As an important vendor, your customer needs your organization to act and behave like a partner. There is a specific time when your partnership expectations are tested.
With business relationships, one of the most important things I ever learned was from a customer after a bad mistake. He said “it’s not the absence of problems that makes a great partner, but how that partner responds when there are problems”.
Think about that! Our client knew and appreciated that we worked really hard to avoid issues. Yet he measured our partnership on how we stepped up and dealt with adversity when it arose. Apparently, not all partners appropriately respond when their are issues.
Look, nothing is so good that there won’t be problems, so the best partners know how to respond appropriately when, not if, those inevitable problems occur.
That's my 8020 Framework. What's yours?
תגובות