Chapter 1
Evolution of Relationships with Customers
No company can succeed without customers. If you don’t have customers, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby.
—Don Peppers and Martha Rogers
By definition, customers are every company’s source of revenue. No company will ever realize income from any other entity except the customers it has now and the customers it will have in the future. Thus in many ways a firm’s most valuable financial asset is its customer base, and, given our new and unfolding technological capabilities to recognize, measure, and manage relationships with each of those customers individually, a forward-thinking firm must focus on deliberately preserving and increasing the value of that customer base. Customer strategy is not a fleeting assignment for the marketing department; rather it is an ongoing business imperative that requires the involvement of the entire enterprise. Organizations must manage their customer relationships effectively in order to remain competitive. Technological advancements have enabled firms to manage customer relationships more efficiently, but technology has also empowered customers to inform themselves and to demand much more from the companies they do business with. The goal of this book is not just to acquaint the reader with the techniques of customer relationship management. The more ambitious goal of this book is to help the reader understand the essence of customer strategy and how to apply it to the task of managing ...
