Return on Customer: Creating Maximum Value From Your Scarcest Resource (Hardcover)

~ (Author), Martha Rogers (Author) "Businesses succeed by getting, keeping, and growing customers..." (more)
Key Phrases: total customer equity, treating different customers, maximizing your return, Wall Street, Inland Revenue, Best Buy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Finally – a business metric that can drive better management and higher stock price. I predict soon you’ll be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t tracking ROC.”
—Larry Kudlow, co-host of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Cramer”

“Books like this come only once a decade – a conceptual breakthrough that makes instant sense, combined with the toolkit to apply it well. Stunning insight.”
—Scott Cook, founder of Intuit --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Review

“Finally – a business metric that can drive better management and higher stock price. I predict soon you’ll be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t tracking ROC.”
—Larry Kudlow, co-host of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Cramer”

“Books like this come only once a decade – a conceptual breakthrough that makes instant sense, combined with the toolkit to apply it well. Stunning insight.”
—Scott Cook, founder of Intuit

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Business (June 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385510306
• ISBN-13: 978-0385510301
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #200,113 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What all the big companies are missing, June 30, 2005

By	Mandy Elliot Daniels "Mandy" (Richmond, VA) - See all my reviews

ROC - What a concept! I worked for a leading (#2) electronics retailer for more years than I care to discuss. As a corporate employee, I saw mistake after mistake but it wasn't until I read Return on Customer that it all became obvious what was going wrong. The company was focused on short term gains to please the stockholders rather than cultivating customers.

All business decision-makers need to read this book! Peppers clearly articulates what is wrong with many of today's companies and he shows how business people can focus on their customers to increase shareholder wealth.

Peppers describes how telemarketing efforts (something consumers unilaterally hate) may look like they increase current sales; and therefore, produce a hefty ROI. What businesses do not see is that these campaigns actually lose customers for them over the long run, thus decreasing shareholder value.

As you read this book, you can easily recognize the companies you deal with that are customer-focused and those that are not. You may think the concept is obvious - but then why isn't everyone doing it? By measuring Return On Customer, you create loyal customers who then evangelize your company - the best kind of marketing!

Corporate execs and business owners, you need to read this book!

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for all companies - large and small, July 6, 2005

By	L. Frembes (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am self-employed and wasn't sure if ROC would help me at all. I've just started reading it and I already have begun to formulate which changes to make in my business strategy to help build lifelong relationships with my clients. What an excellent book from two very knowledgeable sources.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Return on Customer -- An important concept, November 22, 2005

By	Christian Neckermann - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There is a wide-spread school of thought that believes business decisions should be evaluated on their long-term impact. Yet too many decisions are actually driven by short-term results like revenue targets or quarterly earnings. Despite knowing better, it seems that short-term metrics always outweigh long-term benefits in business decisions - sometimes to the detriment of the business (as in cases like Enron).

Don and Martha's book make an important contribution to the business world by raising the awareness of too much short-sighted decision making and their potentially negative consequences. The core idea of looking at "Return on Customer" (ROC) is compelling and easy to understand.

Many related ideas and concepts have been developed over the last 20 years - including customer life-time value, the loyalty effect, etc. - yet the practical applications of these ideas in the day-to-day business world are limited. The ROC book takes many of these ideas and integrates them into a single framework, bringing us one step closer to having a simple, widely accepted approach for putting all of these ideas into practice. If nothing else, it offers one solution and challenges us to continue to work on developing the tools and methodologies that can be put into practice to balance short-term and long-term consequences of our business decisions today.

"Return on Customer" is a very readable book. It provides a compelling case for seeking ways to integrate a "life-time" perspective into how we evaluate business decisions and the managers that make those decisions. It offers many examples - yes, some of them may be redundant or less relevant to some readers - but they make the ideas more than a mere theoretical construct. ROC is not rocket science, but then again, how many of us would seriously contemplate ROC if it were rocket science. Instead, let's hope that the book appeals to a broad group of normal business people - stock analysts and business executives alike - and that it motivates us to continue to refine the tools and seek ways to put into practice processes and metrics that will drive better decision making for the long-term.