"I think Amazon is the preeminent pioneer in building a new way of doing commerce: personalized, database-driven where the big value is not in the purchase fulfillment, but in knowing as much about a customer base of ten or twenty million people as a corner store used to know about a customer base of a few hundred. In today's mass merchandising world, that's largely gone; Amazon is trying to use computer technology to re-establish it."Andrew Grove
Past Chairman, Intel Corporation
Past Chairman, Intel Corporation
Cost and price comes down when we move to mass market retail but so too does the retailer's and manufacturer's knowledge about its customers decline.
Must it be that way and if so, is that a problem?
Whether B2C or B2B how important is customer knowledge in your business? If it is important, what do you do to increase your customer knowledge?
Must it be that way and if so, is that a problem?
Whether B2C or B2B how important is customer knowledge in your business? If it is important, what do you do to increase your customer knowledge?
i doubt there's a clear right or wrong answer but it's difficult to argue against the notion that REALLY knowing your customer can only be immensely beneficial.
ReplyDeletei think this really comes down to the difference between a transactional vs relationship based model. in the former, the objective is to simply sell something i.e. complete a transaction and hope that that transaction leads to future transactions.
in the latter, the focus is on really getting an understanding of what the customer wants/needs so that you can proactively meet that need i.e. trying to be one step ahead of the customer.
It's hard for me to envision any pure transactional sales. At first I thought I did, catchup for example, but that's probably not what Del Monte thinks, nor the stores that sell it. They're all working hard to develop relationships with their customers.
ReplyDeleteEven if there are transactional sales it has to be better to attempt to make them relational. The more you succeed in doing that the more you can expect repeat sales.
i would certainly agree that it's ideal to develop a relational model whenever possible. i think this really hinges though on the economics of doing so.
ReplyDeleteketchup is actually a very interesting/good example because i view it as a commodity product. so by definition, there are generally few ways to distinguish ketchup brand A from brand B. but from a marketing perspective, if there's a cost effective way of trying to develop a meaningful relationship with ketchup customers to generate repeat sales, i say have at it.
i'm admittedly a cynic but other than general brand name recognition, i'm typically choosing ketchup based on price alone.
Amazon has done a tremendous job of analyzing data. They have tracked trends not only at the personal level (Your recommendations), but they have analyzed at the aggregate (You might be interested in), as they begin to find trends amongst segments of their customers.
ReplyDeleteWhether B2B or B2C, transactional or solution, success will be defined by:
1. Knowing what your customers and prospects want
2. Helping to educate and help them to evaluate potential solution offerings
3. Giving them a solution (ketchup or a $1 million software system) that provide tremendous value
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems have some a long way over the past 10 years, and can provide the central repository for capturing, analyzing, and acting on this critical customer information.
The advent and explosion in Social Media shortens this feedback loop and opens up the possibilities further with crowd sourcing, etc.
The era of product based marketing is soon coming to an end. The era of engaging prospects and customers in their current conversations (good, bad, or indifferent) are just beginning and will have HUGE IMPLICATIONS over the coming years.
Those that adjust will succeed. Those that don't, won't
- Brian Vellmure
http://freecrmstrategies.wordpress.com
Yeah, yeah, yeah I know, CRM, relationship marketing, yadada dadada dadada.
ReplyDeleteLet's get down to the real deal.
Is it "ketchup" or "catchup"?
http://tinyurl.com/dmp2ya
(BTW, I didn't read all at the above link, actually any of it. Who knew there would be this much on the subject??