Building great customer relationships is a long-term game. It goes against many common practices, such as tracking the short-term return on customer acquisition investments. It even goes beyond quantifying the lifetime cost of a customer relationship, at either the individual or segment level, though that’s an important first step.
Good companies continually create better reasons for their customers to identify with the company and its products and services..
To treat your customers as assets, you need clear accountability in your organization. When anyone who buys from you has a problem or complaint, there must be a way of resolving it and someone responsible for doing so. You also need a culture that motivates relationship building and joint problem solving — a partnership with the customer as opposed to transactional selling.
