Customer Reviews

We: The Ideal Customer Relationship

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We: The Ideal Customer Relationship by Steve Yastrow
The Failure of Marketing by Jack Trytten


The Sales profession is going through another major transition.

Forty years ago, salespeople were professional visitors. They followed a pre-determined route, collecting orders from customers. Sales main responsibility was to make sure customers knew what products were available.

At some point, the concept of features and benefits was introduced. The salesperson's job changed to that of educator: educating customers about features and benefits so that they could make decisions about the best products for them.

Aggressive application of the features and benefits concept pushed the salesperson into the role of "Trusted Advisor". In this role, the salesperson probed to discover unmet needs the customer may have. "What keeps you up at night?" became a standard question; with the theory that once a need is discovered and matched with a benefit, a sale is made.

Now, sales is transitioning again. This time the salesperson fills the role of "Co-Conspirator", requiring a broader approach to the selling relationship. In this evolution, the salesperson and customer engage in a relationship where the objective is to align as many shared goals as possible in order to make the salesperson and the customer both more effective.

Yastrow and Trytten do an excellent job of describing this phenomenon from unique and complimentary perspectives. Both are descriptive and effective in their approaches.

Yastrow hits the relationship issue head-on. He sells the idea that we should be changing our financial transactions with our customers into ongoing partner encounters. Yastrow tells us that the objective is for our customers to think of these as "We encounters", where we addressed the issue, rather than they or me.

Steve systematically shows the reader how to initiate and create these relationships. He does an excellent job outlining a process to align with your customers' goals and execute based on that alignment. If you aspire to be a top salesperson or drive your organization to an effective, differentiated market position, you will understand and appreciate Steve's guidance.

Trytten takes a different tac, tracking the evolution of marketing, from Peter Drucker's definition in 1954 ("There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer."), through the classic definitions and objectives (4Ps anyone?), to the dismal record of today's marketers (80% product failure). He details in practical terms how the profession veered off-track and became trapped in outdated paradigms.

Jack defines the real objective as discovering the "something else" that causes your customers to buy from you. (We used to call that the "need behind the need".) He walks through several examples that show how the failure to recognize "something else" dooms the organization to a commodity competition, based on price. Trytten then shows how to overcome that trap to create a relationship with your customers that opens new markets and profit opportunities.



Both of these are outstanding business books.
We: The Ideal Customer RelationshipThe Failure of Marketing: Why Your Company Isn't A Growth Machine

In "We: The Ideal Customer Relationship", marketing and branding consultant Steve Yastrow (who through his consulting firm Yastrow Marketing has services such clients as the McDonald's Corporation, the Cayman islands Department of Tourism, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and Jenny Craig International) lays out a persuasive case for the necessity of a business (regardless of their product or service) differentiating themselves from their competition in the eyes of their targeted consumer demographics. Yastrow maintains that the best way to do that is to build strong relationships based on having the customer consider the business in terms of 'we' rather than 'us and them'. Backing up his argument with practical, 'how to' information and instruction, Yastrow has written a thoroughly 'user friendly' guide that is solid, practical, accessible, exceptionally well written and organized, and very highly recommended (and profitable) reading for entrepreneurs, company executives, and corporate managers.

Charles Lindbergh selected the title "We" for his autobiography because he wanted to acknowledge the importance of those who contributed to the first non-stop successful solo flight he flew across the Atlantic, from Roosevelt Field, Long Island to Paris in 1927, in the "Spirit of St. Louis." What we have in this volume is Steve Yastrow's explanation of what he considers to be "the most productive, profitable, and sustainable customer relationship." Moreover, the core principles he affirms also apply to all other business relationships, especially with one's associates in the given enterprise. He organizes his material within five chapters, first responding to an essential question, "Why We?" He then identifies the building blocks of a "We" relationship; examines the development of such a relationship from encounter, to relationship, and to an ongoing conversation; explains how continuity of that relationship can be sustained (i.e. how those involved complement each other); explores the nature of a "we among many" relationship; and concludes with an insightful discussion of enduring benefits that illustrate how and why what happens next "matters as much as what is."

