6 Ways Channel Partners Can Become More Customer-Centric

When it comes to marketing disciplines, I like to think broadly. But in the past 25 years as a strategic-thinking executive, I’ve found a customer-centric philosophy makes all the difference in a company’s channel growth. So how can we all become customer-centric? Here are six ways — following these rules may not always be simple, but the effort will yield valuable results.

1. Take inventory and assess who exactly you should be listening to and how you should get that intelligence.

Success in starting a customer-centric program is rooted in really listening to your customers. But it’s also about speaking with the right person at the customer company to get the most informative and direct feedback. Who works most closely with your product or service? Is your key contact a sales representative or a technical expert? Maybe it’s both and you need to hear feedback from each party. Making that distinction is critical in receiving valuable insight.

2. Listen to your customers, but also have an ear to what third parties, such as journalists and analysts, say.

Journalists and analysts can provide a measured and well-researched take on how the market perceives your company’s product and services. This is another approach in having a keen ear to a changing industry and being agile in your company’s response to feedback.

For example, in the past year, there have been dramatic shifts in the use of communication and collaboration tools in the workplace. There has also been increased adoption of cloud-based solutions and a growing number of software-oriented competitors that have captured market share and, as a result, increased pricing pressure. In light of these trends, Unify didn’t resist the reality of the changing market, but decided to strategically play into the momentum. This market change required us to take steps immediately to accelerate our transition from a traditional hardware manufacturer to a true communications and collaboration software and services company. Keep an eye on trends, and be proactive.

3. Figure out what your company needs to know from its customers.

Before reaching out to customers with a slew of questions, identify what your company needs to learn more about. Don’t overwhelm your customer when asking for feedback. Know your company’s gaps in knowledge, and develop strategic survey questions that will help you arrive at the answers. By setting up a strategic infrastructure in your survey process, you’ll have less fluff to sift through in order to get to the key learnings.

4. Measure customer satisfaction with your company through surveys, metrics and free responses.

Providing a rating system from 1 to 5 allows a customer to set benchmarks and assess improvements in its channel-partner programs quarter over quarter. During a survey, or when a partner is taking inventory on your customers’ satisfaction or engagement with your business process, provide an opportunity for your customer to give general feedback. A “free response” section can identify crinkles in the relationship, problems that needed to be addressed or missed opportunities your company didn’t recognize at first. This can also be a place where you learn where your company excels, or what matters most to your customers.

5. Partners should schedule one-on-one meetings with customers to receive more insightful feedback.

Meet with customers whenever possible, such as at industry conferences you’ll both be attending. Establishing rapport provides better insights. Relationship-building gets you candid information you can’t get in a survey.

Luckily, partners are not shy when it comes to giving feedback. Recently, our team caught up with a few of them at our UK Partner Circle event. A quarterly meeting with a handful of top resellers and distributors enables an open dialogue on how they’re performing, how we’re responding to and supporting them and their views on market and customer trends.

We also discussed the results of a short survey we asked attendees to complete. The survey captured inputs on their assessment of our business relationship, their level of satisfaction, the performance of our teams, key factors that help them succeed and areas where we can help them drive more business.

6. Build trust.

Customer loyalty develops naturally when both parties contribute to the partnership, where each party works toward both the end customer and partner’s needs.

One reason Unify announced plans to simplify its Openscape portfolio and deliver packaged services, both directly and through partners, was in response to market learning and the insights from our customer feedback. We wanted to make it easier for customers to get the tools and services they required, so we evolved our channel program as such. If a company is truly customer-focused, it will always look for opportunities to find out what it is that customers and partners really want. It’s always essential to look for opportunities to engage with and capture feedback from your partners on what is and is not working.

What do you think? How can technology vendors be strategic partners to help you be more successful in your business? Tell me in comments.

Bob Clinton is Unify’s SVP of global channel marketing. Follow @UnifyCo on Twitter.