How to keep client relationships warm when you no longer travel to see them

Because the effort disappears. You used to travel to your clients, and the trip itself told them they mattered. A video call costs you nothing, so it tells them nothing. The meeting still happens. The signal does not.

Much of that travel has not come back. Americans took 463.9 million domestic business trips in 2019 and 436 million in 2024, according to the U.S. Travel Association and Tourism Economics. Their fall 2025 forecast does not have business trips back at the 2019 level until 2027.¹

It can be, but the call has to work harder. In a 2023 experiment at the University of Münster, 320 people negotiated a work contract in pairs, either face to face or by video conference. Dominik Sondern and Guido Hertel found that "the overall differences between communication media regarding trust, economic outcomes, and negotiation time were not significant."²

The same study found that the medium "affected trust indirectly via social presence"²: the sense that the other person is really there with you. Video can reach the same trust as a meeting room. It gets there through a thinner channel, so every other sign that you are paying attention counts for more.

Buyers split three ways. McKinsey's 2024 B2B Pulse Survey of nearly 4,000 decision makers found that "one-third of customers hope for in-person interactions, one-third want remote communications, and one-third prefer digital self-serve options." With a new supplier, 41 percent preferred in person.³

Less noise and more judgment. In a 2025 Gartner survey of 632 B2B buyers, "73% of B2B buyers actively avoid suppliers who send irrelevant outreach." Gartner's Robert Blaisdell put it plainly: "Bad prospecting actively damages relationships with potential customers."⁴

Buyers still come back to people when it matters. In a 2026 Gartner survey of 645 B2B buyers, "sixty-nine percent of B2B buyers prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps." Gartner found reps remain the most important source when buyers are researching a problem, choosing a supplier, winning internal support and finalizing the purchase.⁵ Be the person they check things with, not the person who fills their inbox.

Send something that could only be for that client, and only when you have it. Follow up on what they told you last time. Pass on an article about their exact problem, with one line on why you thought of them. Make an introduction they would value. If you could send the same message to ten clients, do not send it.

"We document a robust underestimation of how much other people appreciate being reached out to."

Liu, Rim, Min and Min, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2023⁶

The researchers found the gap is larger between people who are not close, which describes most client relationships better than friendships.⁶ Their experiments were about people's own social circles, not buyers. Still, the fear that a short note is an intrusion is usually wrong.

Small, specific signs that you paid attention, repeated. Remember what the client told you and bring it up. Prepare for the call so the first minute is about them. Write to them as one person, not as a segment.

The meeting reminder is one of those moments, and it is usually wasted. It is the last thing your client reads before the call, and most reminders say the time and the link, and nothing else.