Relationship

The Customers Playbook

What this build is for

Customers is the build for everything after the signature: making the work land, making staying the easy choice, and making the client the reason the next one calls.

Most marketing stops at the sale; most delivery teams don't think of themselves as marketing. Between them sits the stage most firms leave to chance: Kept. Yet it's where Kestrel's best evidence comes from, where its repeat work comes from, and, through 22 referrals out of 31 fit calls, where most of its new work comes from too.

The build covers four things:

• Onboarding: the handover from the pitch to the people who'll live with the work, so the promise survives the first week.
• Loyalty: results reviews and the programme decision, so staying is chosen, not drifted into.
• Community: a place where clients' teams help each other, and write the evidence the next buyer reads.
• Referral: making it easy for a satisfied client to tell another one.

The Direct category's two nods live here, because the person who renews is the person who was served: account management (one owner for each client relationship) and customer service (what happens when something goes wrong mid-review).

One finding sets the tone. Byron Sharp and Anne Sharp studied a large loyalty programme and found substantial "excess loyalty" in only two of its six member brands, with gains that showed up among non-members too (Sharp and Sharp). Points don't keep clients. Keeping the promise does. This build is about the promise.

The footprint, and what it reads from the chain

Customers leads 4 cells and 4 moments, the ones after the work where the relationship is decided:

It supports four more: the plant manager's weekly needs during the review, the finance director's "are the savings in the accounts?", the improvement lead's "can we run the next review ourselves?", and the assistant's "is Kestrel any good?", which depends on reviews from clients this build keeps happy.

It's a small footprint with a large shadow. Every confirmed result this build produces becomes proof for the website, the pitch, PR and reviews and Being named. Every referral becomes a fit call that skipped the 93 moments where Kestrel scores zero.

What it reads, and never rewrites:

Its slice of the Score, and its own audit

Kept isn't a separate check in the Selectability Score: it's the same checks at the moments after the work starts. So this build's slice is the quality of Kestrel's delivery and follow-on moments.

These are Kestrel's best moments, because Kestrel is good at the work: 5 of the 7 clients who finished a review last year went on to more. Preferred here is that rate, 71%. The weaker scores are Bought ("what happens next" is left vague) and the plant manager's slipping results, which nobody comes back for.

The audit.

No one owns the relationship once the review ends. The partner moves to the next sale; the engineer to the next plant.

Step 1: the shape

The shape is the customer lifecycle the category runs on: the touches clients expect after they've bought, and what competitors offer.

Canon is the kick-off, the results review and an account owner: buyers who've used consultants before expect them. The opening is everything after: training, the follow-up check, the community and referral. Almost nobody does them, and they're where Kestrel's "we leave the methods with you" becomes something a client can see.

Step 2: coverage, one touch per moment after the signature

The coverage unit is a touch: one meeting, call, visit or invitation that answers a client's question at a moment after the signature. For each of the eight cells this build leads or supports, ask what the person needs, and whether only a person can give it.

Eight touches: four need a person, and three more need one in part. That's the point of the build: the moments that keep a client are the ones you can't automate.

Step 3: gaps, biases and jobs

The two rules: the person who sold it hands over in writing, so nothing promised is lost; and someone owns every client after the work, so the next conversation isn't left to chance.

Step 4: reconcile, the customer plan

Eight programmes. Every moment has one. The four P1 programmes cost nothing but time and attention, and they protect Kestrel's best number: 5 of 7 clients going on to more.

Rejected, with reasons:

• A loyalty scheme or retainer discount. Kestrel's clients stay because the work paid back. A discount suggests it might not.
• A client portal. No moment asks for it. The Friday update and the account owner answer the questions a portal would.
• A large annual client event. Owners want to hear from one owner like them, not a conference. The round table does that.
• Satisfaction surveys after every review. The 90-day check asks the only question that matters, in figures.

