I responded to Laura Overton’s new survey on customer/supplier relationships in Learning & Development, and the question that got me thinking the most is…
“How do you typically measure the strength of your customer relationships? Select all that apply.”
I had never thought of that, and it wasn’t the only question that was useful for me.
The survey is well worth spending a few minutes on https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LCMprovidervalue24
How do you typically measure the strength of your customer relationships?
To answer the question, the first step of course is to consider who your customers are.
Maybe that’s easy for you, but it’s not always so obvious for L&D professionals. Perhaps you need to think if it is the person who pays you, or the person who receives stuff from you, or the person who placed the order?
Who really is your customer?
And then consider the relationship you have with them. How strong is that relationship?
How do you know?
For you, what are the hallmarks of a strong relationship?
Length of the relationship? Frequency of contact? Mutual understanding? Repeat ‘business’? Trust? Respect? Depth of the conversations you have? Do they think of you first?
Does the strength of that relationship make a difference in how effective you can be in serving them as a customer?
If so, how strong does that relationship need to be?
What can you do to get that relationship into the state you want?
