What is relationship management?

Relationship management is about the people and companies you do business with: customers, prospects, suppliers and partners. It is not only about their address. It is about the history: what has been discussed, what has been promised, which quote went out and who makes the decisions on their side.

Every company does relationship management, even without a program. Sometimes it sits in the owner's memory, sometimes in an Excel list or in a folder of emails. That works as long as the company is small and one person knows everything. It starts to chafe when there are more colleagues, when someone is ill or when questions come up such as: when did we last speak to this customer?

Good relationship management has three parts. You record: who is who, with which data and which contact moments. You follow up: which tasks and appointments are open, and who picks them up. And you look back: which customers bring in the most, and where you lose them. The third part calls for figures, and which ones you follow is covered under KPI.

A program for relationship management is called a CRM. It is a tool, not a replacement for the conversation. The best set-up is one your team actually fills in. That is why we start small, with a few fields and stages that everyone uses, and extend once the basic process works.

Relationship management does not end with the sale. Customer service, invoicing and planning touch the same customer too. It helps when those departments do not each keep their own version of the customer. How you tackle that depends on your programs. Read on in CRM software for SMEs.