Having been in business for over 25 years, most of that time in customer relationship and sales leadership roles, I estimate having participated in close to 5,000 customer meetings by now (planning, presenting, observing, coaching, mediating; in person, by teleconference, by video) ... I think I have covered most bases ... and still going! 

Over that time, I have seen, experienced and enjoyed a lot of different meeting locations, setups, structures, styles and outcomes. It is safe to say that no meeting has been exactly like another and the next one is not going to be like the last one. 

I have attended meetings from basements to kitchens to boardrooms, formally seated meetings in China to straw huts with Village Chief's in Fiji, stand up meetings, sit down meetings, relaxed meetings to difficult meetings, gifts presented, shoes thrown, casual discussions to formal presentations following months of preparation. 

That prompted me to think about what my biggest lessons and learnings have been in reflecting on all those meetings. What advice would I give to those perhaps earlier on in their careers, or even a useful reflection for the more experienced, in dealing with the ever important matter of effective customer meetings?

Here are my Top 5 thoughts and suggestions.

1. Be Prepared

2. Be Flexible

3. Be Yourself

4. Be Thankful

5. Be Reliable

Let me expand further.

1. Be Prepared

I would firstly suggest that before any meeting, ample consideration is given, discussed and documented on the reason for the meeting, agenda discussion topics, who is attending, current details about the customer's company or business, personality types, roles and relationships amongst attendees.

Most importantly; to clarify and confirm the primary purpose and value of the meeting (and content being proposed) from the perspective of the customer.

In reviewing any proposal to be presented and discussed at a meeting; with answers of thirty words or less I suggest the following questions as a start:

1. What is the direct financial value and/or non financial benefit for the customer in proceeding with the recommendations?

2. What is the financial cost and greatest risk for the customer in not proceeding with the recommendations?

3. If you were in the customer's position; your organisation, your business, your money, your time - what would you say and do?

Meeting planning may be a longer workshop for higher value stakes or as simple as a 5 minute meeting planner for a more casual customer discussion - although I use the word casual carefully as any meeting I believe still needs to have an identifiable "value add" to the customer and the customer / client relationship.

A useful approach I have found is to discuss and define what meeting attendees are likely to Think, Feel and Do as a result of the meeting. Remember that there are always aspects of rational and emotional factors at play. People respond equally to how they are made to feel as much as any words and numbers.

Sending out an agenda to the customer before the meeting is also a useful exercise to check that the agenda does cover all the most important matters that need to be addressed (from client and customer). Agenda's are particularly useful also for everyone to be clear on who is leading what conversations and for a team to be aligned and co-ordinated. I do have to admit attending a few meetings over the years where it was embarrassingly evident that our own team attendees were not clear, aligned and agreed on the purpose or content for the meeting - and sometimes even meet each other for the first time at the meeting!

Meeting planning and preparation, for both the content as well as the customer situational context will have a significant impact on the likely success and outcomes of the meeting. Planning in the taxi-cab on the way to the client meeting is never going to result in an optimal outcome for anyone!

2. Be Flexible

Without wanting to be contradictory to point 1 above, I would say that most meetings I have attended have never quite gone exactly per the planned agenda. Often the meetings will move onto other discussion points or for one particular item to become an extended focus of attention and discussion.

There is a balance required here in achieving what was originally intended versus resolving other matters that may actually be of greater importance to the customer. 

Therefore there is always a need for some flexibility in how the meeting is run and what is to be covered in the agenda items. I have sometimes walked away from meetings thinking that we only really got through half the agenda yet the customer feedback was very positive on gaining a better understanding and progressing forward.

The lesson for me has been to really use meeting time to equally understand and appreciate where the customer is at, what is most important for them and spend the time to work through that within the context of your own agenda.

If you find that that a meeting seems to be going way off the original agenda a very useful approach I have observed and used is to pause momentarily to re-set the agenda. For example, try asking the attendees something like "this discussion point seems to be getting a lot of attention. There are 3 other items for discussion on our agenda today; would you like to defer those items for another meeting and continue on this topic or should we cover off agenda items and set up a further discussion to specifically resolve this item?" Then you can hear and respect the views of the majority and I am confident that all attendees will respect that you asked the question. Being flexible whilst still maintaining some agreed order and control on what is to be discussed and achieved at every meeting is most effective I have found.

