There are plenty of businesses who say that their success is built on good, strong relationships. Any brand worth its weight in silk puts significant emphasis on building strong relationships with their customers.
It’s said so much that it almost feels like noise now, doesn’t it, particularly thanks to the rise of social media over the past 20 years.
But at Lily’s Boutique, our business really is all about relationships and by the time we meet face-to-face we often know our brides, bridesmaids, families, and prom customers so well we’re already on first name terms and we’re already straight into the jokes and laughter.
They slip into our DMs!
Our business wouldn’t be where it is right now if it wasn’t for Facebook and Instagram. Facebook has been the main place for our customers to find us and then engage with us. There’s rarely a night on the sofa at Lily’s HQ where our inbox isn’t on fire with enquiries.
Social media has given us the unique opportunity to not only answer frequently asked questions and share great content from our bridal boutique, but also offer the perfect live chat forum.
Facebook Messenger is the place where we meet nearly all our ladies and it’s here that we build those ever-important relationships over SMS chat (and the occasional gif and meme!).
Building relationships is an area of our business we’re very proud of. We take the time to meet, greet, and understand all our customers, and since the lockdown of 2020 we’ve worked very hard to give as much help and advice as possible about weddings and proms, whether that be in person or online.
The added benefit of chatting before your appointment
How would you normally chat to a company? Sure, Messenger is hardly a new or even that innovative way to engage with customers, but we feel that the phone or email is where it usually tends to begin. Email can be a terrible tool for communicating. People get all serious and use formal writing or they simply lack the fun and emotive flair that helps us humans to connect.
Social media is different. It’s a social media chat service rich with gifs and emojis, and the option to share images and links - live - and this gives the conversations a far better start.
Relaxed appointments = better results
Choosing a wedding dress or buying a prom dress is an important moment, and we love nothing more than being a part of the process. Developing a relationship before your appointment means we’re able to have deeper conversations and really go back and forth with ideas. Email doesn’t cut it when it comes to real-time replying.
We find our customers are more open and share more of what matters because they feel more relaxed. This all helps with building those important bonds and connections.
At Lily’s, we’re connected to our customers
Once we’ve chatted and booked you in, it’s time to finally meet us and come for a browse. When this happens, it’s like meeting an old friend. The familiarity and rapport we have with our customers never fails to make us smile.
All those touchpoints really do build a strong understand and friendship from afar thanks to the wonders of the internet, and that means the first bridal or prom dress fitting is a fun, friendly, and often very successful one.
The door of success swings both ways
When you can build relationships with your customers before you even meet them you’re on to a great start. Not only do those friendly chats on Messenger ensure we get more of what we do in the shop right, we have happier customers as they get exactly what they want, too!
For you to be happy we need to understand you as a character and what you’re really looking for. We must listen, ask questions, and then point you in the direction of some possible dresses. We believe we can only do this if we spend the time fully ‘getting’ to know you and your event.
We’re social and we know it!
As a family business, we’re very grateful for all the wonderful people who chose to buy from us once the retail economy was opened back up. We’re so pleased (and proud) to be a fully social company that books most of our clients right through the inbox on Facebook. Because that’s where our customers choose to chat to us.
We feel that social media gives businesses a fabulous opportunity to market themselves but that this is not the only or even the most important part of it. The ability to share your story, engage in people’s responses to it, and then get into real time chats with future customers is the real winner there.
A business built on relationships is what we have here at Lily’s Boutique, and we’re so proud and blessed to say that since opening back up, we’ve exceeded our expectations and projections.
“Everything begins with a thought, and thoughts are turned into plans, and plans into reality.”
— Marshall Sylver
Looking for your dream wedding or prom dress? Drop us a message now, we can help you find the perfect dress for your occasion.
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