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4. Customer Relationships

An organization must select the kind of relationship it will have with its customer segment in order to create financial success and sustainability. Customer relationships can be categorized as follows:

  1. Personal Assistance: In this kind of relationship the company interacts with the customer directly through an employee who provides the human touch by assisting the customer at presale, during the sale and even may provide after sales services.
  2. Dedicated Personal Assistance: This kind of relationship is characterized by a very close interaction between the customer and the company through a dedicated representative who is assigned a set of clients and is personally responsible for the entire experience the customer has with the company.
  3. Self-Service: Self-service places the onus of the customer experience on the tools the company provides for the customer to serve him or herself.
  4. Automated Services: These are customized self-service relationships where the historical preference of the customer is considered to improve the overall experience.
  5. Communities: In today’s electronic age creating communities of clients allows organizations to communicate with them directly. This allows for an enhanced client experience because the community allows clients to share their experiences and come up with common challenges and solutions.
  6. Co-creation: The customer has a direct hand in the form the company’s product or service will take.

For an entrepreneur, the priority is to identify the type of relationship he/ she has with the customer. Then the value of the customer must be evaluated in terms of the frequency of his expenditure on the company´s products and services. Loyal customers are relationships that the company should aim to invest in as they will yield steady revenue throughout the time.

The basic questions you must answer in this category are:

What relationship do the customers expect you to establish? How can you integrate that into your work in terms of cost and format? How do you interact?