3. Be Authentic, Be Real, Be Yourself

No doubt for most customer meetings, we are also representing our business, company or organisation and the brand and values that go with that. The point I would like to make here is that for any meeting there are really two layers of conversation going on. One is a person to person conversation and underlying that the business to business conversation. In influencing a business outcome it is really an influencing task for key personal decision makers (and the process, personalities and yes politics that go with that). 

Anyone can read your business or organisation vision, values, goals, product & service benefits. The product and marketing teams I am sure will have done an excellent job in putting those messages and materials together. At a customer meeting it is then the human / personal interaction which is really going to bring that to life; making it real, personal and meaningful will create the memorable difference.

When people think about your business or organisation they are highly likely going to think about the overall brand proposition and then also about the "people" they know at the company - the human faces of the organisation.

Therefore, never underestimate the power of the personal impact you will have at every customer meeting. Many people have said to me over the years (even in the context of today's digital business world) that "people still ultimately buy from people" and that "people relationships" with the company or organisation are as equally important as the other proposition, products, pricing factors in the overall relationship.

I do want to acknowledge here also that there will be different cultural considerations and context to how those "person to person" relationships and protocols are best managed in doing business in different countries. The balance of formalities to personal interaction needs to be respected. That said I have personally found across many cultures and customers that there is always interest and value in bringing in a human personal touch to meetings. Whether that is about your family, your interests, your travels etc. - regardless of the location on the globe, we are all still human.

In summary, my advice here is to never simply read from a meeting script or presentation but where possible add an element of personal human authenticity and relationship into the customer meeting. Make a positive memorable personal impression in addition to any words, facts and figures. Try each time to improve both the personal understanding and connection with customers as much as the business engagement and outcomes. Don't just try to be someone you think your industry, company or organisation wants you to be - be your unique, engaging and interesting self (within the context of the vision, values and protocols of who you are representing). No one else can be you. Use that to your advantage.

4. Be Thankful

I believe it was Henry Ford who said:

I'm sure many of you will have seen before various reports and analysis on the relative costs of acquiring, retaining and losing customers. To summarise lots of research and analytics into a short simple statement - don't lose your existing customers! At the same time, as the costs of being in business increase it is equally important to be growing business opportunities with existing customers as well as acquiring new customers.

With the speed and availability of information, the sophistication in which customers can now research different product and services options, combined with competitive innovation and intensity it is a very dangerous assumption to think you have any customer for life. Every day, every interaction is simply another opportunity to demonstrate to the customer why you are the best opportunity and option for the them at this present time. 

How about the following for an approach and opening for your next customer (sales oriented) meeting?

"Hi Bob, thanks for seeing us today. We appreciate you have been a customer with us for 12 years and recently you also purchased one of our 'X" products and services.

We value your business and would like to add to that today by suggesting some other (product and services) solutions to further assist you. To make the process easier we have already looked at your past history and pre-approved these products and used your current information to populate all the necessary paperwork.

Additionally we have considered your relationship with us and discounted the standard new customer pricing in consideration of your existing business with us. For this meeting we can therefore use the time to go through the (product / service) value benefits for you in some more detail and if you are happy to proceed, we can get going on this from today"

Sound familiar? Maybe not. I know this still to be the goal and aspiration for many companies. Yet in today's digital data age we certainly now have the technology opportunity and data analytics capabilities available to achieve this. Being smarter in how to use and apply all the data on existing customers for each and every new interaction is really now becoming a basic customer expectation and why many organisations are in the digital data race to solve this.

I recall being invited to a customer meeting once where a sales manager colleague asked the very common simple question of "how's business?" The customer's response was quite telling in that he responded "well you tell me, you have known me for 10 years in quite some detail - what do you want today".

Another lesson learned the harder way. While not the typical response from most customers, this customer was right in that we had simply shown little respect for the history and current context. The customer was actually facing some financial challenges and was already expecting us to be bringing some bad news so in hindsight we should have done things differently - including context preparation. Even the simplest seemingly harmless meeting questions need consideration.

All businesses and relationships will have ups and downs. People are always appreciative (and expecting) of support through those cycles and history has equal value to the present. Equally today's business environment is fast changing and increasingly complex and competitive. Time is precious, efficiency and productivity are essential. Costs of acquiring new customers (particularly to replace lost customers) are significant. Be mindful of this in all your customer meetings - continue to always give them reasons to stay with you.

