Customers are friends!
Yes, you read it correctly. Our customers are one of our best friends. I have been working with many clients across the globe from different countries and continents, and it is very obvious because I belong to one of the global industry and found a great characteristics while working closely with my customers and partners. They are friends!
The art of making friends and working with a joyous heart for them make them feel they are very close to us. As a customer their primary aim is to build a good rapport with the team, an unknown team to some extent. I used the word "unknown" because the team may be from different culture and nationality and hence there is some X-factor in the team. A good rapport building is certainly a trick of a veteran but anyone who has the potential to make the difference can achieve it. I want to explicit the fact that this blog post is purely my understanding about customers and it is independent of any group or organization as a whole.
When I was in Bangalore, I happened to visit a seminar of ClearCase. For those who do not know, the ClearCase is the software to maintain the versions of the corporate documents. The seminar was free for few privilege customers and the arrangement was awesome. No doubt, the central idea was to promote the product usage but I was very happy the way their team handled their customers. Their main guests were their competitor product vendor. First and foremost good about them was that they were handling customers queries very proactively (no talking behind the back scenes) and were looked passionate to answer them. I wonder we work in such a competitive world and still there is no negative competition for their competitors products. I kept on thinking about it and found that they must be looking for few critics about their product and hence they must invited them.
Customers are friends and we realized this when they try correcting us at some point of time. It, not only, helps us to grow professionally but we get a feeling of being corrected on the positive note. The discussion can be very casual while having a cup of tea with them in the meeting or playing few games with them. The essence of the discussion lies in few good and positive remarks during this time. When our customers chooses us as a vendor, they not only give us the responsibility of their product/business, but they also want to become part of our daily lives. It could be as basic as taking a lunch with them or cracking an intelligent joke in the meeting or as advanced as giving them good suggestions that can help them to revise their product roadmap.
There are few advantages of getting close to the customers. When we are successful in building the trust with them, they may help us to grow along with them. They will try to build the relationships that may be far more better than what we could have achieved using external industrial certifications and accreditation. They certainly need a helping hand and gradually they feel that we are part of their team and the relationship grows well! All the negatives that can hamper the business can be eradicated and we channelize ourselves towards a positive relationship and that's where our real success lies. Our real success lies in the success of our customers and the ability to improve their business and at the same time we become integral part of their team and work very closely with them and gradually we realize that we are capable to take decisions on their behalf which makes us their partner in a true sense.
