{"id":51430,"date":"2021-10-16T08:33:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-16T12:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=51430"},"modified":"2021-10-18T14:28:38","modified_gmt":"2021-10-18T18:28:38","slug":"customer-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How do you communicate with your customers? Does your business have a customer relationship strategy?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. However, despite spending billions trying to understand customer relationships, businesses often don\u2019t understand these expectations and end up undermining their interaction efforts. There are two steps to designing your customer relationships strategy: 1) define your touchpoints, and 2) define your interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ll discuss both of these concepts below. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Define Your Touchpoints<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first step in designing your customer relationship strategy is to define your touchpoints\u2014the channels through which you\u2019ll communicate with your customers and deliver your products and services. For your communication, sales, and distribution touchpoints, you have the option of using <strong>your own touchpoints<\/strong> (assets under your direct control such as your website or your store), or <strong>partner-owned touchpoints<\/strong> (external touchpoints that result from cooperation with marketing agencies or distribution partners), or a mix of both. In addition, the authors also make a distinction between <strong>direct touchpoints<\/strong> (communication you control such as your blog), and <strong>indirect touchpoints<\/strong> (communication you can\u2019t control such as user reviews).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The authors state that there are five distinct stages to consider when defining your touchpoints:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Advertise your products and services to customers<\/li><li>Differentiate the value your products and services offer to customers<\/li><li>Enable transaction processes so customers can buy your products and services<\/li><li>Distribute your products and services to your customers<\/li><li>Support customers after they\u2019ve bought your products and services<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Touchpoints and Interactions (Element 3) are closely linked\u2014consider the level of interaction you want to have with your customers when defining your touchpoints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Businesses tend to assume that more touchpoints will lead to more customers, so they work hard to create multiple interaction points across the five stages. However, <a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2015\/05\/when-to-offer-fewer-customer-service-channels\">research indicates that too many touchpoints can reduce the quality of service that you deliver and damage customer experience<\/a>. Customers care more about the quality of service you provide than what touchpoints you use\u2014you\u2019re more likely to create successful channels if you prioritize the development and integration of fewer interaction points.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Define Your Interactions&nbsp;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Define the type of interactions you want to establish for each of your customer groups\u2014Osterwalder and Pigneur refer to this element as \u201cCustomer Relationships.\u201d The authors advise that you consider what your motivations are for communicating with your customers as your approach will differ depending on whether you intend to acquire new customers, retain existing customers, or upsell to existing customers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s important to note that the interactions customers have with your business deeply influence how they experience your products and services, so you need to carefully consider how you can meet their needs and create the right balance. The authors provide a list of ways to interact with your customers:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Dedicated customer representatives for specific customers<\/li><li>Customer representatives<\/li><li>Self-service<\/li><li>Automated services<\/li><li>Communities and Forums<\/li><li>Content co-creation<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. However, despite spending billions trying to understand customer relationships, businesses often don\u2019t understand these expectations and end up undermining their interaction efforts. <br><br>Brand relationship experts have identified 29 different types of interactions that customers expect from a business\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2014\/07\/unlock-the-mysteries-of-your-customer-relationships\">they use relationship metaphors such as \u201cone-night stand\u201d or \u201cmarriage\u201d to clearly define each interaction<\/a>. These experts argue that businesses can\u2019t understand or leverage customer relationships unless they collect and analyze the relationship signals their customers send.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you communicate with your customers? Does your business have a customer relationship strategy? Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. However, despite spending billions trying to understand customer relationships, businesses often don\u2019t understand these expectations and end up undermining their interaction efforts. There are two steps to designing your customer relationships strategy: 1) define your touchpoints, and 2) define your interactions. We&#8217;ll discuss both of these concepts below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10100,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,34,14],"tags":[514],"class_list":["post-51430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-communication","category-management","tag-business-model-generation","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1708\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darya Sinusoid\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Darya Sinusoid\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46\"},\"headline\":\"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\"},\"wordCount\":581,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Business Model Generation\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Business\",\"Communication\",\"Management\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\",\"name\":\"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00\",\"description\":\"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1708},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"description\":\"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Shortform Books\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png\",\"width\":500,\"height\":74,\"caption\":\"Shortform Books\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46\",\"name\":\"Darya Sinusoid\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Untitled-design-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Untitled-design-1.png\",\"caption\":\"Darya Sinusoid\"},\"description\":\"Darya\u2019s love for reading started with fantasy novels (The LOTR trilogy is still her all-time-favorite). Growing up, however, she found herself transitioning to non-fiction, psychological, and self-help books. She has a degree in Psychology and a deep passion for the subject. She likes reading research-informed books that distill the workings of the human brain\/mind\/consciousness and thinking of ways to apply the insights to her own life. Some of her favorites include Thinking, Fast and Slow, How We Decide, and The Wisdom of the Enneagram.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/darya\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy - Shortform Books","description":"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy","og_description":"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/","og_site_name":"Shortform Books","article_published_time":"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2560,"height":1708,"url":"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Darya Sinusoid","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Darya Sinusoid","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/"},"author":{"name":"Darya Sinusoid","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46"},"headline":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy","datePublished":"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/"},"wordCount":581,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","keywords":["Business Model Generation"],"articleSection":["Business","Communication","Management"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/","name":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy - Shortform Books","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","datePublished":"2021-10-16T12:33:00+00:00","dateModified":"2021-10-18T18:28:38+00:00","description":"Customers expect businesses to understand the relationships they want and to respond appropriately. There are two steps to achieve this.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","width":2560,"height":1708},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/customer-relationship\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"How to Design Your Customer Relationship Strategy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","name":"Shortform Books","description":"The World&#039;s Best Book Summaries","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Shortform Books","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/logo-equilateral-with-text-no-bg.png","width":500,"height":74,"caption":"Shortform Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/0421cce75bc249b11e2517b3a91f9c46","name":"Darya Sinusoid","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Untitled-design-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Untitled-design-1.png","caption":"Darya Sinusoid"},"description":"Darya\u2019s love for reading started with fantasy novels (The LOTR trilogy is still her all-time-favorite). Growing up, however, she found herself transitioning to non-fiction, psychological, and self-help books. She has a degree in Psychology and a deep passion for the subject. She likes reading research-informed books that distill the workings of the human brain\/mind\/consciousness and thinking of ways to apply the insights to her own life. Some of her favorites include Thinking, Fast and Slow, How We Decide, and The Wisdom of the Enneagram.","url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/author\/darya\/"}]}},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/understanding-customer-needs-spin-selling-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51430"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51756,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51430\/revisions\/51756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}