So always be genuinely thankful for existing business relationships and for the meeting time given to you by any existing or new prospective customers. Importantly also, let them know you are thankful in both words and actions. 

5. Be Reliable

The expectation of reliability ranks high on almost all surveys of customer satisfaction I have seen. As we would all likely expect in people "doing what they say they will do and by when they say they will do it".

As a leader of many different businesses and teams over the years it is always disappointing to hear customer feedback that certain people are unreliable. Regrettably this always carries the risk of extending to the team and the business brand as a whole. Whilst never good, it is an operational reality that all businesses and organisation need to deal with from time to time.

It is of course never intentional and investigation and experience has taught me that a few things commonly lead to this. 

The first I suggest is misunderstanding of what was expected in the first place. Leaving a customer phone call or meeting potentially with two different understandings of what actions need to be taken, by when and by who. The most effective way to deal with this in meetings I have found is to use the last 5 minutes to summarise the action points (not leave it to the next meeting to review what you thought had to be done). I have been in many meetings where the action items summary resulted in some important re-clarifications of what actions needed to be taken and important who was going to ultimately responsible for the action. If you are not clear then never hesitate to ask the question at the end of the meeting because if it is unclear then very likely others are thinking the same thing.

Secondly, is an area I call "the danger of delegation". Delegation of tasks and duties is however a very important aspect of effective management. Delegation may need to go up, across or down through the hierarchy of any company or organisation in seeking assistance from the best and right resources for what needs to be done. To my point above delegation of any task must however also come with understanding and acceptance of those ultimately going to take responsibility for the activity.

Why this becomes important is that in a customer meeting context, you may be the only person for who the task is ultimately directed and accepted. You however may not be the right person or have he capacity to take on all the tasks required out of the meeting and will therefore need to delegate to others in your organisation to assist. Here's the catch, the customer or person who allocated you the task does not know (or in fact may not care) how you ultimately get the task completed - you therefore still retain a degree of ownership responsibility for the task.

My suggestion would be to clear show the customer at regular updates how the actions are being managed by your organisation and by whom while providing to "your" primary customer the comfort that you also take responsibility for overseeing that they get done and regularly communicating progress.

Thirdly, an important aspect of reliability I suggest comes from what I simply call communication courtesy. Even with the best plans and intentions, things will go wrong from time to time. Things will become more complex than expected, get missed or forgotten, people you are relying may change or are away, scope, requirements and deadlines change. This then needs to be discussed and communicated with customers at the appropriate time with the appropriate information.

The typical challenge in being reliable is then one of managing the internal (company / organisational) situation with the external (customer) situation and expectations. For most customers they will probably not be interested in what is happening internally within your organisation to meet their needs and expectations, but you of course are in the middle.

My strong suggestion in responding to customers (for which you take primary relationship responsibility) is never to blame somebody else or blame the internal workings of your organisation. My advice if circumstances change and impact you outside of your control is just to be honest as early as you can with the customer on what has happened but importantly what you have or are going do to manage it. I can empathise that sometimes that is not going to be an easy conversation and a tendency likely exists to delay or defer the conversation. Back to my point however above on being authentic and real, I have found that most customers respond to the truth of an honest conversation well, even if that is not so good news (on the basis that they have very likely experienced the same in their own organisation). Much better than passing a due date with no-update at all or surprises and excuses after a meeting action due date has passed.

You really do not get many chances in being reliable - always remember there are probably 5 other people like you from other competitors having (or trying to have) the same conversation with your customer. 

Reliability I have learned and suggest is an essential ingredient of trust and mutual respect in a customer relationship. This starts from turning up to customer meetings and appointments on time to following up and delivering on what you say you will do. 

Conclusion.

The good news is that this is a continual learning journey. Even after 5,000 customer meetings I continue to remind myself of the above each time; before, during and after each meeting.

Asking of myself what I might do differently or better for the next meeting and the customer relationship.

I trust for now the above has given you some useful insights to consider for your own customer meetings.

I am confident that by addressing these 5 key areas you will be very well positioned for positive outcomes on your customer relationships, retention and new acquisition activities.

I welcome your feedback and comments on the best and worst meetings you have attended; your own experiences and what you believe led to those outcomes?