Relationship management is a key strategy for businesses focused on customer success. It is the process of creating and nurturing relationships between a business and its customers, as well as other stakeholders, such as suppliers and partners.

Relationship management starts with the goal of understanding each customer’s specific needs and creating a customized experience that meets those requirements. You must cultivate and nurture relationships to ensure customer competence and satisfaction. Doing this requires a comprehensive approach to relationship management, one that begins with the initial brand contact and extends into the customer’s lifetime with the company.

When proactively managed, the customer’s expectations and the service they receive can be closely aligned to achieve mutual goals. This active management can help establish a high-value relationship through a deeper understanding of customer needs, preferences and behaviors, as well as establishing trust and credibility between the customer and the business.

At its core, relationship management consists of a set of activities designed to build customer loyalty, encourage customer engagement and increase customer retention. All of these activities are focused on one goal—creating the best possible customer experience. Companies that successfully manage customer relationships are able to turn their customers into advocates for their brand and longer-term customers who are more likely to introduce new business.

Achieving consistent and successful customer relationships is tougher than ever before due to the plethora of communication channels, an ever-increasing array of products and services, and a dynamic competitive landscape. To better engage customers, businesses must design and implement effective and efficient processes for relationship management.

Organizations must secure customer information in a secure and organized manner, create personalized customer experiences, ensure fast and reliable data access, and monitor customer loyalty throughout the customer lifecycle. Automation can help with many of these tasks, allowing companies the ability to spend more time on the relationship-building activities that truly matter.

Successful relationship management requires sustained effort and often requires understanding the customer’s journey. This requires both intuition and analytics to identify customer needs, discern customer loyalty cues and anticipate potential issues. Done well, relationship management not only benefits the individual customer, but also serves to strengthen a company’s overall success.