generate more leads and future referrals for your business as well.