Customer Retention Programs

A group of customer strategists recently considered various ways to keep an established customer experience program visible.  All of their programs are fairly mature and they share a common challenge of keeping employees engaged and motivated to take action.

Here are some of best practices identified to avoid these obstacles and keep the VoC initiative front and center:

1. Build Customer feedback into incentive compensation. This is a great motivator to keep employees engaged.  Tips: ensure all employees are impacted, incorporate customer feedback as a fairly small percentage of the incentive plan, and make sure the metric does in fact impact compensation.
    
2. Recognize employees. It’s important to recognize employees to let them know the work they do is valued.  For example, some companies post positive customer comments on intranets or internal blogs when employees are mentioned by name for providing outstanding customer service.  (Be aware of any internal restrictions, privacy issues, and the potential need to remove derogatory comments.)
    
3. Communicate progress. It is essential to communicate progress to keep employees engaged.  One way is to ensure data collection frequency provides visibility into progress on key indicators.  Another option is to define internal metrics that are customer oriented.  Providing regular updates will help to maintain focus on the customer experience.

These are just a few suggestions on ways your Customer Experience Program can stand out at your organization.  What other ideas do you have?

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President
 

Every year, aquatics centers offer American Red Cross lifeguarding classes. They train lifeguards to act with speed and confidence in emergency situations both in and out of the water. Training covers critical areas, including water rescue skills, surveillance and recognition, first aid, breathing and cardiac emergencies, CPR, AED and more.

The value of that preparation was reinforced at the 2012 American Red Cross of Greater Indianapolis Hall of Fame. A group of lifeguards was honored for turning their training into action -- by running to the scene of a fire at an assisted living facility for seniors and people with functional needs, breaking out windows to rescue trapped residents and also providing first aid. Having the advance training prepared the lifeguards to take action and help.

When thinking about your customer strategy, have you ever considered the value that could be realized by your Voice of the Customer program simply by training and preparing your teams to respond to customer feedback? 

For example, a membership organization that is getting ready to launch a member relationship assessment will first prepare their team on how to respond to feedback. They plan to contact selected members each month, asking them to provide feedback in advance of the membership renewal period. The goal is for Retention Specialists to be equipped to respond to feedback, making any adjustments needed to extend and expand the relationships.

In preparation for this activity, the Retention Specialists will be trained on how to respond to the VoC feedback prior to the launch of the program. Through the training, they will be made aware of the initiative, understand what the feedback means, and what they need to do about it. Having that advance preparation will set the stage for the team to respond to feedback and take action to improve the customer experience.

Is your team ready to break through glass to help your customers? 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President

Walker recently set out to answer the question, "What drives partner preference?" Or, asked a different way, "Why do partners recommend one product or brand over others?" 

As we analyzed data from more than 20,000 partner surveys across multiple IT OEMs, one of the findings that emerged is partners have similar needs as customers.  

As we reviewed the drivers of partner preference and compared them to the drivers of customer satisfaction and loyalty, we noticed some similarities:

• Partners and customers prefer OEMs that offer reliable products. This area, more than any other, including the financial incentives that OEMs provide to their channel, has the greatest impact on partner preference and is a common top driver of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Partners and customers want to work with companies that are easy to do business with. While this is a nebulous concept, partners and customers generally consider the people and the processes they interact with when evaluating a company as being easy to do business with.

As we sifted through all of the data, I couldn't help but wonder what would happen if OEMs adapted their voice of customer (VoC) best practices to their partner relationships. Best practices such as soliciting partner input, creating partner-specific action plans for vulnerable relationships, and leveraging partner feedback to prioritize improvement initiatives. Would that help them grow market share? Would this help them solidify their customer retention strategies?

Based on the work that we've done, the answer is yes.

As with any new or strategic initiative, voice of the customer programs are not excluded when it comes to executives asking for a change management approach and process.  It’s a common scenario – companies know they need to be more customer focused and set out to implement some kind of customer feedback process.  After launching a survey or establishing a process to gather inputs, owners of these types of initiatives are charged with creating a formal change management process.

This sounds like a good approach, right?

Wrong.  I think companies that think like this are missing the point.  OK, maybe that is a little harsh.  They aren’t totally missing the point, but they are out of sequence in thought.  Change management seems to be the favorite scapegoat when it comes to the reasons why creating a culture of being customer focused is not as successful as it could be.  I think it is because change management didn’t come first.

