Never, ever, ever take your customers for granted. Ever.

It’s no secret that modern day political campaigning involves marketing savvy.

However much the prevailing winds of anxiety and disgruntlement helped Scott Brown become a US Senator in last week’s Massachusetts election, it’s pretty clear to those of us who watched the campaign up close and personal that Brown’s marketing - all the way around - was far superior to Martha Coakley’s.

But it struck me that Coakley’s signal failure was taking her customers - the citizens of Massachusetts, who lean liberal and as often as not vote Democratic - for granted. She apparently assumed that she would automatically win, so - while Brown, an little-known politician with a fairly thin resume, was driving around the state shaking hands, seemingly with every voter - Coakley failed to campaign. Big mistake.

Part and parcel to taking her constituents’ support for granted, Coakley made a few off-hand remarks that seemed to indicate she didn’t have a clue who the citizens of Massachusetts are. One was a flip comment about whether she was supposed to stand in the cold outside Fenway Park and shake hands with hockey fans there for New Year’s Day’s Frozen Classic Bruins game. (Well, yes, Martha, that’s precisely what a politician is supposed to do.) She also, apparently, confused Red Sox Curt Schilling with the traitor Roger Clemens. (Come on, Martha, if you don’t know anything about sports, that’s fine, but most of the folks around here do. So don’t do sports talk: it will just make you look aloof, snobby, and out of touch.)

Personally, I like Martha Coakley. (Disclosure: I voted for her, phone-banked for her, donated to her, and am sufficiently heartsick over the election’s outcome that, a week on, I still haven’t read or watched any news. Strangely liberating, by the way, and giving me a lot time for non-political reading. Since last Tuesday evening, I’ve made my way through a novel, a book about women in prison, a book of essays on medicine, and a collection of short stories.) Coakley’s just not much of a politician, and she sure took her customers for granted.

As B2B technology marketers, we have to make sure that we don’t do this with our customers.

I’ve worked for companies where we were so focused on gaining new accounts, that we did nothing to maintain good relationships with our existing customers. We just assumed they’d always be with us which, of course, wasn’t always the case. Not surprisingly, behind our backs, the other guys were actually whispering sweet nothings in their ears, paying sufficient attention that some of them - heavens! - were actually wooed away from us.

Conversely, I’ve worked for companies where we stayed alive well beyond the point where we should have withered away and died precisely because we were extremely good to our customers. We were attentive and bend-over-backwards supportive to the extent that they could overlook the substantial flaws in our outdated products for a surprisingly long while.

How can you keep your customers from feeling you’re taking them for granted?

Nothing, of course, substitutes for having products and services that meet your customers’ needs. (Oh, that.)

But it also means reaching out to them even when you don’t have something to sell to them. (Thought you’d be interested…) Acknowledging when something big happens in their world. (Congratulations on your banner year!) Providing them with forums for two-way communications (and listening when the communications come your way). Making your customers proud that they’ve chosen you by not producing defective products, by not engaging in quasi-ethical behavior, by not behaving as corporate jerks.

It really doesn’t matter if you’re selling a one-time purchase product, an ongoing service, or yourself. You should never, ever, ever take your customers for granted. Ever.

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