Business relationship management provides a strong, positive relationship between the client and the IT service provider. This relationship can’t be undervalued. As such, many organisations employ a dedicated Business Relationship Manager. But how exactly do they deliver this service to clients?
The objective of business relationship management
The Business Relationship Manager (BRM) anticipates current and future customer needs. Essentially, the BRM ensures the IT services are suitable and effective from the customer’s point of view.
This involves liaising with the strategic business partners: IT, finance, HR, marketing, legal, etc. Doing this strengthens the longterm relationship between the client and the IT service provider.
The Business Relationship Manager’s roles and responsibilities
The role has a wide scope, since it’s the IT organisation’s primary way to maintain the relationship with their clients. It’s a proactive role, rather than a firefighting one. The BRM heads off complaints and issues, acting as the point of contact.
Key responsibilities include:
- Maintaining a positive relationship with customers
- Identifying customer needs
- Ensuring the service provider can meet their needs with the catalogue of services
- Assisting in creating new services if needed
- Offering a neutral third party between the service provider and customer outside of the service desk and operations management
- Engaging with internal risk and regulatory governing bodies like the Change Advisory Board
- Assisting the development of customer feedback channels for complaints and compliments
- Gaining access to proprietary financial management, legal and service management systems
- Working closely with the Service Level Manager
Business relationship management process flow
Business relationship management KPIs
|
Key Performance Indicator (KPI) |
Definition |
|
Number of customer complaints |
Number of received customer complaints |
|
Number of accepted customer complaints |
Number of received customer complaints which were accepted as justified |
|
Number of customer satisfaction surveys |
Number of formal customer satisfaction surveys carried out during the reporting period |
|
Percentage of returned questionnaires |
Questionnaires returned divided by the number of questionnaires sent out |
|
Customer satisfaction per service |
Average measured customer satisfaction for each service (including standard deviation) according to customer satisfaction surveys |
The relationship between the client and the IT service provider is vital. That’s why your organisation should support the BRM. They’re pivotal to making sure the IT services meet the customer’s expectations. To do this, the BRM should be able to carry out the responsibilities listed in this blog post. Also, their process flow shouldn’t have roadblocks. Finally, make sure they can measure and report on their KPIs.