Don't confuse service with relationship management

When was the last time you declared "excellence in customer service" as your company's top priority? How can you possibly go wrong with a strategy like that? Well, no one can argue with providing great service, as long as you don't skimp on something far more important: managing the relationships with your customers. Let's get straight to the point. Relationship management is fundamentally about expectations. If you are good at setting realistic expectations and meeting them on a consistent basis, you and your customers will come out ahead.

Performance is in the eyes of the beholder

It doesn't do you any good to produce great results, unless they impress your customer and lead to additional business. So it's up to you to set the bar in a way that ensures you get points for success. Customer service should be proactive, but customer relationship management must be. And it's not easy to take preventative actions before a problem arises with a customer. The natural tendency is to wait until there is a crisis and then over-service the customer to try to solve the problem. That wastes a lot of time and money, and rarely provides good results. It's no secret that the key to keeping customers is exceeding their expectations. You can set lofty goals for performance, but you also have to let your customer relationship managers set expectations in order to make sure that your company's performance is appreciated.

Empower your people to create a predictable process for you and your customers

Wouldn't it be nice if you knew what was going to happen in your business from month to month? Now put yourself in your customers' shoes. They want the same thing for their businesses. If you are pushing your people in a way that results in their making unrealistic promises to customers, you are creating an environment that is going to produce unpredictable results. Sometimes promises are made to get a sale. Other times they are made to cover up production problems. In any case, they will eventually lead to trouble.

Make sure that your customers can plan for success

Customers are generally pretty resilient, except in the face of their own failure. If you make a commitment, and your customer sticks his neck out based on it, you'd better come through. Unfortunately, the risk of disaster escalates with each unrealistic promise you make. You fail to deliver once, and then you make another desperate claim to make your customer "happy." Guess what happens next. Your customer is left without a plan for success. If you can factor your customers' business objectives into your relationship management process, you will create an environment of trust and loyalty that will benefit you and your customers for a long time.