Common use of Customer Relationship Clause in Contracts

Customer Relationship. ‌ The customer relationship describes how a compa- ny builds up and retains a relationship with their customers, how intense it is and how customers get in touch with the company. The characteristics given for this parameter can be found in Table 5. It became apparent that almost every business model builds on personal relationships with their customers (see Figure 4). This can be explained with the high degree of personal consultancy and trust required for customers to invest large amounts of money. It also goes along with the previous findings that showed a common focus on strong customer relationships. Therefore it is very likely, that especially stakeholders like developers, planners and construction companies tend to stress personal relationships as they play crucial roles in critical building phases. Trust is built and obtained making use of different channels. Most common in this regard are online channels (websites). Many business models make use of references (e.g. on the companies’ websites) or/and marketing and other communication ▇▇▇▇- ▇▇▇▇ such as social media. It seems that digital me- dia is already inevitable to reach todays customers even in the building sector. Additionally, some companies offer informative events, others rely on mouth to mouth advertisement and their brand name. For (semi-) public contracts the contact is made by bid solicitation according to European regulations. Comparably few companies aim for long-term relationships with their customers. Those are usually companies that offer various tasks along a buildings’ life cycle and want to make sure the customer stay loyal. Others act according to contractual obligations which often end with the sale of a project/building/service which usually is a cheaper option and enables companies to offer services at lower prices making them more compet- itive.