So in this section I want to talk about how do we build better relationships with our customers. But first off, I want to talk I want to address, there's a term that is floating around the service and experience. industry. And right now, a lot of people talk about customer engagement. What is customer engagement? All we need to engage our customers more, we need to have an engagement strategy in there.

So that whatever. And I think that's quite opaque as a term. Because actually, in reality, what does it mean? It means that customer engagement is about reality, about the sort of the sort and the type and the extent of the relationships that we have with our customers across the journey that they have with us. It's as simple as that. And I think that if we think about engagement, and if we think about how we want to improve our engagement or improve their relationships with our customers, we think that then we have to think very Simply about how do we how do we build a better relationship?

We think about from our own personal experience, I think that if you think about relationships, apart from all that, you know, the liking and the trusting can a bit, I think sustainable, and strong and powerful relationships are built on two different dynamics. One is interesting and interested, you know, and we need both of those elements to create a really strong and sustainable relationship. If you only have one, then you end up becoming almost slightly, almost too self obsessed, and that we can see that in many brands in many companies and all they're really interested in with their with their customers is going just broadcast and say, Look at me, look at me look at me. And yet they wonder why many people don't pay attention to them. And then there's this this is another sort of thing that's being interested in that That's more about taking a really keen interest in your customers, but just focusing on them.

But it couldn't get to a point that is you feels like you've been super helpful and things, but actually possibly a little bit creepy and a bit intrusive. So actually getting that balance right is fundamental to building the relationship with your customers. I would, I would challenge you if you did an audit of all of your activities, particularly across your marketing and service and sales and customer support is that most companies spend 80% of the time trying to be interesting, trying to court and trying to attract attention and not enough time trying to be interested. And actually, if you readjusted that balance, there's a possibility that in the process by being more trying to be less interesting, and more interested, you actually become and build become a better partner for your customers. build better relationships with your customers. So building on that, that interesting and interested idea, there's a couple of kind of things I want to point out or kind of things I want to bring to your attention around that in terms of different dynamics that exist within relationships.

And the first one is this phenomenon that exists in psychology called the primacy and recency effect. And what it suggests, I think, is it's very much aligned to this idea that, you know, we talked about, well accepted this idea that first impressions matter. And that's that that's clear. But actually, what it also suggests is that last impressions matter just as much. Because if you think about it, do you think about from a relationship perspective, think about any relationship that you've had, you know, whether it's boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, you know, husband, partner, whatever it might be, and think about the times that we that you really remember clearly in those relationships. Generally, I would suggest I would Major, that you generally remember the bits at the beginning, and also the bits at the end more clearly than anywhere else.

And the reason why that happens is because that's where the intensity of the emotion is at its highest level. But if you think about that in terms of our, our, our customers, then we have to think about, well, how do we start really important, but how we finish is really important too. But also within all of that there, it's not just about how we finish, but it also could be just how, when was the last time we were in touch with our customers and how important that is. So we end up with this this idea that we end up with a series of primacy and recency curves throughout the relationship. So the next principle I want you to consider when you think about relationships is something we experience in our life generally. And it's based on this idea that it says nature abhors a vacuum and what that means in practice or in principle.

That in the absence of other information, we make stuff up, then that's just normal. And it's based on our own anxieties and fears, and so on and so forth. So I've experienced this with my family, I'm pretty sure that you've experienced that your family, you might not have seen them for eight weeks, you spoke to them on the phone, but you might not see them for weeks and weeks, and then you go and visit your mom and your dad or whoever. And then you go there for the weekend. And then you're leaving traveling back home and they're they say, call or text me or message me when you get home just so I make sure that you're in my mind that you're okay that you're you arrived home safely. Which when you think about it, is complete nonsense, because but it's not nonsense.

It makes sense. But it's nonsense in the context of the broader kind of ratio because you might have spoken to them. They don't know whether you're coming and going with the last one a few weeks, but they need that closure when you go and visit them. Now, the way this applies in business is to think about this idea that, you know, just because you may not have anything to tell your customer, and when you're actually, if you're working on a project or doing something for them, doesn't mean to say they don't want to hear from you. Like, for example, they may, you may not have spoken to him in two weeks, but you may have and he may not have anything to tell them anything new to tell him but actually telling them that everything is okay and everything is on track. And things are going well could be a piece of information, which stops their anxiety kind of rising up.

And what it does, it just makes them feel a little bit more comfortable. And it allows you to do that little bit more. It helps you build the relationship, a better relationship with your customer because just being a bit more thoughtful about some of the things that they might be going through. So the last thing I want to bring to mind on this whole relationship thing is this idea around or is the idea around assumptions and the assumptions that we make? And I'm pretty sure that assumptions that we make about most things are probably the cause of most problems in the world that we make different assumptions about different things. And, and I think if you know the actor, Alan Alda, that guy, there's been an American actor a tall rangy guy was in mash back in the day dressed in scrubs.

But he's quite famously quoted as in from address and address he gave it his daughter's college where he said this. He said, your assumptions are your windows on the world. scrub them off every once in a while, or the light would come in. And I love that quote. Because what it does do is it just challenges us to think about the assumptions that we make. Like for example, you know, there's a lot of data that floats around right now that says that it's In the modern world with modern technology and smartphones and all this sort of stuff, it says the average person has an attention span of like nine seconds now.

But another piece of data shows that the average attention span of a goldfish is eight seconds. Look, there's two things. So we have a attention span, which is only slightly higher than a goldfish. Well, that's patently ridiculous. And I think why should you know and but the challenge is, is that people take that and go, our attention spans are really short. Well, despite the fact that people are spending longer times watching longer films, and or playing video games or doing other sort of things.

It's not I don't think it's about our attention spans getting kind of shorter. It's just that we're getting much better at filtering out the rubbish that we don't want to pay attention to. So it's more of an attention filter, there are no attention span. So the point is, when it comes to your customers, is you have to be very, very clear what assumptions we're making about them, and what they're interested in, and also their behavior, and why that matters to you. So now that we've actually gone through those three principles, I also want to ask you to keep those principles in mind. And also then think about what we talked about before they interesting versus interested part of building better relationships.

And the next thing I want us to do is to do an exercise. So under underneath this video, there's a worksheet which is going to ask you to think about those principles and think about that interesting versus interested idea and do an audit of the activities that you conduct in your business. And then sort of the and also the relationships that you have with your customers and to look for where the opportunities are to build better relationships with your customers, and what you need to do to address or redress the balance.