The anatomy library

Four rules hold for every touch:

• The client's people do the talking where they can. The finance director presents the savings; the improvement lead presents the method.
• Each touch ends with one decision, never a vague "let's stay in touch".
• Bad news travels first. Slipping results are raised by Kestrel at the six-month visit, before the client has to.
• Nothing is sold that wasn't asked about. The results review makes one offer; the account owner never pitches between touches.

Briefs

The account brief is written once per client, at the handover, and kept by the account owner:

ACCOUNT Hartwell Plastics, 260 staff, plastics and rubber
ACCOUNT OWNER Jo Brady, partner (sold it; stays with it)
LEAD ENGINEER Priya Raman
PROMISED Fixed fee A$60,000; six weeks; lines 2 and 4; way-out clause;
               the improvement team leads the changes
THE PEOPLE Lena Marsh, COO (champion): wants a result she can take to the
board
               Tom Avery, finance director: "consultants overstate savings"
               Dave Okafor, plant manager: worried about his team's time
               Sam Ito, improvement lead: worried about a verdict on his work
               The owner: deciding on an A$1.4m press
NEXT WORK Line 1 and the tool room; the owner decides
TOUCHES Kick-off 3 Nov; results review at 90 days; six-month visit;
               Sam into the improvement leads' community
MEASURE Savings confirmed; the next piece of work; a reference after
90 days

And a touch brief for each meeting:

TOUCH The results review
JOB Preferred · COO · extend · a hard choice stalls
THEIR QUESTION "Did it pay back? Do we go into the programme?"
WHO PRESENTS Tom Avery: the confirmed figure; Sam Ito: what his team now
runs
THE ONE OFFER Line 1 and the tool room, fixed fee, with its likely return
GUARD No offer if the 90-day check said "not yet"; fix first

The finished example: Hartwell's handover and results review, written in full

The same account from the Pitch, Automation and Email playbooks, picked up at the two moments this build owns. Hartwell, its people and its figures are invented.

1. The handover note, from Jo Brady (the partner who sold it) to Priya Raman (the lead engineer), the week before the kick-off.

• Hartwell Plastics: what each person was told, and what they're worried about
• Lena Marsh, COO. Champion. Needs a result she can take to the board by March, when the press decision comes back. Told: weekly updates every Friday, in a format she can forward. Tom Avery, finance director. Sceptical: "consultants always overstate savings". Told: nothing counted unless someone at Hartwell agrees it; a running tally from week three; a 90-day check. Don't round anything up. Dave Okafor, plant manager. Worried about his team's time. Told: two hours a day from him, one hour a shift from the line leads on 2 and 4, nobody taken off the line. Hold us to that. Sam Ito, improvement lead. Worried the review is a verdict on his team. Told: his team leads the changes and keeps the methods. He spoke to Brennock's improvement lead before we were chosen. Credit his team by name in every update. The owner. Didn't meet us. Decides on the A$1.4m press. Told, through Lena: the review will show how much of the cost is in the existing lines first. Promised, word for word: fixed fee A$60,000; six weeks; lines 2 and 4; "if the review doesn't find more than it costs, you don't go ahead with the changes, and you don't pay for them". Next work, if it goes well: line 1 and the tool room. I'll stay as account owner.

2. The results review, 90 days after the review closed, at Hartwell. Present: Lena, Tom, Dave, Sam, the owner; Jo and Priya for Kestrel.

• Agenda (one hour)
• 1. The figure: Tom Avery (10 minutes). Tom presents what Hartwell's own accounts show: A$198,000 a year of the A$214,000 agreed at the end of the review, mostly scrap and resin. The gap is energy, where the tariff changed in January. 2. What held, and what didn't: Dave Okafor (15 minutes). Warm-up scrap on line 2 has held. On line 4 it crept back on night shift; Dave's recovery plan is already running. 3. What the team now runs: Sam Ito (15 minutes). Sam's team has run the changeover routine on line 1 without Kestrel. He shows their first results. 4. The one offer: Jo Brady (10 minutes). Line 1 and the tool room, fixed fee A$45,000, six weeks, the same way-out clause. On the evidence of lines 2 and 4, a likely return of A$90,000 to A$140,000 a year. And for the owner: the review found most of the capacity the press was meant to add. Whether the press is still needed is now a question the figures can answer. 5. The decision (10 minutes). Go ahead, wait, or no. Any of the three is fine; we'd like to know which.

