How Can We Measure Relationship?

In my last post I ended it with the following question:

"If the CSM is mainly building a Relationship - how can we measure it?"

Following the AI trend of these days - I asked ChatGPT to answer the question, amd this is what it answered:

"…Measuring the strength of a relationship can be a challenging task (my comment: No kidding!), especially when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of customer success management (CSM) in building and maintaining those relationships (again No kidding!) However, there are several metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help measure the strength of the relationship between the customer and the CSM. Here are a few examples:…"

…. And from this point, it started listing all the KPIs we know - NPL, Churn Rate, CSAT, Renewal Rate, CLV and others..

But I was looking for a different answer.

Yes, in a the quantitative world we're all living in, we need to find a way to "translate" relationships to numbers, I understand that, I'm not naive.

However, I believe there must be another way.

So I did some research and digging and took this 'relationship' enigma to the world of Patient and Therapist - the therapeutic world.

Clearly, you cannot measure the relationship of a patient and his\her therapist only in quantitative concepts.

There is a similarity between the business world and the therapeutic worlds in concept like Feedback, Rating and Outcomes, but the one thing that caught my eye was the 'Language' that is being used, or in another words the 'respect' and 'trust' both parties feel for each other.

If the respect and trust are high - it means the relationship is good and stable and when they will face a crises (and they will), it will not impact the relationship (most of the time) and as a result, the outcomes will not be damaged (and vice versa). Same goes in the business world - the outcomes are the quantitative KPIs.

So, if you ask me what will I answer if someone asks me to rate my relationship with my customers, I will say the following:

The Trust level is High or Low

The Respect Level is High or Low

If both will be answered as High - the relationship is High. All other options will end with Low and it means WE will need to work on the relationship.

(of course there is no guaranty that if the relationship is in high state, the outcomes will be satisfying, but from a Customer Success Manager point of view, I will be able to say that I laid the ground for successful outcomes…

What do you think?

As I mentioned 'Crises' in this post, I will share my thoughts on how CSM should not be afraid from crises - on the contrary (Watson…:))

But you will need to wait for my next post for that…so stay tuned!