Читать книгу Blind Spot - Nathan Shedroff - Страница 27

The pace of a relationship tells you how often a customer wants to experience your company or a change in their circumstances. To understand it, you should recognize a few principles:

• Understand that your relationship time frame may be much longer than you think. Too many companies view the relationship boundaries as starting and stopping with the touchpoint or even the transaction. Relationships, however, start earlier and last longer than any touchpoint or transaction, and any development must stretch over this longer period in order to be effective. You can’t neglect any part of the relationship, although you may want to focus on some interactions more than others.

• You should only interact when needed. Nobody wants to hear from you all of the time. Apple renews its operating system every year or so, adding new features and capabilities that make its customers happy. But it doesn’t do it every day, because it would annoy most of its users to learn a new interface more often. Theoretically, you could send your customers a great offer every day, but you’d be foolish to do so.

• And don’t forget, you’re interacting any time a customer uses your product. If you sell garden tools, the best thing you can do is make sure they are produced well and renew your relationship every time they are used. As a result, not much further interaction is necessary.

• Relationships go through phases. The intensity of your interaction with your customers will change over time. It’s important to keep it up, and to know when you should reach out and feed the relationship. If you think about a company that makes watches, it does not need to contact its customers often. But after a while, customers tire of the experience their watches provide, so the company should be ready to intervene and make the relationship evolve.