What happened next (invented, to complete the example). The owner deferred the press and asked for line 1. Tom agreed to be a reference for finance directors. Sam joined the improvement leads' community and hosted its next meeting. Dave's six-month visit is in the diary.

What to notice. The handover note stops the most common failure in services: the people on site not knowing what the person who sold it promised. The results review is presented by the client. Kestrel speaks only for the offer, and the offer comes after the client's own figure, including the part that didn't hold. That's why the owner believed the rest. Two documents, one account. Kestrel hands over nine a year.

Templates

The handover note

ACCOUNT [name, size, sector]
FOR EACH PERSON [name, role] · [champion / decider / blocker]
               What they asked · What they fear · What they were told
PROMISED [scope, fee, timing, the way out, word for word]
ALTERNATIVES [what they were weighing, and what was said about it]
NEXT WORK [what it could be; who decides]
ACCOUNT OWNER [name]

The account plan (one row per client)

The results review agenda

1. The figure [client's finance director] 10 min
2. What held, and what didn't [plant manager] 15 min
3. What the team now runs [improvement lead] 15 min
4. One offer [account owner] 10 min
5. The decision [the client] 10 min

The service log (one row per issue raised during a review)

In the campaign plan

Clients are the most believable part of almost every campaign. The rule: a campaign asks clients to take part only after a confirmed result, and only in a way that helps them too.

No client appears in a campaign they haven't seen and approved, and no client is asked twice in a quarter.

Running it, with account management and customer service

Account management, as a nod. Every client has one account owner, named at the kick-off: usually the partner who sold the work, who stays with the client after the engineers leave. The account owner doesn't sell between touches. They make sure each touch happens, read every reply, and are the person the client calls. At Kestrel, no partner holds more than eight accounts.

Customer service, as a nod. When something goes wrong during a review (a missed shift, a finding the plant disputes, an engineer who's off sick), the client has one named person to tell, a response within a working day, and the issue reported in that week's Friday update, with what was done about it. Problems handled in the open build more trust than a review with none.

The question for every account, every quarter: when did someone from Kestrel last help this client, and when will they next?

Common mistakes

The bias to watch in the team: the end of the project as the end. The work feels finished when the engineers leave; for the client, the result is only starting to show. Every touch in this build lives in the gap between those two feelings.

The business check and the measures

• Revenue: 5 of 7 clients went on to more work last year. This build protects that number first, and makes the 22 referrals deliberate second.
• One truth: the handover note quotes the proposal and the contract word for word. What the client was promised is what delivery delivers.
• The offer: the results review's one offer uses the same fixed price and way out as the first review. Changing terms for repeat work is a partner's decision.
• Capacity: each client needs about four hours of the account owner's time after the review, and half a day of an engineer's at six months. That's roughly 80 hours a year across nine reviews.

The Loop for this build

Each quarter the Loop (step 11) reads the account plan beside the Score's extend moments, and asks: did every client get their next touch, and did the result hold?

What Kestrel's first year would look for. Every client with a named account owner and a results review in the diary within the first quarter. The share going on to more work holding at five in seven or rising, now that someone asks. Improvement leads running reviews alone, which is the strongest proof Kestrel can offer an improvement lead at the comparing step. And referrals thanked, every one, so word of mouth stops being luck.

Shapes by business type

Feeling a bit overwhelmed?

You should be, a little. One firm: eight programmes after the signature, a handover note for every client, a results review presented by the client's own finance director, a six-month visit, a community of improvement leads, an account owner who stays, and a referral route that's never paid. Most firms put all their effort into winning the client, then hand them to delivery and hope.

RocMode starts where Kept starts:

• The moments after the signature, on the same map. RocMode maps your choosers and their moments from what's known about your brand, through delivery and the follow-on, so keeping a client is planned around the same people and questions as winning them.

Join the RocMode beta