The Extraordinary Power of Project Relationships

Section #1 - Powerful Project Individual Relationships

1.0 Everyone in Your Life is a Customer

1.   Everyone in your life is a customer. They spend valuable moments of their life on you. Life is precious. Time in life cannot be recovered after spent. Therefore each moment anyone spends with or for us … is priceless.

2.   Put yourself in your customer's shoes, including their thoughts and feelings. Gentlemen if you do not like to wear high heals, this putting yourself in your girlfriend's shoes is just symbolic.

3.   Delight them. Go the extra mile. Do more of what customers want, need and desire.

4.   Respond to them in a timely fashion. The problem is solved is a phrase customers crave as soon as humanly possible.

5.   If you are doing something for them which you can't deliver immediately, regularly keep them informed of your progress. Customer annoyance intensifies if they don't hear from you, even if you are working hard on their behalf.

6.   Admit and then fix your mistakes. Cover-ups are good if it is raining. Covering-up your mistakes … not so much!

7.   Listen and respect what they are telling you … even the bad news. Their reality is, by definition, real to them. Even if you see a different (hopefully not due to some kind of recreational drug) one.

8.   Be patient. If someone is venting, politely respect their right to do so.

9.   Keep your promises and commitments. If you don't, it's going to take much more time to recover the trust in your relationship.

10.   Smile … inside and out! It will show in the tone of your voice and body language that you are genuine, caring and sincere. It also demonstrates that you value their right to express themselves and their needs.

Customer Service of the Good Old Days

Remember the the good old days. You knew your bank manager by name and he or she knew yours. Fresh milk was delivered to your doorstep. An army of gas station attendants pampered your car. The customer was king then … as they should be now.

Today we deal with rude waiters, indifferent clerks and incompetent mechanics. Project staff acts aggressively rather than politely and assertively. We bag our own groceries, pump our own gas and withdraw our own money from a machine.

Customers and customer service are forgotten. Frontline workers feel underpaid, under-trained and under-motivated.

Yet ironically, our impersonal, technological and highly competitive world demands more special attention and quality service than before. They expect delivery of benefits promised.

They demand that project service adheres to pledged standards of quality. And they believe, that if dissatisfied, the project team will make good on promises.

Good customer relations allow you to initiate as well as keep the project and its customers. For example, divorce is an emotionally and economically costly way to end your marriage project.

For without customers, we'd all be hanging a for sale sign on our careers, projects and businesses. The case for focusing on and delivering to the customer is convincing whether for a market external to your organization or internal if your project serves internal functions. In fact, enlarged markets, increased market sophistication and more discriminating customers demand to be better served.

The Blueprint

Effective customer focus takes time and effort. It isn't a reaction to tough times and angry customers. Good service means planned and continued business activity supported by key stakeholders.

Imagine the unhappy ending to a home renovation project which was unsupported by one of the spouses. Or consider the catastrophes which would happen if a corporate merger project did not have the support of executives such as the CEO's.

Planned customer relations take commitment. It takes knowledge of what today's customer really wants. You can't deliver value unless you understand what it