Red’s customer relationship management

Service provider Red is in contact with its customers in project delivery, consultancy assignments, sales and offering related meetings and negotiations. The meetings in most cases have an official agenda, according to which the topics are arranged, even if the discussion is open and atmosphere friendly. In a longer project, the relationship has time to evolve and reach a comfortable level of acquaintance. The meetings are usually held at customer premises, and all persons interviewed were located otherwise in their own office.

The meetings are normally with the customer’s responsible service team, and the topics are mainly related to the project or assignment at hand. The level of formality will depend also on the customer’s participants, whether there are lawyers or third party representatives present.

“Typically I will have a presentation or hold a workshop, and the situation is the kind where I am the controlling party, and the responding party, the customer, will ask questions.”

“When there is a longer project, the relationship has had time to evolve. It [relations] is very good, even if the customer has complains, whether they are for

real or for nothing. Then I am trying not to get upset, just try to handle things in a friendly way, and all has gone well, when you just control yourself”.

Training sessions for customer relationship management didn’t exist at the moment, but there had been some training in the past. Learning of new controls and practices was based on self-learning by videos and a web-based tool. The attitude towards learning reflected willingness but was also considered to accumulate through experience. As one interviewed responded when asked if he had interest in training;

“…not really, I think the most training comes through experience…but I think of it being not a bad idea to have some sales training…”

The management strategy for customer relationship management is represented by mandating a strict satisfaction limit for customer satisfaction surveys and issuing a dress code to the staff. New processes for enhancing business opportunities for prospect customers are being implemented, as well as control for project reporting and sales offers through internal reviews are tightened.

In practice, all customer meetings are prepared in advance. Meetings are documented in memos or email correspondence and sometimes also analyzed afterwards. The instructions of how to conduct a meeting, or to manage the relationship, are neither written nor explicitly spelled out, but arise from the general understanding of the criticality and demands of the situation present. It can be determined, that certain flexibility exists in organizing ones tasks and sharing knowledge. The requirements for more rigid control come from the established protocols and processes, and of the customer projects themselves, which require shared knowledge in order for a solution to be formulated.

“We prepare all meetings in one way or another, and there is a certain way of working, but it is not necessary, not demanded by the directors, it is more to find the best solution for the case”.

“…of course in certain single cases, in some problem case, or in a financial matter, we negotiate internally on how to present that to customer”.

Red’s quality requirements for customer relationship management were related to customer satisfaction, to which a new level of satisfaction had been determined. Also project delivery related reporting procedures and document templates had recently been implemented adding control and requiring the organization to deliver better quality. Requirements were also derived from certain partnership programs, wherein a certain quality is ensured and mandated by having the experts to certify for certain technology, for example, in order to maintain the approved certification status for the organization. Additionally, quality requirements are built-in to all consultant work, of which the final evaluation is made by the customer even if there are no explicit written instructions or measurements done.

“Yes, in my work there are certain requirements, which are difficult to put into words as to how to discuss with customers, or to communicate with them….but if there are any instructions, they are normally like to ‘keep our promises’ and such that we must prepare for customer meetings”

“…all should understand the importance, as it looks good to the customer if things are handled on time, promises are kept and the amount of communication is sufficient and open…”

“The people are situated so in the organization, as to their capability to communicate… typically different tasks have different requirements, and somehow it just goes that way that certain people who can communicate with the customers are put into a certain role, or can get to that role.”

In Red’s organization consultants should have agility and be physically close to customers, at least in the beginning of the assignment. Consulting done remotely is not really a solution. Also a deep level of knowledge is required in one’s area of expertise as well as the ability to deliver new ideas. The person should be straight forward and honest in his communication and have solid performance in meetings and behavioral routines, such as being on time, keeping promises etc. Overall, customer relationship management seemed to be profoundly embedded into the organizations mindset and actions.

“The boundary between customer relationship management and normal project work with customer is not clear, nevertheless as all work can be considered customer relationship management.”

“Customer relationship management has changed during the years in a way that our organization has changed from a small product -oriented organization or units concentrated in production into those where we have customer relationship management through account management.”