"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.
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.
