ACRIP
Build Your Customer Strategy
Book

Build Your Customer Strategy

A Guide to Creating Profitable Customer Relationships

James G. Barnes
Wiley, 2006
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Editorial Rating

8

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Recommendation

James Barnes is an iconoclast about statistics and customer relationship management software. He’s interested in building customer loyalty instead. He advocates building it not with data but by putting yourself in your customers’ shoes. Your job then becomes removing everything that gets in the way of their having a great experience in every interaction with your company. Charts help him get his points across, and an appendix that provides a “customer strategy template” will help you implement his ideas. getAbstract recommends this book if you still believe that repeat customers are the same thing as loyal customers or that having a targeted customer marketing strategy means your company is customer-focused.

Summary

Why People Buy Drills

You know what being a frustrated customer feels like. You can probably list all the things the company should have done when it was serving you. But are you sure your company isn’t guilty of the same kinds of omissions?

Many executives believe their companies are client-focused because they have a customer relationship management (CRM) system in place and know a lot about what their customers buy.

However, ask yourself how much effort you really put into the customer experience. Do you really get it? Do your customers feel an emotional connection with your products or services? Have they bonded with your company? Do you understand why they should?

These days, competition is fierce in almost all markets. Customers are empowered and knowledgeable. They can buy anything they need from a wide variety of sources or they can switch to other products.

You may feel that having gigabytes of data is vital to understanding your customers. Data is easy to collect and analyze. However, when you use CRM systems to target your marketing efforts or gather customer information, you are changing the way your company serves consumers. You ...

About the Author

James G. Barnes is the author of seven books, and a speaker and educator on customer relationship strategy. He consults with many major firms on building customer loyalty and managing customer relationships.

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