Too many firms treat customers as if they were costs rather than assets. When they treat accounts like costs, it’s very hard to justify investment in the relationships. But it is very easy to justify keeping costs low, no matter how the customer is impacted.

Note: when a big customer gets tired of being badly treated and presents the supplier with ultimatums, the supplier will move very quickly to make the investments it should have been making in the first place. The investments will probably be made, but why piss off the large customer before they are made?

Here are five questions you might ask yourself about how your firm is treating customers:

1. How many individual relationships (not accounts) are your account managers being asked to manage? Is it humanly possible to manage that many relationships effectively?
2. Are your relationship managers continually looking for ways to strengthen the relationship by adding value, or are they primarily focused on milking the cash cow customers for short-term results?
3. How high up the customer reporting chain are your account managers managing relationships? If your answer is not very high, could another supplier steal the customer from you by targeting unmanaged decision-maker relationships?
4. Do all your employees know your critical customers so well that, if they receive a request from one of these customers, they know to snap to attention?
5. If one of your big accounts calls into Customer Service to complain, do the customer service people make sure the complaint gets to a sales decision maker immediately? Are you willing to bet the farm on your answer? JSperry