Proactively seek, review, and act upon information needed to maintain sound business relationships
Seek to maintain good business relationships
To ensure that your business relationships are formed and maintained in the most effective ways for your organisation and business needs, you will need to take a proactive approach in your interactions.
Proactive means:
➢ Actively making contact
➢ Creating opportunities for contact
➢ Being in control of your interactions.
You will need to understand your business contacts and tailor your communications appropriately. Each relationship/relationship group will require a specific interaction from you. Take time to get to know individuals and their motivations, this will automatically ensure that you respond in the right way. Providing a personal touch will show your contacts that you value your relationships and are willing to give them your own time.
You should:
➢ Treat everyone with equal
importance
➢ Take time and patience to build
relationships
➢ Allow time for trust to develop
➢ Be prepared to help others without
expecting a return
➢ Be prompt to respond or reply when
enquiries are made.
Information to maintain your relationships
Information to assist the development of good relationships will come directly from your contacts; that is why it is important to engage in a dialogue/communication. Ask questions, and seek opinions and feedback, this will give you a good insight into your contacts’ likes and dislikes. From here you can interact with more relevance and significance.
You may also receive information from workplace systems, such as previous organisational activities with your contacts, customer sales/enquiries, and colleagues/staff who have also communicated with your contacts. Keeping up-to-date records and being able to access information at work is integral to establishing long-standing relationships.
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Reviewing information can include:
➢ Analysing data such as sales or supply figures
➢ Assessing past interactions and records, e.g. were previous interactions successful
➢ Looking at feedback.
Opportunities for building your relationships
As mentioned in section 1.2 of this unit, customer relationship management (CRM) is all about building and maintaining your business relationships. Collating information on a CRM system will help you to build business and customer profiles and will let you know what has previously occurred between your contacts and your organisation. It prevents repeating questions and ensures that actions are recorded and followed up on.
Creating opportunities include:
➢ Networking, e.g. business events and social
functions
➢ Sending targeted information, e.g. marketing
campaigns
➢ Picking up the phone and talking directly to your
contacts
➢ Inviting your contacts to attend business functions
or community events/programs.
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Activity 4A
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4.2 – Honour agreements within scope of individual responsibility, complying with agreed terms
4.3 – Take account of agreed performance indicators
Following agreements
When an agreement is made and the formal documentation is created and signed by all parties, you will need to honour this for the full term that has been specified. Contracts and agreements may be fixed for any time period that is agreed by the parties, e.g. one month, one year, three years, etc.
All parties will need to fulfil their obligations, as defined within the formal contract/agreement. If one party does not, or is not able to honour the agreement, this will result in a breach of contract and may result in legal action if not solved amicably between the parties.
Legal action can help parties to reach outcomes that are acceptable and binding, for example, a party that has fallen behind on payments may agree to pay additional amounts along with their remaining payments for the services they are receiving. The remedy that is reached will depend on the type of contract/agreement and the business relationship that is in place.
A look at performance indicators
In business, performance indicators provide an organisation with the focus to reach their business objectives. Performance indicators, also known as key performance indicators (KPIs), are the measures that are recognised and put in place to direct an organisation’s business activities or growth.
For example, an organisation may want to use the following KPI, ‘a target to increase repeat customer sales by 20% within a six-month period’ to improve on customer loyalty.
Each work area/department may be given their own KPIs to reach which are specific to them; the organisation as a whole may have their own overall KPIs. These performance indicators should directly relate to the goals of the organisation.
KPIs enable an organisation to make a regular assessment on their work progress; this also provides the opportunity for the organisation to refine or add to current KPIs to help them reach their long-term objectives.
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Key performance indicators (KPIs)
These are set to help you accomplish workplace goals. They provide tangible targets so that actions can be appropriately formulated.
KPIS may include:
➢ Financial (e.g. a target amount for increase of overall organisational profit)
➢ Customer activity (e.g. setting a target percentage for new customer business)
➢ Return in Investment (e.g. a specific response target
for marketing initiatives and campaigns)
➢ Staff retention (e.g. if a high turnover of staff has
been experienced, a reduced target amount may be
set and checks into organisational work processes
implemented).
When maintaining your business relationships, you may also need to factor in assigned KPIs. This may include targets to improve customer satisfaction levels, increasing cooperative working partnerships with business peers and cost effective supplier rates from organisational supply companies/service providers.
Remember to assess your work activities to ensure that any KPIs for you/your work area are included and made achievable.
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