How to use customer relationships the right way

Chanda Lokendra Kundnaney

Viewpoint

After defining value proposition and understanding customer segmentation we discussed key activities, key resources and key partners. We have heard and repeatedly believed that the “customer is the king” for any business. If there is no one to buy your product or services then there is no business either. So the vital question here is “how do I deal with customers and what do I do to ensure they remain my customers?” This is mostly a residual of the relationship that one builds with the customer.

Your customer relationships describe the types of relationships your company establishes with specific customer segments.

A company should clarify the type of relationship it wants to establish with each customer segment. Relationships are established through your different channels and they can range from personal to automated, from transactional to long-term and can aim to acquire customers, retain customers, or boost sales. The type of customer relationships you put in place deeply influences the overall customer experience. We can distinguish between several types of customer relationships.

As the name suggests, this is merely transaction-based. This means there is no real relationship between the company and the customer. The company interacts with the customer on a transactional basis. A kiosk in a supermarket, for example, usually doesn’t really establish a relationship with its customers. But it leaves the first impression in the mind of the customer. For some business this is a great way to introduce your product or offer to the target market.

This means a long-term and maybe even deep relationship established between the company and the customer. The company interacts with the customer on a recurring basis. This relationship is core of service industry and generally results into new business and referrals in long run.

This relationship is based on human interaction. The customer can communicate with a real customer representative to get help during the sales process or after the purchase is complete. This may happen onsite at the point of sale, through call centres, by e-mail, or through other means. This personal relationship has two facets to it: the way the call centre representative interacts with the prospective client, and the ease and speed of the website to answers questions in writing. Overall experience of a prospect client with this assistant inspires him to come back for a purchase on the same site. This is a very suttle way of building relations that last for long.

This relationship involves dedicating a customer representative specifically to an individual client. It represents the deepest and most intimate type of relationship and normally develops over a long period of time. In private banking services, for example, dedicated bankers serve high net worth individuals. Similar relationships can be found in other businesses in the form of key account managers who maintain personal relationships with important customers. If we speak about the business and industry today, these personal relationship managers are well handled by AI-based virtual assistants.

This type of relationship mixes a more sophisticated form of customer selfservice with automated processes. For example, personal online profiles give customers access to customised services. Automated services can recognise individual customers and their characteristics, and offer information related to orders or transactions. When you allow any website to send you notifications, you agree to receive recommendations. Automated recommendations are based on your choices that you define for a provider.