Grombles

Have you realised how excessive almost everything has become? Today we are literally overwhelmed by choices and by stuff. What to watch Which app to use Phone to buy Tweets to follow and read News Transport Clothes Food Education Holidays, flights, hotels Careers Sports Friends Choice choice choice Reading, buying, watching, doing, meeting, exploring, finding etc etc. So much more to do, to own, to use, or to waste our money on than any generation has ever experienced - and it's relentlessly getting worse (or better if you relish excess). The global marketplace has only just begun to assail us with all its offerings, and it's limitless. So how do we control this overload of decision making? And it's not just individuals who need to become better organised to manage this deluge. Organisations are called this for a reason too. We assign values to each and every element trying to impinge on our lives. Will it resolve a problem? Will it look good on me? Can...

Most businesses these days have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems which store and process vasts amounts of information about us. They use this information to generate communications, amongst other things, which target us to buy their products and services. CRM is all about how a business relates to its customers: Past (keeping them loyal through aftersales and service), Present (helping them buy through bricks and clicks channels) and Future (prospecting). Most businesses will at some stage have declared themselves 'customer-centric'. They will probably have drawn diagrams on whiteboards that look something like these: But there's a problem with this whole approach of keeping the customer at the centre of your world and the focal point for everything you do. Is it what the customer wants ? Of course companies who ignore their customers eventually go out of business. And those who treat their customers well, tend to thrive. But is it really in the best inte...

The following is an article I wrote in 2001, just before the Dot Com crash.  In our headlong charge to become ‘customer-centric’, aren’t we risking being presumptive about what customers might really want? I examine how the car industry might use the product itself to offer a meaningful Vehicle Relationship Marketing (VRM) opportunity for relationship management.     “The more you know about your customers, the more you can relate to their needs, and the more they will want to buy from you”, or so the CRM mantra urges us to believe. Well I don’t have a problem with that, but I don’t believe it goes far enough into the relationship opportunities. My first concern is one of definition for the word ‘customer’. Customers are people who have already adopted your brand. People who are considering buying something are prospects , who might indeed already be customers. We need to distinguish very carefully between the two since the strategy required to persuade...