#292: Don’t fire the relationship

Did you know that customers have relationships with people, not with organizations? Well, that’s something many businesses have forgotten in their rush to fire employees.

Managers glibly talk of their business having a relationship with its customers, but that is an impossibility. One can only have a meaningful relationship with another person. As a customer you may develop a relationship with a representative, but not with the organization itself.

So what happens when that representative leaves the organization? The relationship is over. The business must court you all over again or watch you follow the ex-rep elsewhere, maybe to a competitor.

Many businesses try to lull us into a false feeling of relationship with the organization by ensuring that all representatives follow a common script. Are customers really that gullible?

The solution is pretty obvious. To hang on to your customer, hang on to the person who built the relationship with the customer.



I’m James McIntosh at nonsenseatwork.com

Copyright: 2009 James Henry McIntosh

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