How to build great relationships with customers

For all you Test Managers, I would like to share few most important aspects of building great relationships with your customers which I learnt from my experiences:


Don’t just understand customer’s needs, understand their business:
Do you know why a customer wants us to ensure the quality of his/her application? How does it fit into the larger picture of customer’s business? How does it generate money for customer? These are important questions for understanding the context. When you serve your customer, you are helping them address at least one of their business objectives. Understanding what works for the customer helps you align your actions to the business objectives. That is a sure way to add value, because customer no longer looks at you as a ‘vendor’ but as a ‘partner’. Most folks in technical areas need to understand this critically.

Communicating one-on-one, frequently:
Great relationships are built one conversation at a time. Open and transparent conversations are opportunities – to understand and to convey. Iterations of understanding and conveying the right things results in a credible relationship. In an outsourced world, I cannot emphasize more on value of ‘face-time’ with customers. Most customers will not open up when they talk over a weekly meeting. Frequently communicating your customer and understanding changes in their business helps. Phone calls and Emails are great tools to ensure continuous communication.

Ship Results:
All said and done, it all boils down to results. Great results delivered consistently over a period of time is the best strategy to build a strong relationship. Results build long lasting credibility. When you have deeper understanding of client’s ‘business’ and when you have ‘communicated’ frequently to manage expectations, you are in a much better position to deliver meaningful results that delights the customer. Key is to manage expectations, give realistic promises and delivering on them.