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by: startupgrrrrrrrl 8/16/00 3:49 pm
Msg: 15683 of 15683
THE 21ST CENTURY CORPORATION - Chief of Customer Relationships
Subject: Why I'm ditching your company
Date: January 4, 2010
To: Vice President for Sales & Marketing
Organization: Global Enterprises Inc.
From: Jane Everyconsumer
Dear Sir or Madam,
I have been one of your best customers for years, though apparently you don't know it. You think you're so edgy, sending me so-called ''personalized'' e-mail for products and services that I don't want. Your Web site can't remember what I buy from one visit to the next or how I like to shop. You still spend most of your budget on TV ads, which I promptly zap. And products made to order? They don't exist on your Web site.
That's why I intend to forget about you. I hear your rivals calling--the vice-president of customer communities, the vice-president of customer conversations, and the chief relationship officer--and they've wooed me away. Crazy titles? Not anymore. Ask Greg A. Tucker, CEO of consultancy Futurize Now. He calls this new breed of marketing executive ''the customer advocate. In the New Economy, customers make the rules.'' Or talk to Steve Larsen, senior vice-president for marketing at Net Perceptions Inc., which makes sophisticated software for mining consumer data. ''Markets will no longer be driven by what manufacturers choose to make and sell but by what consumers want to buy.''
In short, the era of mass production, mass marketing, and even mass media is over. Thanks to the Internet, I've got more power and more choices than ever before. To build a meaningful brand with some pricing power, companies will have to really listen to customers like me and act fast on what they hear. Don Peppers, a partner in consultancy Peppers and Rogers Group and co-author of The One to One Future, says businesses must develop ''learning relationships,'' remembering what I want and making the product or service better as a result.
REAL-TIME FEEDBACK. Amazon.com was a pioneer, studying the books I've bought and making recommendations based on what I'm reading. Dell Computer, which sells PCs built to order, remembers what customers have bought in the past and, with individualized Web pages, makes it simpler with every subsequent order to add new computers, upgrade existing equipment, or troubleshoot technical problems. But do you know what I'm thinking right now? Sure, you've talked to me before. Wasn't I part of a focus group for your company a few years back? And didn't you once send me a customer-satisfaction survey? That's no longer good enough. Now, we're talking about real-time customer feedback, online and off. Thanks to the Net, ''companies can now have conversations with hundreds or thousands of customers, all over the world, all of them personal, all of the time,'' says Tucker.
Publishing and music giant Bertelsmann envisions the day when I can create my own CDs, mixing and matching the songs and artists that I like--and allowing Bertelsmann to snatch back this business from Internet pirates like Napster. Or the company might learn that I'm a Scottish history nut and e-mail me excerpts of a proposed book on the Battle of Corunna. If there are enough folks like me willing to buy the book and cover the royalty and production costs, it will get printed. That way Bertelsmann reduces its publishing risks. ''Personalization is absolutely key to Bertelsmann as a business,'' says Andrew D. Dorward, director of personalization for the company's Web site, BOL.com. Don't laugh at his title--it appeals to me. It says he's looking out for my interests. What's more, he says the company is about a year away from ''creating an experience that is totally personalized for the customer'' in the way it makes and markets books and music. ''My vision would be a totally personalized media network, which is different for whoever signs into it.'' He sees the same possibilities for cars, fashion, and furniture.
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