Consider the model below.  This demonstrates employees have to first be made aware of why customer partnership and loyalty are important.  Then they have to understand and believe it.  Once that foundation is in place, they can act.  Establishing this up front is critical to the success of customer feedback initiatives.

I’m not advocating that every organization has to undergo a full transformation of being customer focused before embarking on a customer feedback program, but an initial assessment of the situation to identify gaps in awareness, understanding, and belief should be done.  Once the gaps in these areas have been identified, specific actions and communications plans can be created to address weak areas.   Some issues may be more difficult to address than others, but measuring progress with a simple framework will help you to remain focused.

Katie Kiernan
Vice President, Consulting Services

I was recently with a business strategist from a Fortune 500 company who stated there were ultimately three reasons corporate strategies fail. Even though he was speaking of overarching corporate strategies, the three reasons align with what I have seen related to customer strategies:

1. You measure the wrong things – Good strategy is the result of careful, intelligent analysis; however, the old maxim “garbage in, garbage out” applies here. In customer strategy consulting, this can be the result of jumping on the bandwagon of the latest killer metric without a full analysis of whether or not the metric actually applies to your industry. One way to avoid this shortcoming would be to conduct a pre-program strategic assessment – this step will allow you to learn not only the key customer touchpoints, but also identify the critical needs of key stakeholders in the process. It will also help you make certain you are profiling the customers the right way and focusing on the most critical.
    
2. You make the wrong decisions – Even if you measure the right data, there is no guarantee you will make the right decisions. Some of this is related to the data itself – in customer strategy consulting, using statistical methods that allow us to determine which areas of focus will have the greatest impact on customer loyalty will provide some insulation against focusing on the wrong areas. There is, however, another source of potential error – and that is the direction of where the market in total is heading. Every decision is framed not only by the data you observe, but also by your outlook on the competitive environment in general. To ensure you get it right, there are three recommendations I would make:

• Include competitive assessments in your loyalty measurement program – Having an idea on your position relative to the competition can help fine-tune your analysis. You can read more about benchmarking options in this series.


• Commit to ongoing measurement – This does not necessarily mean an ongoing data collection effort; rather, it is about knowing when to re-assess the customer landscape to ensure you are accounting for all the relevant issues. Most clients do this every 18 to 24 months at a minimum.


• Build macro and micro-level strategic plans – The overall strategy that emerges from the statistical analysis is best used in the context of focal areas that have the greatest impact on the greatest number of customers; however, building more micro-level, customer-based action plans will ensure you are accounting for the individual differences that exist among customers.

3. You do not take action – This is the one we tend to see the most. I once worked with a person who was prone to saying “strategy is cheap; execution is hard.” When I first heard him say this, I thought he was saying that strategy was simple; I now realize what he meant was that even though strategy can be hard, it is infinitely more difficult to execute on a plan of attack you know is correct. The phenomenon of acting in ways that are not in your best interest is less about intelligence and more about discipline. I tend to use diet and exercise as an example – I know I should exercise more and eat less, but it is far easier to do the opposite. We at Walker have designed a framework to help navigate the key disciplinary elements needed to take action – namely, organization, process, communication, and motivation.

Certainly there are many reasons strategies can fail; however, I suspect that most of the reasons would fit into this framework. Being mindful of the potential pitfalls that may exist can help you be more proactive in building a plan that will maximize your probability of success.

Mark A. Ratekin
Sr. Vice President, Consulting Services

Launching a new voice of the customer initiative is a big undertaking. Unfortunately too many companies do just that – they launch! They charge into an initiative without taking the time to develop a thoughtful plan. Given the potential impact of a company’s customer engagement strategy and the importance of doing it right, it makes sense to conduct an assessment to consider all the elements that will be critical to the launch and implementation of a results-oriented program.

The following 11 key elements are the key factors to consider in a well-executed assessment.

