The need for a greater customer intimacy is getting amplified by the changing trends in consumer behaviour
The need for a greater customer intimacy is further getting amplified by the changing trends in consumer behaviour, which are engineering a shift from Customer Relationship Management to Customer Managed Relationships, where customers want organisations to be more transparent with the information they have on them and give them the choice to define how that information should be used to make the consumption of products and services more convenient for them. Organisations need to start thinking on these lines and ready themselves for this shift in the balance of power or they will find themselves increasingly irrelevant to their customers. Perhaps its not too late for everyone to consider seriously what Robert Lauterborn proposed (in as early as 1990) to do away with the product oriented 4Ps of marketing, which was the bedrock of all marketing strategies for several decades, to the customer oriented 4Cs – Consumer wants and needs, Cost to satisfy, Convenience to buy & Communication for our times.
Loyalty practitioners have hailed this approach all along and brought to market many strategies that resulted in organisations coming closer to their customers. The early adopters – airlines, hotels & retail companies have led from the front and now almost every business is thinking about it to build sustainable & profitable relationships with customers. It therefore comes as no major surprise that all forms of loyalty marketing have seen an unprecedented growth in the last decade. An estimate on the spending through loyalty marketing in India is an impressive Rs.3,500-4,000 crore, and with the advent of technology in mobile marketing & social networking giving marketers the power to reach & build a relationship with every customer, the marketing budget will continue to split in favour of such programs. Ultimately, the consumer marketer relationship will have to tread on carefully with its ear to the ground in these times where change is the only constant but for the fact that the consumer is driving it.
The need for a greater customer intimacy is further getting amplified by the changing trends in consumer behaviour, which are engineering a shift from Customer Relationship Management to Customer Managed Relationships, where customers want organisations to be more transparent with the information they have on them and give them the choice to define how that information should be used to make the consumption of products and services more convenient for them. Organisations need to start thinking on these lines and ready themselves for this shift in the balance of power or they will find themselves increasingly irrelevant to their customers. Perhaps its not too late for everyone to consider seriously what Robert Lauterborn proposed (in as early as 1990) to do away with the product oriented 4Ps of marketing, which was the bedrock of all marketing strategies for several decades, to the customer oriented 4Cs – Consumer wants and needs, Cost to satisfy, Convenience to buy & Communication for our times.
Loyalty practitioners have hailed this approach all along and brought to market many strategies that resulted in organisations coming closer to their customers. The early adopters – airlines, hotels & retail companies have led from the front and now almost every business is thinking about it to build sustainable & profitable relationships with customers. It therefore comes as no major surprise that all forms of loyalty marketing have seen an unprecedented growth in the last decade. An estimate on the spending through loyalty marketing in India is an impressive Rs.3,500-4,000 crore, and with the advent of technology in mobile marketing & social networking giving marketers the power to reach & build a relationship with every customer, the marketing budget will continue to split in favour of such programs. Ultimately, the consumer marketer relationship will have to tread on carefully with its ear to the ground in these times where change is the only constant but for the fact that the consumer is driving it.
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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).
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