Turn your customers into partners...

Partnership is one big mantra that I have learned over the years. It works everywhere.  It works at home. It works with my colleagues. And, of course it does magic with every customer I have worked together so far.  While developing and maintaining a partnership with customers is essential in every business, I find it to be lot more important and imperative when you provide innovative solutions, especially which involve analytical and scientific models. Practitioners and veterans in the industry oftentimes dismiss innovative solutions citing their longevity in terms of experience and expertise in that area of business and providing reasons such as lack of good data, uniqueness, and customer acceptance.  I have personally encountered these challenges when I first started working with experienced airline operations guys who have managed cargo capacities of flights for years.  Similar experience when I first worked with freight railroad operations planning folks who have worked on improving train performances. In both instances, developing partnerships at various levels tremendously helped me in gaining acceptance while successfully delivering innovative solutions.

Developing partnership with customers starts right from the time you make the first contact with the customer about how you can help the customer do things better and cheaper. It is about understanding their challenges and offering solutions that are mutually acceptable.  It is about being upfront and honest about what your capabilities are and only make the promises you can keep, be it functionality and quality of the solution, skill of the resources, time to implement, or after sales support.  It is a shared journey with compromises and tradeoffs to create a future for both you and your customer. It is about:  listening to your customers; involving them in your vision, strategy, and plans and maintaining ongoing communications on these items helps to forge it further; addressing and solving their problems completely; and developing personal relationships at all levels.

Creating a partnership with your customers has several benefits. We at RTS have seen it work and have experienced the benefits. Partnership creates a sense of ownership and accountability and turns naysayers into stakeholders by creating a common goal. Clearly, it helps to retain customers and get continued business from customers.  It helps to gain competitive advantage and drive growth. Your customers become your best advocates.  It assists in anticipating what the customer needs before even the customer knows it.  The end result is increased financial performance, enhanced customer satisfaction, and greater brand equity.

What does partnership mean to you? How do you execute it? Please share your experiences and thoughts with us.

Raja Kasilingam