1. Scope – The scale of this undertaking is understood and the necessary resources have been identified.
2. Readiness – The degree of organizational readiness has been assessed and it is understood what will be necessary to create buy-in for the initiative across the organization.
3. Alignment – There is a clear line of sight on how customer insights tie to business results.
4. Listening posts –The organization has determined how they will collect and integrate the most important information for making customer-focused decisions.
5. Stakeholders – The information needs of the organization have been assessed and it is understood how customer insights will be distributed and used across a variety of functional departments and customer-facing associates.
6. Education – Programs to drive awareness, understanding, and action have been identified to bring about the necessary corporate culture for customer-focused success.
7. Communication – Communication needs have been outlined to understand how the organization will drive internal awareness, deliver actionable reports, and communicate externally with customers.
8. Technology tools – Technology tools needed to facilitate the collection, analysis, and distribution of customer insights have been identified and it is understood how these tools will integrate with existing technology systems.
9. External resources – There is an understanding of what additional resources will be necessary for methodology, research, technology, training, and additional consulting.
10.  Metrics – The key metrics for the success for the company’s customer engagement strategy have been established.
11.  Roadmap – A detailed plan or roadmap has been developed that includes a timeline of activities and a breakdown of the necessary individuals to be involved in a practical, phased program.

Patrick Gibbons
Principal/SVP
Walker

Usually when we think of relationships, we think of having a connection with another person.  Relationships are so important that Facebook profiles indicate you are “in a relationship” when you have a special connection with someone. 

A friend made the decision to home school her oldest child this year.  The reason?  Family interactions were turning into a series of transactions.  They were losing the key ingredients of a real relationship.  Every day they went through the same routine:  Wake the kids up, get them to school, go to afterschool activities, do homework, have dinner, and then bed time.  By simply going from event to event, they were missing the critical connections of being a family.  Home schooling is changing their interactions – from going through the motions to having a lot more involvement in each other’s lives.  It’s not for everyone, but it is making all of the difference in how this family connects with each other.

As a customer strategist you might think about how this applies to your company.  (Yes, there is a connection…) 

1. Is your company in a relationship with customers?  Or, do you simply have a series of transactions?


2. Is it possible that you might have even fallen out of relationship with your customers?  Are you simply going through the motions?


3. Do you think your customers have started connecting with someone else (e.g. your competition)? 

To be in a relationship, you should take time to understand customers’ needs, expectations, and wants.  Know how well you’re doing and where you need to make changes.  Customer Listening Programs are a great way to obtain information and the insights needed to develop a Customer Strategy to create or enhance customer relationships.

My advice is to make sure you are not just focusing on the transaction at hand.  In addition, be in a relationship with your valuable customers!

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services

Customer strategists continue to look for creative ways to share their message and to inform others. They are looking for ways to demonstrate why customer focus is important to the business strategy and how customers feel about the organization.

The communication gets complex because the audience is varied, ranging from external groups like customers and shareholders, to internal teams like sales managers, account managers, product developers, product marketing, service reps, executives...the list goes on and on.

When this infographic came through my twitter feed, I couldn't help but think of different ways customer strategists can use this type of an approach to reach their audience. Here are some of the things that came to mind:

Communications to customers: Customers want to know that their feedback is being put to use. An infographic can be used to share some of the insights you learned from their feedback.

Reach an entire sales organization: Sales teams are geographically dispersed, requiring the use of technology to reach them and let's face it, sales teams want simple. They are busy serving customers and want to spend their time that way. Let's give them something that is easy and enjoyable to digest.

The broad organization: I can visualize an infographic that is focused on communicating how customer feedback is being used for customer retention strategies. It would include statistics like the financial benefit of Loyal customers and demonstrate how customer feedback can be used to predict future customer behaviors.   

One week from today, I will be co-presenting with EMC (a Walker client) at the Clarabridge Customer Connections conference in Miami (#C32012).  We’ll be showcasing the success EMC has achieved through their commitment to extract maximum value from the open-ended feedback generated by their customer listening programs, and reinforcing 3 tips that any organization can implement to get the most out of text analytics.

Over the last 18 months, EMC has been on the forefront of the movement to apply text analytic technologies to the open ended comments that customers are providing through transaction-triggered CSAT surveys. To date, we’ve partnered with them and used Clarabridge’s tool to categorize and assign sentiment scores to thousands of comments. The results have been integrated into broader reporting which has led to actions to address newly identified issues and issues that had previously been known only anecdotally.  And while it’s early going on many of these changes, their impact on the customer experience is becoming evident as we continue to monitor the analytics.

3 Tips to Capitalize on Text Analytics in VOC

What do the cloud, social media, and lean innovation have in common? Each are impacting voice of the customer programs and changing the way we measure, manage, and deliver an exceptional and differentiated customer experience.

