How To Build Strong Customer Relationships For User Research — Smashing Magazine

Nurturing connections with your customers is one of the most effective ways to gain valuable insight into their experiences with your product and make informed decisions that fuel growth and success.

A really great way to build customer relationships is by regularly involving them in user research. However, getting customers involved in user research in the first place can be challenging because they might not understand what you want to do with them, and they’re busy.

Building customer relationships is not always straightforward. It takes work and investment.

In this article, we will go through various ways that product teams can utilize to build relationships with customers.

The Importance Of Customer Relationships

If the growth in the customer relationship management (CRM) software market is any indication, businesses see the value in relationship-building with their customers. Gartner estimates that the CRM market will grow over 14% through 2025. In 2021, Gartner reported that the CRM market share had grown to $69 billion worldwide.

A CRM tool enables businesses to communicate with their customers in a scalable way. However, true customer relationship management goes beyond a software solution. It involves...