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Business Relationships - dependable
Posted by Colin Wilson
In Jun 08
It’s Sunday morning, it’s sunny, I’m still paying taxes, breakfast is on its way and I’m about to do a hard days graft in the garden… and the only thing not dependable in that list is the weather… it’s a weekend… it should be raining! A yoke I often heard when I lived in South Africa… in Cape Town, what follows two days of torrential rain… Monday!
It’s the dependable bit that’s the link to my little intro… it’s the next business relationship that I want to cover in this series of four.
The Four Business Relationships
As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m sure there may well be more than four, but these are my four…
- Transactional
- Dependable
- Consultative
- Partnership
Have a look at the Transactional Business Relationship to compare and contrast.
Dependable Business Relationship
Relationship with Customer: Relationships with low to middle management with depth of relationship good to excellent.
Relationship Status: Product Supplier.
Customer’s Knowledge of their situation and how Vendor can help: Will have excellent experience of Vendor and know capability and product/ services.
Customer’s Risk: Low to medium depending on purchase. Will expect vendor to respond well if problems encountered.
Customer’s Expectations of Vendor: Quality, delivery and support. Will be willing to pay higher price than transactional for the support. Coverage for against potential problems. Depend on relationship to add value.
How the Customer Buys: Transactional to project based. Will probably not issue RFP for projects.
Vendor’s Value to Customer: Provide quality, reliable, responsive service, delivery and products / services. Proactive in identifying products and services that may help customer.
Customer’s Value to Vendor: Vendor attains high level of customer’s spend. Referencable customer. Dependable revenue.
Salesperson’s Value to Customer: Understands the customer and their business. Takes into account the specific needs of the customer. Able to facilitate vendor’s processes to aid customer. Makes sure commitments for products, prices, services, lead times, etc are upheld. Makes it easy as possible for customer to do business with vendor.
Competitive Advantage: Customer views vendor as very dependable and will buy in preference to others.
Salesperson’s Value to Own Business: Optimise relationships with customer while keeping sales cost under control. Maintaining predictable revenue stream.
Role in Customer Process: Helps the customer to buy. Very responsive and can be proactive. Is interface to Vendor to ensure commitments are fulfilled?
4 Comments
Colin, as with transactional, my comments are the same - the further they seek to move up the chain, the tougher life becomes; processes get stretched, as do sales people . Great post - I look forward to the next one!
I count this series of posts as among the most important I am reading right now. Understanding the different relationships a seller has with a buyer is critical to the seller being able to develop a new, better relationship.
Colin,
Huthwaite have a good model using three levels - Transactional, Consultative and Enterprise which seem to map on well to three of yours.
But I think your “dependable” level is an excellent addition - there’s definitely a level of relationship which is more than purely transactional, but is not at the level where the selling organisation has a true consultative relationship with the customer. There’s a lot to learn from your descriptions here.
Rgds
Ian
Colin,
First, your categories are fantastic and will be adopted into my concepts immediately. I love poaching from your brilliance. This is in my opinion the most frightening of relationships. With transactional, you are always expecting to lose business as the loyalty is next to nil. With dependable, the loss of the customer hurts, but is unfortunately common. This manager may like you but a flick of the pen from a higher up in a stronger relationship will send you packing without that expected PO.
I always tell my reps to move up the chain and build more value, or fear that next purchase may not come in.