Blind Spot. Nathan Shedroff

It’s no longer enough to appear as if a company has certain ideals or values. Social media has made it nearly impossible to hide who you are. It’s dead simple these days for customers to call you out on your own behavior.

      • In addition to stating your values, you now have to live them. This isn’t to say that every person in a corporation has to be a clone, but if they aren’t at least aligned with the organization’s goals and values, they may eventually be at odds with its mission. Front-line employees, such as wait staff and customer-service representatives, have to be especially vigilant. They can quickly make apparent a mismatch of values and kill any customer affinity that could develop into a good relationship.

      The Problem of Habituation

      Think back a few weeks about what music you were listening to. There was probably a song that, when it came on the radio, made you stop talking and raise the volume. It made you feel better immediately and took you on a great emotional journey.

      Today, the song doesn’t affect you that way. It comes on the radio, and you won’t turn it up. It may do little for you now. This is known as habituation. As you do something or use something more frequently, typically, the intensity of your reactions falls over time. You probably love your car the moment you buy it. Four months later, however, it’s not so special, and a year later, you may barely notice it. Habituation is a central challenge in building relationships with people. Over time, your clients can overlook you if you’re not renewing the relationship and providing them with new, positive feelings. And that’s a shame because digital media has made it much easier to reach people, even if it’s also increased the number of voices competing for their attention. Responding to habituation requires constant adjustment of touchpoints, while taking into account the pace of change that customers will prefer. It can be a difficult balancing act, but an essential one.

      Relationships as a Strategy

      Take a look at one final example to understand the long-term importance of relationship thinking. In 2006, Porsche released a brilliant commercial in which a young boy saw a new sports car from his classroom window). He was so entranced that he failed to listen to his teacher, much to his embarrassment. However, after school, he rode his bike over to a Porsche dealership. The salesman was surprised at first, but let the boy sit in the car. In the end, he asked the boy, “What do you think?”

      The kid replied, “I’ll see you in 20 years.”

      Whether Porsche lives up to that promise or not, at least the company recognized that relationships are a strategic opportunity. They involve long-term thinking and a clear view of everything involved with their customer interactions. In the commercial, Porsche argued that it takes an extraordinarily long view of customer relationships. It realizes that the relationship doesn’t start the moment a customer walks into the dealership; rather, it can start years before, develop over time, and last years after purchase. The story may be cute, but the message is critical.

      Relationship innovation has a deep and important goal: making a meaningful connection that transcends what your products and services do. You should never confuse this goal with building customer loyalty. Although good relationships do produce loyal customers, you can also have loyal customers without a good relationship. Any company that offers discounts can gain some measure of loyalty. But it’s a shallow, spurious loyalty. If another company discounts deeper or if your customer moves up in income, you could easily lose your customer. You’re not loyal if you cheat at the first opportunity. You are loyal if your interactions with a company transcend challenges, and this only happens when relationships are meaningful and valuable to you.

      The lynchpin in all of this is that you need a full view of all of your activities to make sense of them. You have to see how you’re supporting or disappointing your customers over time—and where your best opportunities lie for innovation. The next chapter looks at the waveline diagram, a tool that gives you a full view of how a customer sees, understands, and experiences your company’s products and services.

      EYE OPENERS

      This chapter shows how people build relationships with companies over time. Customers enter into a series of interactions, some of which have the potential to produce valued and meaningful experiences. If you can create such experiences over time, and your rhythm of expectation works, you can create a durable long-term relationship.

      Here are a few ideas that hopefully will spark a conversation about relationship innovation.