Cloud computing: The cloud changes the way customers buy products. Customers move from product ownership to product subscription. In doing this, the switching barriers are lessened for the customer and the company is rewarded with recurring revenue. Cloud-based companies need to adapt their voice of the customer program to focus on predicting customer renewals.

Social media: Customers don't need to wait for a company to conduct a customer survey research program to share their thoughts and feelings. With social media, customers have channels to share their feedback with the company, not to mention their closest friends, fans, and followers. Companies are reacting to this trend by monitoring the discussion and engaging in the conversation on public and private social media forums. This has resulted in a voice of the customer platform that companies are still trying to understand.

Lean innovation: Have you ever thought that product development happens in a bubble with engineers, scientists, and innovators isolated in a building and left to their own devices? This paradigm is shifting and the voice of the customer is becoming more important throughout the product development cycle. In this article, Ravi Aron, senior fellow from Wharton's Mack Center for Technological Innovation implies, "[Lean] begins its journey when an organization attempts to hear the voice of the customer." As the innovation process looks to adopt lean principles to reduce time and costs, one essential ingredient is the customer perspective, putting the customer perspective in greater demand.

In a world where the only constant is change, our voice of the customer programs must be adaptable to support our ever changing customer retention strategies.

Several weeks ago I shared a blog from Slingshot SEO's CEO, Jay Love, about the advantages of a four day work week.   He is back at it with another great blog about employee recognition.   I would recommend reading the entire post but I have posted his five types of recognition below.  What most companies do is maybe one or two of these.  Why not do ALL of these, they should not cost that much and will have a huge impact on employee loyalty.

1. Quarterly reviews. Mandate one-on-one feedback sessions between each supervisor and team member on a quarterly basis. To ensure these are effective, have each manager carve out one hour for each employee. (At Slingshot SEO, we review the status of each quarterly goal and career objective, as well as take the time to chat to know each other better. The goals and any progress are summarized in a simple feedback form.)
2. Peer recognition. Each month, I solicit open nominations for Slingshot SEO’s Outstanding Team Member of the Month. Each employee with at least 60 seconds to spare can e-mail me with their recommendations. Although just two are publicly honored at each monthly meeting, many others are encouraged by this program: I always forward the e-mails of the remarkable kudos to all the nominees along with a few comments of my own.
3. Team highlights. Insist on your department heads sharing stories from their departments and highlighting the achievements of team members at the monthly All-Company Meeting. Lively presentations that include photographs, videos and client comments make this one even better!
4. Yearly awards ceremony. Hold an Annual Award Event for your organization. (We award a Rookie of the Year, Most Improved, Innovator of the Year and Employee of the Year, plus we invite our Customer of the Year and Partner of the Year to make the event memorable.)
5. Spontaneous kudos. Insist that every supervisor works hard to catch a team member doing something right or special as they wander around or peruse communications. When they do, have them point it out in front of the person’s peers or via departmental e-mail. (The more often the better, but beware… large smiles might take over your office.)

Love, J. “5 Ways to Reward Your All-Stars”. Inc., February, 8, 2012.  http://admin.inc.com/2012/02/08/5-ways-to-reward-your-all-stars/

Too many companies focus on the employees that are struggling or a "problem" and completely forget about the top performers.  In fact, most companies would be better served giving time and attention to the top performers as they will have a greater return to the company.  

In this video, Allison Melangton, CEO of the XLVI Super Bowl Host Committeee, shares some of her lessons learned while planning and organizing the 2012 Super Bowl.

Allison's advice serves as a nice reminder for those in charge of developing and executing customer retention strategies. Consider these tips:

Be Bold: Allison says, "If you really believe in something, be bold about it, even though you might have some doubters." Are your customer strategies bold? If not, why?

Make it Different: Allison talks about how they decided to use a different approach to submit the bid for the Super Bowl. Instead of sending the bid to the NFL owners via UPS, they decided to have 8th graders deliver the bid. Are your customer retention strategies unique or are you delivering the same customer experience as others?  

Don't Let Logistics Stand in the Way: As a customer strategist, we often face logistical challenges such as, how are we going to train our entire sales organization, or how can we get the right customer names and contact information for our customer survey research program. We can no longer let logistical challenges stand in our way. What logistics are holding you back?

