While we're on the subject of the customer relationships, it's important, even vital, that we do a better job of teasing apart customer types. It seems to me that the vast conversation about social CRM and the social customer has focused on the end consumer - the business-to-consumer (B2C) relationship - not the business-to-business (B2B) one. That's probably a smart over-reaction to the fact the about two-thirds of the economy consists of B2C transactions.
What might not be smart is assuming that the other third of the economy operates more or less like the consumer economy and that B2B customers are the same and can be addressed with the same tools and methods. The most popular business organisation model is still some form of hierarchy, and businesses often make decisions based on the consensus of people up the ladder. Other people have input in the decision, but very often, final approval comes from people higher up who have budget responsibilities.
Businesses spend money for only two reasons: to make money or to save it. If a purchase, and the ongoing cost of repair, maintenance and upgrade, cannot be justified on these grounds, or if the purchase cannot flat-out make more money than it costs, there is no reason for it. This reality puts a box around most B2B relationships, which prevents them from becoming emotional in a B2C sense. It also lets a business relationship operate more along operational lines where objective measures like price, on-time performance and quality standards dictate the health of the relationship.
