Strong Partnerships Can Enhance the Customer Experience

Partnerships help fill gaps in a company’s offering.?And partnerships allow one business to bring a more complete service or product set to customers.??

Most importantly, the customer wins as a result of the right partnerships.??In other words, the right partnerships produce an enhanced customer experience (CX).??Customers want great partnerships to be in place.??

What’s more, an improved customer experience (resulting from the right alliance) leads directly to an improved enterprise experience on the value chain.?

In today’s business environment, customers rely on companies they do business with to identify first-rate partners.??That is, companies that have been properly vetted, share the same values and way of doing business and, of course, superb products and services.?

When we do this right, the customer experience is improved.?As a result, the enterprise experience goes up, too.????

As partnership professionals, we are sometimes too focused on the alliance itself as we determine who we want to partner with and how the relationship is doing.??Instead, put the customer first.??Consider how the customer wins as a result of the partnership.??Simply put, what is most important to the customer???Answer this by investing in those partnerships that drive the biggest incremental positive customer experience.?

To drill into it further when reviewing our partners:

• Does the customer significantly benefit from the service or product offering?
• By introducing the partner, have we bolstered our position as a trusted source in the eyes of our customers?
• Have we brought excitement and confidence to customers?
• Are we making a positive difference and acting in the customer's best interest?
• Are we building trust with customers as a result of our partnerships?
• Are we enhancing the customer experience?

David Yovanno has written about the role of customer experiences in alliances in his excellent book, The Partnership Economy:?How Modern Businesses Find New Customers.?Grow Revenue.?And Deliver Exceptional Experiences. Yovanno notes:

Customer Experience (CX) is a customer’s holistic perception of their experience with an enterprise and/or its brand.?Every interaction that a prospect or customer has with or about an enterprise and its brand contributes to, or detracts from, an enterprise’s overall CX.??To deliver exceptional CX, enterprises have to identify what matters most to their customers, what their customers consider valuable, and embed that understanding into their products, services and experiences.??Partnerships can enhance enterprise CX by increasing the effectiveness of enterprise customer engagement efforts.??

Summary

As we look to strengthen and expand our partnerships, putting ourselves in the shoes of our customers can help determine what to prioritize and emphasize.??An outstanding partner experience contributes to an excellent customer experience and a terrific enterprise experience.?????Everyone wins.