I cannot recall a prior time in human history when there were more opportunities to establish and then sustain "We" relationship and yet, paradoxically, I do not recall a prior time when there were fewer of them. High technology has essentially eliminated time and space by connecting people with other people almost anytime and anywhere. However, this connectivity primarily involves machines (e.g. computers and telephones) connecting with other machines or connecting people with a recorded message or (worse yet) with a series of them. Yastrow is well aware of all this, of course, and has probably experienced a number of frustrating, if not maddening experiences of his own. Here is what he recommends:

1. View each customer as a partner, collaborator, etc. rather than as a nuisance, if not as an adversary.

2. Be fully engaged "in the moment" of each encounter with the customer to sustain a "continuity of conversations" during which the "We" relationship becomes stronger.

3. Recognize and appreciate the importance of complementarity between and among "We" relationships: it shows how we stand in relation to each other, how we depend on each other, and why we are together.

4. Understand that organizational relationships are built from individual relationships.

5. Ensure that everyone involved understands how to build "We" relationships with individuals in other organizations...and then does it.

What Yastrow proposes is hardly original. The great value to be derived from his book is found in his explanation of HOW to achieve these five (and other) objectives with a comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective program. Obviously, not everyone will be willing and/or able to engage in - and then sustain -- a "We" relationship.

For that reason, I am intrigued by the potential value of Yastrow's core concept to an organization's hiring process, at least when positions requiring direct and frequent contact with customers are involved. My own experience suggests that the extent to which a person uses first-person plural pronouns is a fairly reliable indicator of her or his attitude toward relationships with others. I think the core concept can also be of substantial benefit when attempting to create or add to a critical mass of what Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba characterize as "customer evangelists." Why not have both customer evangelists and employee evangelists? They are not mutually-exclusive. On the contrary, I presume to suggest, you cannot have the former without the latter.

Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to read Paul Spiegelman's Why Is Everyone Smiling?: The Secret Behind Passion, Productivity, and Profit as well as Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Sales Force and We Are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business co-authored by Barry Libert and Jon Spector.

What a beautiful premise upon which to write a book that builds customer relations: "Man's will to profit and to be powerful have their natural and proper effect so long as they are linked with and upheld by his will to enter in relation."

The above quote by philosopher Martin Buber in I and Thou wonderfully aligns with the relational process developed in We that goes from encounters, to relationships, to complementary goals, actions, and outcomes that creates mutual success for both the customer (small or large) and the client. This process "focuses on engagement, not experience."

Steve Yastrow's writing style is easy, adaptable and thoroughly cognizant. It's a book for everyone, not just marketing professionals. The way in which he redefines widely used business constructs such as "the customer" and "teamwork" makes them wholly understandable and applicable. There is no you or me, only We. Yastrow takes business constructs out of the realm of mere mental images and buzz words to actionable goals and results that benefit the customer and client.

The "Try This" sections include accessible attainable actions that can make a difference in results if applied. And the stories are gems, ones that we can all naturally relate to. The stories and the relational process developed here evolve out of a very natural place, a place that is familiar to all, that place of necessary relations with others. Yastrow frames the relational process by addressing both the individual and the group, giving the engagement process profound purpose in life and business.

I highly recommend this book.

Steve's first book, Brand Harmony, made a simple idea compelling. Although everyone "knows" that an organization's brand or a product's brand must be communicated consistently, this book helps employees "want" to be on the same page as their CEO. His second book, We, has the same simple and compelling impact. If we can motivate our employees to see customers as essential partners, they are more engaged and productive. These are books you can give to a shop floor supervisor, or a VP Marketing, and strike a chord.

