Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Monday, May 19, 2008

Treat Customers As Lovers?


A friend bought a table at a local charity dinner only to discover, as the day arrived, that only seven of the ten seats would be occupied. The reason? One of the husbands was having an affair with one of the wives.

The repercussions in the small tight-knit community are huge of course but the thing that stuck with me was how the affair was discovered. The betrayed wife saw her husband welcome the other woman in a social setting and explained that "he greeted her in the way you greet a lover".

The marketing parallel is obvious. Businesses woo new customers as they would potential lovers, but all too often fail to keep the romance alive. Yet another reason to remind yourself that your customers are people.

1 Comments:

Blogger Robert said...

I always find it a bit sickening when companies talk about wanting to 'attract new customers' and yet put hardly any effort into maintaining the ones they've got other than some tawdy CRM campaign which is focused on what the company wants to say rather than what the person wants to hear.

People are not 'walking wallets' and if more companies treated their customer base with the respect they deserve/expect, then maybe they wouldn't need to spend so much money on attempted 'brain washing' to get them - or new people - to buy [again]

I've written about this before, but brands who succeed tend to be the ones who continually fight for their customers support, not sick back thinking they've done enough because back in 1972, they gave them an extra green shield stamp!

5:23 AM, May 20, 2008  

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