Factors that influence Client Partner Relationships
Any business which exists beyond a decade will have a core customer base that patronizes them consistently over the highs and lows of the market. The secret recipe for repeat customers is available across the internet.
This article covers the untold side of customer relationships. i.e., what turns the relationship bad?
Tall Commitments
When there is a business opportunity, the pre-sales and sales function of a typical growth-driven organization will go overdrive to impress the customer with tall commitments.
The sales team's DNA is to look for opportunities, do a charm offensive and onboard the customer quickly with an LOI. During this initial engagement, like a guy/girl trying to impress, many false commitments were being made.
There will be a single-point agenda for the sales team to convince the customer with assurances which may prove to be impossible for the delivery team to meet.
During delivery, the customer will feel that they were deceived and that what was committed by the Sales team is not going to be delivered by the Service Provider. This creates a dispute which may lead to legal recourse.
Trust Issues
Be a product or service, the customer expects the journey to be devoid of surprises. The deliverables or terms should be honoured and customer issues to be handled with empathy and compassion.
A single bad incident in a customer-seller relationship can damage the trust factor completely.
An IT bellwether got a huge outsourcing deal from a European MNC. When the deal was signed, the Sales team took a forward call and agreed to their ageing Laptop refresh as their key deliverable within 6 months of the engagement.
When the Transition and Delivery team started the engagement, they faced a lot of bottlenecks on the List of EOL Laptops from Client locations which was spread globally, then followed by various image requirements for each region. They ended up with a huge roadblock of OEM needing link connectivity with their factory for pre-loading the images in the laptop before they ship to the locations.
The above bottlenecks and roadblocks delayed the laptop refresh for one and a half years. Before they closed 90% of the refresh, the engagement went into an escalation path leading to legal recourse. It went to the point of no return the IT Bellwether has to exit the contract with a huge penalty and their image is heavily dented.
A single incident of the Laptop refresh project derailed the trust factor and enabled the customer to engage a Contract milestone monitoring tool which in turn created a micro-management way of governing the contract. This suffocated the delivery team of IT Bellwether and they couldn’t stop the rot from spreading to other lines of projects in the program.
Lack of Partnership spirits
Sometimes customers come up with odd requests or out-of-the-way support. Rather than being suspicious, if the Service Provider or Product company understand the need and tries to support them in trying situations, the customer trust is earned for life.
In many cases, the Service Provider or Product companies cling to protocol and suspect they are being exploited which results in irreparable damage to the client-partner relationship.
Number-driven with no emotional connect
This applies to both the client and the partner, it is a mutual process to accommodate.
Rather than being pushy and rigid on numbers, the partner has to cultivate an emotional touch to have a long-term client-partner relationship. Of course, it should be a two-way street. But a partner should initiate this and 9 out of 10 times the reciprocation will happen from the client side.
I have seen client-partners used to have symbolic tree-planting ceremonies when a deal was signed. After many years, the tree which has grown big will stand a testimony to the partnership which has weathered the storms and good times over the years.
When it comes to sustaining business relationships, being real and honest is never going to be out of fashion. Always show genuine intent in dealings being a partner or a client. Any relationship has to be win-win.