So, you have just landed a new big account. It’s time to kick back, play a couple of rounds of golf, and let the money roll in, right?  

Not exactly.

Fortunately, most successful business owners understand the importance of pampering new customers. But despite their best intentions, many small and midsize companies still find it a struggle to do a good job of managing customer relationships at the outset. Without special attention, each party may begin the new relationship with different  expectations, and the resulting miscommunication can undercut the relationship before it has a chance to settle in. Communicating effectively is the key to good management of a new client’s expectations.

After the successful initial sale, a company must not only understand the new buyer’s motivations, but also anticipate future priorities and concerns. Although these questions may appear trivial, a clear dialogue is essential to ensure that there are few surprises at the onset, allowing the relationship to develop positively and eventually to flourish.  

One way to avoid mismatching expectations between customer and company is through the development of a simple checklist specific to each customer. For example, if operational guidelines are not explicitly communicated as part of the sale agreement, the company should be sure to discuss certain operating parameters, such as points of contact, quality measures, delivery time lines, lead times, operating procedures, and, of course, pricing.

Should the customer have a single point of contact with the company or should multiple individuals be available? Often the initial and only contact for the new client is the sales associate who closed the deal. Sometimes this arrangement provides sufficient organizational structure, particularly if the purchased item is a simple widget. But the sales associate may not understand the nuances and concerns of the new client. A more important consideration is whether the sales associate will be available for the new client or whether responsibilities to bring in new clients will make the associate hard to reach. If so, is there someone else available to answer complex customer questions? Does the client know who this person is?  

Multiple contacts may be preferable if you manufacture a highly engineered part that is integrated into a more complex assembly. Whatever the appropriate structure for contact, you need to take the time to define responsibilities clearly and to communicate those roles to the new customer. This apparently trivial detail is often overlooked, but it is particularly important with a new client.

Procedures and protocols for handling details of an order must be specifically communicated to new clients. What if there is a change in specifications or quality? At times, such a change may require preapproval from the customer. At other times, a change may require only simple notification or perhaps no special procedure at all. To avoid potential problems or disputes, the manufacturer and new client must jointly establish notification protocol at the outset.

What about delivery misses? These misses may result from either a change in lead time or perhaps a change in customer needs. As lead times become extended, failure to notify the customer may play havoc with planning systems of both your customer and your customer’s customers. When demand peaks for the customer, failure to communicate may result in capacity problems or costly overtime. The eventual result for you will be an unhappy customer.

Then there is the question of price changes. Have you defined and discussed the changes with the customer? Are the changes caused by forces at work in the  market or by some outside escalator, such as the consumer price index (CPI)? Have the changes been agreed upon? Billing the proper prices in the proper format is a key ingredient to maintaining a strong customer relationship, and it’s often a source of contention. Problems in billing procedures can be especially harmful because the bill is the last thing that the customer sees in the service cycle.

From the start, it is important for both the buyer and the seller to understand the guidelines of the relationship. Quality, delivery, and cost will suffer without appropriate communication. Establishing the proper customer service infrastructure will help to ensure that critical issues are communicated properly and agreed upon early in the company-customer relationship. Landing a new account is a victory that becomes even sweeter when you make the effort to establish a successful ongoing relationship with the new customer.