How to become a customer-centric business

25 Aug 08 - Mark Klein

I was meeting with a new client recently who asked me what would be the effects on their business from adopting a mathematical marketing approach. I quickly responded with the obvious answers that came from my experience with many other companies, namely that they would see higher response rates and more revenue from their marketing campaigns. This was a results-oriented answer supported by multiple campaigns conducted by many different types of businesses.

Loyalty Marketing and the Stockholm syndrome

04 Aug 08 - Mark Klein

Some of my friends have helped me to a better understanding of the difference between loyalty and satisfaction.

They live in a mid-sized city in the mid-West. For a long time their city has been primarily served by Northwest Airlines, so they are frequent fliers on that airline. By many measures they are loyal customers of Northwest.

But when you talk with them you quickly learn that they are more trapped than loyal. They don’t have alternatives, and   to them the airline is “Northworst". Loyalty may be high, but satisfaction is not. If there was another carrier, my friends would switch in the blink of an eye.

I’m sure you know instances of customer loyalty being more  the lack of alternative vendors than of a favorable opinion. So how do you think  a company  should operate when many  customers who appear to be loyal are really trapped?