What Are The Different Approaches To Handling Customer Relations?

Customer relations can be seen in all aspects of a business. However, it’s most prevalent in the customer service department. Customer service teams, customer support, customer success as well as product development all play vital roles in establishing a healthy customer relationship. Customer relations also cover marketing and sales teams as well because these departments have a crucial influence over the company’s dealings with the customer.

The term ‘customer relations’ describes the ways in which a company will engage with its customers in order to improve the customer experience. This incorporates providing answers to short-term roadblocks in addition to proactively creating long-term solutions which are geared towards customer success. The customer relations practice aims to create a mutually beneficial relationship with the customer which extends beyond the initial purchase.

In this article, we’ll have a look at the number of approaches that companies take to customer relations.

The Traditional Approach

A fundamental principle of customer service relationship management is understanding the requirements of the customer. While this may seem clear, a company-first approach can quickly incorporate the idea. The failure to maintain a customer-first approach may result in the establishment of unwanted product features or marketing materials which don’t reflect the real-world challenges that customers face at home or at work.

The New Age Approach

As business practices adapt, change as well as develop over time, new terminology tends to be added to the standard business lexicon. A relatively recent inclusion is ‘customer relationship management’. Of course, the concept is not new as interest in improving business and customer relationships is as old as doing business.

Customer Intimacy

Customer intimacy is the process of becoming familiar with the individual customers within the organisation’s target customer base. Relationship-building is based on how well one knows the customer and that includes everything from buying habits to when their birthday is.

Every interaction which you have with a customer is a chance to improve customer intimacy and learn more about the target market. This step usually involves building a customer database in order to store the gathered information.

Value Proposition Development

This step builds on the information which is gathered while working on customer intimacy. Once one has identified one’s target customer, move forward and then create a tailored value proposition for this customer. In creating value the customer value proposition, value for the organisation must be created.

Customer Life Cycle Management

The term ‘customer life cycle’ refers to the ideal customer journey: from potential client to product/service advocate. It also relates to the continuing relationship with the customer. Managing this cycle requires structure and attention to process. The organisation must determine how it will organise itself to effectively manage customer relationships (structure).

As well, thought must be given to determining how the organisation will approach customer acquisition and retention, as well as performance measurement.

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