Dwight knows that building relationships with customers is important, but EC is global now and those personal connections seems to be shrinking. One customer, in particular, is on his mind: the Sunny Dale Heath Center. One of EC's first clients, Sunny Dale Health Center, came to Dwight and Ike to try to build a wheelchair that would fit the small hallways of the old Victorian home they use for their center. It was a great project and the two owners really enjoyed getting to know the Sunny Dale team, even the orderlies that pushed the patients. In fact, the orderlies were really helpful because they explained some of the major problems they had with manual wheelchairs, ideas that led to the unique design of EC's manual chairs. To this day, Dwight and Ike stop by the Center once a month on their way to work to see how everything is going. Moreover, part of EC's mission is putting customers' needs first. How can they do that if they do not see their customers?So, the problem is how can we use this same approach with our global and national clients who do not live next door, since this correlates directly with customer service. In fact, Dwight recently read an article from Byteagain, a major e-commerce consulting firm,that e-commerce is one of the biggest believers in the idea that customer service is paramount to developing and keeping customers.These two facts amazed Dwight: a)over 50% of American consumers say they've scrapped a planned purchase or transactiondue to bad serviceand b)80% of businesses believe that they're providing "superior" customer service,howeveronly 8% of consumers feel the same.There's obviously a disconnect here.

Dwight, realizing that Inge is going to need a new manager for customer service, has decided that he would like to see how you would tackle creating a plan to cultivate EC's long-distance customers so that EC can better evaluate their problems.Dwight also would like to seetechniques for identifying andsolving their problems.

1. What does EC want from its customer relationships?
2. How can EC make the most of its US long-distance customers?
3. How will the above differ fromcultivating international customers? (Hint: be sure to address language and culture)
4. Looking specifically at Japan and South Korea and what kinds of considerations do you think influenceEC's relationship with these customers?
5. Name 5 techniques arethe bestways to build long-distance customer relationships? Why?
6. What steps could be taken to help long-distance customers solve their problems?