--- title: "Don't Misunderstand 'Customer Relationship'" description: "When visiting companies, we often hear stories of young sales representatives striving to build and maintain 'customer relationships', even allocating a large proportion of their business trips to this. However, many misunderstand the concept, mistaking channel relationships for customer relationships, and using dining and gift-giving as the primary method. True customer relationship is built on brand experience, not superficial socializing." author: "李瑞波" publisher: "New Distribution" email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com" telephone: "+8615854817671" published: "2018-05-26" language: "en" canonical: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/don-t-misunderstand-customer-relationship-ff15dd9d/" markdown: "https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/don-t-misunderstand-customer-relationship-ff15dd9d.md" original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/kebcYb3cvLyvBi18V1CaCA" translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/%E5%8D%83%E4%B8%87%E4%B8%8D%E8%A6%81%E8%AF%AF%E8%A7%A3-%E5%AE%A2%E6%83%85-ff15dd9d.md" attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/don-t-misunderstand-customer-relationship-ff15dd9d/" usage_policy: "https://xinjignxiao.com/ai-policy.txt" --- # Don't Misunderstand 'Customer Relationship' > When visiting companies, we often hear stories of young sales representatives striving to build and maintain 'customer relationships', even allocating a large proportion of their business trips to this. However, many misunderstand the concept, mistaking channel relationships for customer relationships, and using dining and gift-giving as the primary method. True customer relationship is built on brand experience, not superficial socializing. When visiting companies, we often hear stories of young sales representatives striving to build and maintain 'customer relationships', even allocating a large proportion of their business trips to this. 01. Misunderstanding Customer Relationship: Mistaking Channels for Customers Customer emotional relationship is the emotional connection between a product/service provider and its customers. In a sense, it is a branch of public relations and relationship marketing, arising naturally during the establishment, development, and maintenance of customer relationships in market activities. **It must be clear that customer relationship refers to the relationship between the company or its representatives and the customers, not the relationship with 'channel representatives'.** Currently, over 80% of companies' so-called 'customer relationship maintenance' is just a euphemism for pleasing distributors. The reason for pleasing distributors is the lack of genuine customer relationships, hoping to gain a larger share of the sales volume that distributors can influence through emotional investment. What role do distributors play? They are 'merchants', and as the saying goes, 'in business, talk business'. Their profit-driven nature makes them rarely dare to talk about 'feelings', because 'feelings cost money'. **Companies must concede sufficient profit to tip the scales in their favor; feelings carry little weight here.** If your product sells well, you are the boss, and feelings are naturally not an issue; if your product doesn't sell, sorry, distributors are not short of 'subordinates'! So, marketing personnel should never believe in this 'fake customer relationship'. In an era of oversupply, there is no less fickleness, only more. **Maintaining channel relationships, especially at the terminal, is not entirely useless, but it needs rational evaluation.** If we consider 'channel relationship as a special kind of customer relationship', is your investment and return reasonable? Case Study Brand A and Brand B are in the basket of a regional distributor. The sales allocation between these two brands at the terminal depends on terminal orders, not the distributor's will; terminal orders depend on customers' free choice on the shelf and some terminal staff recommendations. **Thus, maintaining terminal relationships is somewhat meaningful, especially in closed terminals where customers can only choose products on the shelf, making it even more decisive.** Clearly, relationship maintenance should shift towards the channel end closer to customers. If Brand A and Brand B compete at the terminal, the significance of customer relationship lies in the fact that, given the same profit per unit, the terminal is more willing to recommend Brand A, making Brand A's previous 'customer relationship' meaningful. Otherwise, they will still lean towards the higher-profit side. The biggest difference between channels and customers is that the former gains price differences through transfer of property rights; the latter gains benefits through the use or consumption of product and service functions, **such as eating food to feel full and experiencing satisfaction.** Clearly, relationship maintenance should shift towards the channel end closer to customers. If Brand A and Brand B compete at the terminal, the significance of customer relationship lies in the fact that, given the same profit per unit, the terminal is more willing to recommend Brand A, making Brand A's previous 'customer relationship' meaningful. Otherwise, they will still lean towards the higher-profit side. The biggest difference between channels and customers is that the former gains price differences through transfer of property rights; the latter gains benefits through the use or consumption of product and service functions, **such as eating food to feel full and experiencing satisfaction.** 02. Mistaking Dining and Drinking as a Way to Build Customer Relationships A provincial sales representative once said, 'The salary I've earned over the years has all been spent on maintaining customer relationships—gifts, dinners... I always thought that once sales picked up, I'd make it back.' This is not the first time I've heard such a statement. First, I don't fully believe it, because the pressure on a family breadwinner over 30 is immense. **If you don't bring money home, how do you get by? Unless you have side income.** Second, if it's true, I can only say you've been fooled. Who told you there will definitely be sales in the future? You might fall into a trap dug by 'some senior'! The senior introduces you to clients, enjoys free meals and drinks, and builds their own 'customer relationships' in the process! Worse, a market that finally showed growth momentum after years of 'customer relationship maintenance' costing the sales rep over 100,000 yuan, **was then 'harvested' by the company leader's confidant. To commend the sales growth, they were promoted without a raise and transferred to another region, ending up with nothing.** In a sense, the sales rep saw themselves as an 'investor', but such practices are forced by circumstances, and such companies are unethical. It's hard to imagine they have real opportunities for survival and growth. 03. Customer Relationship Actually Comes from Brand Experience The real meaning of customer relationship is that customers gain additional emotional benefits beyond the functional benefits of the product. This is clearly not brought about by eating and drinking between sales reps and distributors. The power of customer relationship comes from the company's brand building. **Of course, brand building is not necessarily about CCTV ads, exhibitions, flyers, or what marketing personnel do when contacting customers.** For similar products, if you can gather target customers and concisely explain the product's features, convenience, and cost-effectiveness; provide usage suggestions before customers encounter problems; **and enable customers to grow through cooperation... these are 'real customer relationships' and tangible 'brand experiences', which are reliable sources of performance growth.** **In summary, marketing is about creating and retaining customers and maintaining good customer relationships; customer relationship is not 'dining and drinking', but 'brand experience'.** -END- --- ## Copyright and AI use This article is sourced from New Distribution. 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