Focus on Your Strengths: Whether or not someone tells you that, "all of your work is self-inflicted," we must focus first on our strengths. What strengths are your customer retention stratgies focused on?

How does your company operate? Are you “winging it” or do you have a plan and a process to get things done?  

According to urbandictionary.com “winging it” means to improvise with little preparation.

There may be successful companies that don’t plan much. But in my experience, without a plan and process to improve the customer experience - nothing happens. 

Companies are much more likely to achieve their goals when their systems and processes work together. This was recently reinforced when a business colleague shared a successful example of using customer feedback in a very tangible way. 

• The VOC program identified issue resolution as a priority area for the support organization. Open case age was over 50 days. A customer could easily get lost in the shuffle. Eventually many had to call in again and start all over. (How frustrating would that be?) 

• The team put a big focus on managing and reducing open case age in their action plan. They created global visibility around the issue and built accountability into the process. (No winging it here!)

• As a result, open case age has dramatically declined. The customer experience is better and customers are more satisfied with the time it takes to resolve issues. 

Case age has been reduced by 67%, but they’re not done yet. The team is working to reduce it even more - and they will. They have the discipline to stick with the process and make a difference.

“Winging it” usually isn’t enough to execute a customer focused strategy. Aligning the customer results effort with process improvement is critical to your success. 

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services

One common challenge customer-focused leadership faces is knowing the right question to answer or problem to solve. This isn't just a challenge reserved for customer strategists. It is a challenge faced by all leaders.

In the movie Moneyball, this challenge surfaces during a meeting where the Oakland A scouts discuss how they are going to replace their most valuable player. The discussion went something like this: 

Scout 1: "We're trying to solve a problem here Billy."

Billy Beane: "Not like this you're not. You're not even looking at the problem."

Scout 1: "Look Billy. We all understand what the problem is."

Billy Beane: "Good. What's the problem?"

Scout 1: "The problem is, we have to replace three key players."

Billy Beane: "No. What's the problem?"

Scout 2: "Same as it's ever been. We have to replace these guys with what we have existing."

Billy Beane: "No. What's the problem Barry?"

Scout 3: "We need 38 home runs 120 RBIs."

Billy Bean: Makes a buzzer sound indicating another wrong answer and goes on to explain the real problem.

Knowing the real problem that you are trying to address is the first step to developing a customer strategy that will ensure success. Before you get too far down any path, take a step back and challenge the problem you are trying to solve.

Once you've identified the real problem, you can design a customer satisfaction and loyalty program that is aligned with the true business need. 

Acting on the voice of the customer doesn’t (or shouldn’t) happen in just one department or one area of the company. I like to think of it in levels. For simplicity sake, here are three common levels where VoC action should be taking place:

CORPORATE – At the corporate level, action should be very strategic. Based on customer insights, action plans should address issues such as overall retention, forecasting future revenues, projecting attrition, and considering customer perceptions on topics such as brand reputation, ethics, market position, and how you stack up against the competition.

FUNCTIONAL – Action at the functional level action becomes more tactical and involves specific areas such as business units and key departments. This middle level is the most diverse of the three. It refers to all groups throughout your enterprise that can benefit from the voice of the customer. These include departments such as service, account management, sales, and product development, R & D, marketing, and many others. In each case customer strategists should provide each group the customer information they need to improve their specific operation. What’s more, they should implement a prioritization process to ensure the most important issues are escalated to require action.

CUSTOMER-FACING – This is when action takes place one customer at a time. This is most common in business-to-business organizations where action is critical at the account level. To effectively manage at the account level customers advocates must work closely with strategic account managers and sales managers so highly customized information is provided to their people and they are trained on how to use it to drive business with specific accounts. Action at this level should be focused on improving account relationships to boost retention and grow revenue.

Too often voice-of-the-customer strategies are focused on one area or one department. Or, companies may do a good job of acting on customer insights at one level, but they don’t fully leverage insights across the organization. Customer strategists are wise to occasionally take inventory to determine the areas where customer insights could provide a well needed boost.

Patrick Gibbons
Principal/SVP
Walker

Add benchmark questions to your survey: Many companies have a couple of questions asking the customer to evaluate a benchmark company. This is an ideal approach for many because it focuses on the perceptions of your customers and allows you to compare what they think about you versus another company.  

