Top 5 Products Customers Simply Must Have a Relationship With

The other day, I got a few people stirred up when I said that customers don’t want relationships with companies, and that CRM is dead (as a result). I will stand my ground on this one. First, relationships are a salesperson thing (that’s what they think they want); not something a company has with a consumer (or company). They are really a subset of the experience, just as a sales organization plays an increasingly smaller role (or at least, less controlling role) in the overall customer game. There are plenty of people acknowledging this so I won’t get into that here.

One thing we really need to remember is that customers are not seeking a relationship; they are trying to get jobs done. Companies, on other hand, don’t do the hard work to understand this. Instead, they use words like engagement which typically translates into them hiring social media managers with little practical world experience; resulting in things like this. Brand awareness is definitely important; but it must be d…