relationships

The Prime Directive for Service

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Customer relationships are valuable, fragile, and the foundation of your business. Your customer-service personnel are your front-line representatives, the face of your business. When something does not go as planned, how they respond to your customer-in-need makes all the difference in how that customer appraises the value of your relationship. How are your service people trained to respond? Do they deliver a scripted reply, based on what they can see on their computer screen, and …

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Accelerating Progress

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It won’t be long before excessively busy schedules, endless meetings and heavy workloads again become the norm. Before that happens, there’s an opportunity to assess your, and your business’, journey from “what is” to “what can be.” It’s an exercise that can help accelerate your progress in 2022.  Like most leaders, the professional portion of this evaluation often touches on your three primary functions: Your management role – the responsibility for guiding your people to achieve goals …

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Relationships Matter

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Bob Schultek Author of  The Gauntlet You’ve heard business people say, “It’s not personal, it’s business.” But nothing could be further from the truth. Because you care about your business, everything about it is personal. The relationships you build, inside and outside your business, are your most important asset. Relationships matter. Business is a team sport. As a leader, you are dependent on others for your success. You create a direction and context for action; …

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3 Attributes That Increase Your Value to Customers

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Bob Schultek Author of The Gauntlet In a commoditized market, why do customers choose to build enduring relationships with some suppliers? It’s all about the strategic value you produce for them. Customers cite 3 attributes that increase your value: 1.   Reliability Customers expect you to keep your promises—it’s the price of admission into the relationship. If your team makes it easy to do business, perhaps delivering exceptional service as well, then your value is increased. What …

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Hostages of Time

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 Another New Year’s celebration has passed. It’s a moment each year when time stands still, providing us with a precious instant when we can reflect, and hope. It’s also a moment that makes us acutely aware just how much of our lives is controlled by the monitoring of time. In fact, I’d suggest that we are so conscious of time’s drumbeat, so busy trying to make each minute of every day productive, that we’ve become …

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Is Trust The Most Vital Ingredient of Relationships?

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What’s the most vital ingredient of enduring relationships? Your first instinct might be to answer that trust is the most essential ingredient. But in today’s “connection” economy, there’s an even more primal element that enables trust and benefits everyone in the relationship. Before trust can grow, there must be generosity. Generosity creates trust. Generosity is more than offering discounts or giving products or services away for free. If we don’t know you, why would we invest valuable time …

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