Benchmark against yourself: Companies can answer the “good or bad” question by looking at key segments within their business. For this approach, identify the customer segments with high performance scores and use those as the benchmark. The benefit of this approach is the "best-in-class" score is most likely achievable with your existing products/services.

Look at scores over time: As a customer survey research program matures, it is natural to look at changes over time. This becomes a good source for perspective since it will highlight improvements and/or declines. In year one, you create the benchmark and then measure progress against it over time.  

Secondary Research: There are a variety of secondary research options. These secondary sources can be a good benchmark. However, they do have some draw-backs, which are: timing of the program, differences in the respondent profile (e.g., different geographies or customer roles), or different research designs (e.g., scales used or questions asked).

As you prepare to share results from your customer survey research, don't just share the score, add some perspective by using one of these four methods.

As I write this, I am sitting in a plane.  High in the sky.  Over an ocean.  And I’ll be up here for five more hours.  And this plane I’m in… the thing is, it’s big.  Also – it’s heavy.  I don’t know exactly how heavy, but I know one thing for sure:  this plane is way too heavy to be able to stay up in the air. Quite simply, it shouldn’t be here. 

But here’s the other thing:  I’m wrong. (That admission took a lot out of me… let’s agree to never speak of it again.) At any given time, there are hundreds if not thousands of planes flying around.  And people who know more than I do about these things understand the why and the how of this.

And my point is this… for every one thing that we ourselves don’t understand or can’t believe is possible, there is somebody who does understand it.  So when I fly, I need to start from a position of trust:  trust that the experts have gone about this whole plane thing in the right way.  Trust that I will arrive safely at my destination.

The same concept applies to any area in which there are experts.  Including Voice of Customer programs – though here there often seems to be one notable difference: Voice of Customer is an area in which many people fancy themselves to be experts. They want to do it themselves, or poke holes in a methodology, or disbelieve the results because they don’t match up with what they were expecting.  But here again is a situation which requires starting from a position of trust: you need to trust in the expertise of those who know about these things, get beyond your doubts, and spend your energy thinking about how you are going to use the results to improve your relationships, help your customers, and drive business performance.  In other words, trust that the experts are going to get you to your destination.

Several weeks ago, I met with a client who had faced exactly this situation in prior presentations of Voice of Customer feedback.  At the end of last year, when it came time for her to share results, she met with the most influential person in her audience ahead of time and they had a candid discussion: either they could spend a day wasting everybody’s time debating and defending the methodology and merits of the research and recommendations, or they could accept that the program was well-designed and well-implemented by a team of experts, herself included, and spend their day productively, building action plans to address customer needs.  Can you guess what they did?

Serving customers in a way that creates a loyal following is hard. Add in the complexities created by an indirect go-to-market strategy and the degree of difficulty rivals the reverse 4 ½ somersault in the pike position (4.8 out of 5.0).

Why is such a strategy difficult? The main reason is that many of the actual interactions with the customers are conducted by your channel partners, not by your people. It also creates a more complex relationship comprised of several relationships as shown below.

There are several companies that have built a strong channel and leveraged that go-to-market strategy to drive revenues and create market expansion. Here are some of the ways in which these companies have created a strong customer experience with indirect customers.

1.      Listen to your customers. It doesn’t matter so much whether the customers are served directly or indirectly, their demand is still driving your revenues. A strong Voice of the Customer program helps understand the customer experience from their perspective. Make sure to share the feedback and insights with your channel partners—much of the action and follow-up required might come from the partners themselves.

2.      Listen to your partners. Lots to learn here. First, how can you improve the experience of partnering with you? How can you make it easier to work with you? How can you build a preference for your brand? How can we drive more business together, benefiting both our businesses and growing our market share?

3.      Listen some more to your partners. Your partners are dealing face-to-face with your customers and they are learning from your customers every day. They are learning what it is like to experience your products, what unmet needs they have, and how they interact with your partners. These insights can help us to create the consistent experience we know customers thirst for.

4.      Treat your partners like customers. I know we don’t think of them this way, but channel partners are customers. We sell to them (and through them), we invoice them, we collect from them. While they are a conduit to the ultimate customer, they buy from us and help us drive revenues. We need to treat them like customers and focus a little attention on them. Part of being customer-focused is being partner-focused.

The best way to deal with complex situations is to break them down into manageable pieces. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. In this case that means understanding all aspects of the channel and understanding how we interact and create an exceptional experience for channel partners and customers.