7 Ways to Build Stronger Customer Relations

Stephanie is a project process specialist, trainer and mentor. She is the Lead Consultant at Jaeger Consultants Ltd in Nairobi. Stephanie specializes in the human aspect of project management and leadership, and encourages discussion and feedback. She also writes regular blogs on jaeger-consultants.com.

  Communications Management   CRM   Stakeholder Management  

In a world with vast competition marked by an often-cutthroat environment, it can be tough to keep customers’ attention and ultimately keep them happy. Everyone is looking for the “secret sauce.” In my long career serving customers in several sectors and environments, I realized that the common denominator is building relationships.

This is often easier said than done, especially if the client representative is someone who rubs you the wrong way. As a young project manager, I used to think this is where the account manager came in—it was their job to keep the customer happy and engaged. But since I as the PM was the one “on the ground” and interacted with more people than the typical account manager, I soon realized that I played a very important role as well.

If I put in the effort to build lasting relationships with client representatives on all levels and use my knowledge to customize our approach, we can handle any situation a project throws at us. And we all know that the way a project goes is often a major deciding factor in whether the client will give you future business or not.

What is relationship intelligence?
Relationship intelligence comes into play when you purposefully build meaningful relationships and use the knowledge you gain to handle current situations and build rapport.

Tim Scudder, the principal of Core …

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