Being Married To Your Customers, Part 5 (Conclusion): Remind Them of the Value! September 02, 2011, by Peter Mirus in Marketing
Remind your customers why they are awesome... and also why you are awesome.
Human nature being what it is, once we have been in a relationship for a while, it is easy to start taking the other person for granted. It is prudent to assume that if you haven’t recently reminded the other person of how great they are (and how great you are!) they might lose track of the value in the relationship.
Business relationships are defined by the value proposition (or “quantifiable truth”) associated with two entities engaging in business based on the merits of the various parties and the benefits to be gained on each side.
However, as I said, merits aren’t always immediately apparent, so good communication is necessary to make sure that the value propositions are heard and understood, and that those propositions continue to be reinforced and strengthened through continued communication over the course of the relationship.
It would be an interesting exercise if we applied the same amount of discipline to assessing our personal lives. I’ll use myself as an example. What is the value proposition that I present to my wife in our relationship? What is the value proposition that I present to my children? To my parents? To my friends? Moreover, how do I effectively communicate this value—not just at the start of the relationship, but throughout its entirety?
In order to have good, long-term relationships with our customers, we find a more productive mode of interaction that is sustainable over the long term. Keeping this communication alive can be difficult and require discipline—but if you commit to this discipline as part of your relationship, it becomes part of who you are—it informs your character. You begin to see the reward of doing the difficult things, and then those things become less difficult to commit to.
Or you don’t, and things start to fall apart.
The recipe for good customer relationship management is going the extra mile, doing the hard stuff, being attentive and communicative, and constantly communicating value. Moreover, it is about creating true friendships whenever and wherever possible.
In short, it is about making a commitment to excellence!