One way to stay close to your customers is to stay close to your partners.
Too often companies put all of their 'customer touch points' into a single
internal basket. Don't get me wrong; it's great when you can pull it off
consistently, but many times your own company becomes the bottleneck in the
whole process of customer intimacy. If you can stand back and objectively
look at how your company gets its customers and more importantly, how your
customers prefer to buy your products or services, you should have a good
idea on how to stay close. Start by analyzing your sphere of influence, commencing with your internal organization, then outward to your strategic
and allied partners. These partners can be dealers, other component cogs in
the whole product wheel or even industry associations. The key filter is
that each partner must be committed to, and in touch with, the customer's
whole product expectation. Once you have these strategic conduits to the
customer identified, think out of the box and develop a program that is
complementary to both you and your partners, easy to comply with,
accountable and measurable. Remember, everyone in the partner value chain
must have a vested interest in the customer - skin in the game. Make sure this is the case before approaching a partner with any hope of elevating them to a
'customer intimacy partner,' as it is a critical success factor.

By having a well-defined partner program, the benefits will go beyond a better understanding of your customer, to include:

•	Higher margins by recognizing and eliminating duplication of effort
•	Better communications throughout your partner network – everyone is on the same page and knows what roles are expected
•	Enhanced brand value to the customer – they feel the love, not just from you, but also from the external value chain
•	More bang for the buck – your brand presence will actually increase, due to the focused and extended messaging associated with the partner program