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Those are all integral to delivering a compelling customer experience, but for many enterprises, those touchpoints are just the beginning.

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Customer experience - Customer experience is more than customer service, whether that be in the call center, at retail, or during a face-to-face interaction with a salesperson or field service technician.

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On the other hand, some customers expect an in-depth, long-term partnership where seller and buyer work together to create unique solutions to meet the customer's needs.

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For the customer, having a "partnership" is often just knowing that the organizations they do business will deliver the service, price, or product they have promised.

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From the customer perspective, partnership may be as simple as getting what they expect--based on branding or contracts or interactions.

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Both partnerships are based on value, but the value for the former is based on collaboration; the value for the latter is based on efficiency.

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Dow Chemical, for example, partners closely with customers that require extensive customization of its products, while also offering online self-service for customers that need only purchase standard products and that want them in the fastest time at the cheapest price.

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Making a partnership successful requires first understanding your company's and customers' expectations of what that partnership should be. 

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but one company may itself have multiple types of relationships with its various customers. 

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Partnership - Of course, different businesses require different types of partnerships;