into thinking that they will buy from you a second time. Even though your customer may have had a "wow" experience with you or your company, they are likely to buy the next time from someone who provides a product as good as yours but that costs a little less or is delivered a little faster.   Since the 70s there has been an explosion in consumer choices. For example, in the 70s there were only four types of milk. Today there are over 20. In the 70s there was only one type of contact lens. Today there are over 40 unique styles. Competition has also become fiercer with the rise in consumer choices. Its hard to find a market (large or small) that doesnt already have multiple competitors battling for their piece of the pie.   Three Types of Customer Relationships   So how do you keep your customers coming back time and again?   To answer this important question you need to take a moment and think about what would keep a customer coming back to a business. Three instances come to mind:   1. The Customer and the Business Have a Positive Relationship   In this instance, the customer has formed a positive relationship with either a person who works for the business or with the business itself. Perhaps they had a great experience and they now have an emotional bond with the business. Unfortunately, unless the emotional bond is nurtured, it dies a fast death - and quite frankly, there are extremely few businesses that nurture their relationships with their customers.   2. The Customer Has Incentive to Continue the Business Relationship   People are human and because of that we are naturally greedy. The principle of greediness is what makes capitalism successful. Companies who reward (bribe) their customers with coupons, points, credits, and bonuses create an incentive-based relationship that crumbles once the incentive is taken away.   3. The Customer "Has" to Continue the Relationship Because the Cost to Change is Too High   This is an instance in which the business has tied its operations into the customers life or business so closely, that to move to another product or service provider would cause damage emotionally, socially, operationally, or financially. An example of this type of relationship would be a person who is emotionally dependent on his therapist (emotional) or a customer who has purchased proprietary computer software that isnt compatible with other hardware (operational). I call this type of relationship an "Integrated Relationship" because it extends into the life of a person or into the operations of a business.   Of the four types of Integrated Relationships (social, emotion, operational, financial), the operational relationship is the most powerful. Operational relationships exist when the actual work processes of two businesses overlap. Untangling business processes is a mess