I read this book and felt that the messageis right on. The more opportunities we have to build dynamic strong "WE" relationships, the more opportunities for sales grow. In this book Steve has done a lot of his own research on why people buy products and services. By a large percentage purchases are made at companies where the customer has a relationship with people at the companies. The book was a real eye opener for me personally. I am now going to make stronger efforts to make "WE" relationships. I have already felt the outcomes of how people feel toward working with me when the effort is made to make to other person feel special. After reading many books on sales strategies, I think this book hit the message out of the ball park.

Thank you for making this book available to us.

Chad Coe

Steve Yastrow's writings are hard hitting, effective and informative and they call on you to revisit the subject that you are delving into, introducing you to a different perspective on "customer-facing" challenges, that have become as disinteresting as "beige wall paper" and needing of a injection of fresh perspective, re-enlivening the subject, enabling students of customer engagement to take a step forward, to a new level of customer engagement.

We: The Ideal Customer Relationship is a colorful guide on creating meaningful relationships with the customers and maintaining that relationship. Steve Yastrow explains that the "We" relationship is when you each think less about what separates you and more about what intertwines you." He continues on by explaining that the ideal "We" relationship should consist less of what you are each capable of doing, and more on the collaboration.

Steve Yarrow's book is both practical and inspiring. He goes deeply into the nature of the customer relationship and has a number of suggestions for improving both the way you think about your customers and what you can actually do to connect better with them. I had thought that the latest on customer thinking was all about providing a great experience, but Steve has persuaded me that we need to go beyond that. And he has some very specific, concrete suggestions for exactly how to do so. I found myself taking notes throughout. This book will certainly change the way you look at your relationship with your customers.

Think about the last time you ate out in a restaurant . . . if you can't
remember what the waiter looks like five minutes later, you weren't
engaged--something that needs to happen in order for businesses
to connect with their customers.

That is one of the many ideas I gained from reading Steve Yastrow's
excellent book, WE: THE IDEAL CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP . . . what's needed is for customers to
think in terms of "we," as opposed to "us and them."

This needs to be done by creating:

* Encounters: interactions that improve your relationships [as
opposed to]

Transactions: interactions that often damage your relationship and,
at best, have no effect on your relationship.

Yastrow proceeds to give many real examples of ways to
accomplishment this . . . one of my favorites involved
the firm that cleans his clothes:

* I have used the same dry cleaners for years. Jim Dandy Cleaners
shows up, without fail, every Tuesday and Friday morning to drop
off clean clothes and pick up a new load that needs cleaning. One
Thursday night last summer I returned from a three-week trip out
of the country, and I had to leave again Sunday night for the West
Coast. On Friday morning, I stuck the dirty clothes in the blue Jim
Dandy bag, and put the bag on the front porch. Later in the day
I realized I'd want some of that clothing for my trip, but they weren't
scheduled to be returned until Tuesday. I called Jim Dandy, and the
owner's daughter answered the phone. I told her I needed some of the
pieces of clothing they had for an upcoming business trip, and asked
if it was possible for me to get them by Saturday afternoon. "I'll run in the
back right now and see if I can find your clothes. They're in the group
to be cleaned on Monday, but I'll bet I can find them. Let me know if you
can't get here by five tomorrow when we close, because I can leave them
at the store next door for you." Relief, I'll have my clothes. The next morning
at about 8:30 I got a call from Jim Dandy. We're delivering your clothes
in about an hour." Wow. Was this good customer service? Of course.
But calling it "good customer service" sells it short. It was way beyond
customer service. I truly believe that the people at Jim Dandy
sincerely wanted me to have my clothes for my business trip.

Wow!

Wouldn't it be great if all businesses provided that type service?

To start, consider this simple-sounding recommendation from
the author:

* As you initiate encounters with customers over the next week, choose
to opt for the more immediate way to communicate. If you start to email
a customer, stop and pick up the phone. In another situation, instead
of calling a customer, go see her in person.

If you read WE, you'll get many more such ideas that you can immediately
implement to help your business grow.