Customer Management & Personal Relationships

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A solid relationship with your customer almost always leads to good things. Let’s face it, customers generally buy from whom they trust and like. It’s a people business.

Every good salesperson strives to be in the inner circle with their clients. This is an enviable position to be. You can impact your customer’s strategic direction and directly influence decisions being made. You can even influence their procurement strategy.

If you are selling a good that doesn’t have a lot of distinguishable features, the relationship you have with your customer can impact which way the deal goes. But if your sole focus is the relationship with that individual, your business could be in some danger.

Remember, over time roles change in an organization. People come and go. Job descriptions get changed. In other words, the inner circle you have worked hard to get inside, could undergo significant changes that can impact your business.

You must formalize the relationship between your company and your customer’s organization. In doing so, you will highlight the true value your company brings to their business. Just as important, you will have a foundation of ongoing communication should your core contact move onto another job.

This is critical if you are in an ongoing delivery relationship. All too often salespeople simply rely on personal relationships to meet their objectives. And all too often they lose the business once the face of the customer has changed.

By putting in place a Relationship Governance Model, you will formalize connection points between your company and the customer’s. This model is a good framework of how a service delivery vendor (of any industry) can plug into a major client at three different levels. It is a good first step in customer management regarding your key accounts.

These levels include 1) Strategic, 2) Management and 3) Operational. By formalizing the relationship at each of the three levels, you have solidified a foundation of effective communication should any of the players change. Granted, this model could be overkill for some customer situations, but use the concept and tailor it to your own personal client situations.

This is a terrific exercise for you to do with your client. Create the governance model together. By doing so, your customer will be more likely to buy into the idea. This is important.

Customer management is not always easy. Give yourself an advantage by formalizing your relationship within the context of business. Outside of the boardroom, wine and dine your customer all you like. Build life-long friendships. That is the best thing about the sales industry. It is fun and it is about people.

But your long term success will depend on the formal relationships with customers. Use this template to define your relationship with your client. It really will pay off over the long term.

Thanks for reading this perspective on customer management.

Good Selling.

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