Unit 3 Building Relationships Building business relationships Customer relationship management

I. Building business relationships Value of business relationships: Research shows that even with the best products and business practices, you still need strong relationships to succeed in this marketplace. Marketing and products are only a few of the ways to keep your customers coming back. When it comes to choosing a supplier or business partner, most people prefer someone they know, all things being equal.

I. Building business relationships Discussion: What factors do you consider crucial to building business relationships?  Listening p.22 - “Factors of building strong business relationships”

I. Building business relationships Key factors in success: Communication is key. - cross-cultural, oral, written, nonverbal - clear, fluent, fast, appropriate First impressions count. - present yourself properly & professionally - never have a second chance to make a first impression.

I. Building business relationships  Managing the stages with cross-cultural awareness : Networking (introductions & socializing) - language focus: refer to p.67, pp , p.25 of BOOK 3; p.27 of BOOK 4 Making connections Meetings

Practical skill: improving business cards

I. Building business relationships  Listening p.24 “Ways of entering markets”  cross-cultural communication

II. Customer relationship management Discussion: Which one is more crucial to a company, building new business relationships or maintaining existing ones? Why? Reading pp “Relationship marketing” - Question : Why keeping customers matters?

II. Customer relationship management (CRM) CRM is the development and maintenance of mutually beneficial long-term relationships with strategically significant customers. (Buttle, 2000) CRM provides selling organisations with the platform to obtain a competitive advantage by embracing customer needs and building value-driven long-term relationships.

Determinants of CRM Trust The willingness to rely on the ability, integrity, and motivation of one company to serve the needs of the other company as agreed upon implicitly and explicitly. Value The ability of a selling organisation to satisfy the needs of the customer at a comparatively lower cost or higher benefit than that offered by competitors and measured in monetary, temporal, functional and psychological terms.

In addition to trust and value, salespeople must : Understand customer needs and problems; Meet their commitments; Provide superior after sales support; Make sure that the customer is always told the truth (must be honest); Have a passionate interest in establishing and retaining a long-term relationship (e.g. have long-term perspective). Determinants of CRM

Summary of the unit Factors of building strong business relationships Basic concept of CRM