Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It's All About How You Make Them Feel [Hardcover]

James G. Barnes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 28, 2000

"Relationship marketing" has been a buzzword for years, but is it anything more than that? Who really knows what it means? This work aims to provide readers with a complete overview to understanding the concept of customer relationships and how to apply it in today's world of ever-increasing competition. The long-term success of any organization lies in its ability to develop solid, genuine relationships with customers and keep them coming back, and telling their friends, family and associates. Many organizations attempt to implement relationship marketing programmes without first determining what they want that relationship to be and without considering the relationship from the customer's point of view. Many others build programmes on shaky foundations, relying solely on data mining or database marketing to build what in the end are only superficial relationships. The author shows the reader how to put an end to such inadequate approaches. Through experience, Barnes has found that it is not loyalty marketing, frequency marketing or preferred customer plans that constitute a relationship. Instead, an approach is offered that helps managers to understand what the customer means by, and wants in a genuine relationship. He explores the emotional side of the attachment a customer has for a specific company and explains the importance of the strength of that relationship. He offers guidelines for measuring the concepts of value and customer satisfaction and details how those components contribute to the building of long-term relationships.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Develop a "Corner Store" Relationship with Each Customer--No Matter How Large Your Organization

Small-town retailers have long been recognized for their ability to establish genuine customer relationships, sincere bonds of trust and familiarity that last for decades and pass from generation to generation. Secrets of Customer Relationship Management presents and examines their observable, quantifiable relationship-building techniques and explains how they can be adapted for use by any size company--up to and including large, multinational businesses and organizations.

Building on author Jim Barnes's 25-plus years of experience in understanding and creating customer loyalty, this unique and insightful book explores:
*The essence of genuine customer relationships--and the content and characteristics of such relationships
*Techniques to develop personalized relationships through e-commerce and the Internet
*Strategies to extend successful customer relationship techniques to suppliers, employees, channel members, and shareholders

Until now, the all-important emotional side of the customer relationship has remained largely unexplored. Secrets of Customer Relationship Management is the first book to provide a complete understanding of the drivers of successful customer relationships--and detail specific techniques for applying them in today's increasingly depersonalized business environment.

In today's world of megaplexes and superstores, small-town retailers continue to survive and thrive by establishing and maintaining genuine, personal relationships with their customers--based on each customer's unique personality, needs, wants, and expectations. Many of today's large organizations feel this type of interpersonal relationship is beyond their grasp, and therefore don't even try to understand the deeply held thoughts and feelings of their customers. The resulting customer base is alienated, rootless--and lost to every competitor's rebate or coupon that comes along.

Secrets of Customer Relationship Management explores the emotional side of a customer's attachment to a specific company--your company, for example--and discusses how companies of all sizes can develop and strengthen that attachment using techniques similar to the time-honored strategies of the corner grocer. It provides an in-depth understanding of what customers actually mean to a business; and, conversely, what a business must mean to an individual customer to maximize its marketplace position and success. Examining case studies of smaller businesses that have succeeded in developing long-term relationships, and explaining how these personalized approaches can be adopted by corporations of any size, Secrets of

Customer Relationship Management explores:
*Guidelines for measuring the concepts of value and customer satisfaction
*Red flags to identify--and stop--risks or threats to successful relationships
*An innovative model of the factors that drive customer satisfaction, from price and quality to customer perceptions of how they've been treated
*Strategies for developing brand relationships where customer contact is infrequent or non-existent
*Hints on how to create and add value for the customer--from the perspective of the customer

Customers are the financial lifeblood of every business. But to see a customer as simply a number or line on a sales graph is to miss the fundamental importance of that customer to a business--and, conversely, the importance of the business to the customer. Before you implement a costly customer relationship management program, let Secrets of Customer Relationship Management help you determine what you want that relationship to be and, just as important, how that relationship should feel--from the customer's point of view.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 1st edition (September 28, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071362533
• ISBN-13: 978-0071362535
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #530,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important reminder about loyalty!, December 19, 2000

By 

Dan Michaluk ([e-mail]) (Toronto, ON Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It's All About How You Make Them Feel (Hardcover)

Barnes argues that "genuine" customer relationships are built by understanding and attending to the emotional experience generated by customer interactions. Accordingly, retention tactics that merely increase switching costs or reward customers for loyal behaviour are not sufficient in creating true long-term customer value.

Barnes' work accepts and compliments the work of other authors who present a more mechanical, economic view of the customer relationship. He reminds those with technology-driven customer strategies that CRM is fundamentally about people. Readers using this book in addition to Rust, Zeithaml and Lemon's "Driving Customer Equity" will gain a very balanced appreciation of customer-focused marketing today.

Long on text and short on graphics and case examples, this book is not a quick read. However, for those compelled to invest some time in this subject, the content is well written and useful.

Chapter 4 contains a particularly useful discussion on drivers of customer value.

In Chapter 10, Barnes presents a relatively pessimistic view on possibilities of developing genuine customer relationships through the Internet. Accordingly, those looking to improve their e-channel knowledge should probably look elsewhere.

Dan Michaluk is a simulation designer for ExperiencePoint, creators of award-winning business simulations.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CRM is personal., January 2, 2001

By 

Chok Keng Yin "Chok" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It's All About How You Make Them Feel (Hardcover)

Barnes's discussion on CRM is unique: instead of looking at managing systems and processes--what I called the operation issues of CRM--Barnes discussed and illustrated how personal CRM should be. This is not a manual for CRM implementation; if you do happen to work on CRM related matters, this is a must as you will gain an insight of what CRM is about--making your customer feel good. It's that un-complicated!

One chapter I found irresistable is the chapter on Internet and CRM. I believe the author had summarized and highlighted the essence of implementing CRM through Internet, and what considerations to give etc.. It is not tactical, but you will find his inputs valuable.

Happy reading.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The subtitle should be the title, May 7, 2002

By 

G. Vieth (Wichita, KS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It's All About How You Make Them Feel (Hardcover)

It IS all about how you make them feel

To the company or individual who believes that price and product features are dominant drivers of customer behavior, Barnes doesn't so much reveal secrets, as issue a direct challenge arguing that the health of the customer relationship determines the long term outlook of the business.

Barnes' view, based on a considerable amount of research with companies in North America and Europe, is that even customer satisfaction and customer loyalty are not sufficient concepts for understanding why customers chose to do business with a particular firm. In his view, it's emotional. Customers have so many choices today, and there are so many good suppliers, that they can, (in fact need to), base their purchase decisions on how they feel about doing business with a given supplier.

Just because it's about emotions, however, doesn't mean it's unmanageable or even unmeasurable. For his clients, Barnes assesses the value that can be created for the customer in the relationship. He tests the company's actual performance in delivering it. He assesses, as well, the long term economic value of the relationship to the company and the cost of maintaining it. With this information strategic decisions can be made about where and how much to invest in developing relationships.

Like many business books today, this book could stand a resolute editor. Barnes is clearly pitching a point of view, so perhaps it's understandable that he covers the same ground from several different directions, but it does get repetitive. The repetition, however, doesn't diminish the message, and the reader looking for justification for developing about the emotional connection to the customer will find a great deal of support, insight, and methodology here.