A customer relationship has a beginning, a middle, and an end, and each stage, acquisition, growth, recovery, retention, and eventual departure, requires its own deliberate, disciplined management practice rather than good intentions alone.

Managing the Relationship is a practitioner’s survey of the operational discipline behind running a customer portfolio well: CRM systems and process, disciplined acquisition, portfolio management, cross-sell and up-sell, service recovery, churn and win-back, key account management, omnichannel coordination, the technology and data infrastructure it all depends on, honest measurement, and the organizational roles and culture required to sustain it.