By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer
Other than “driving growth,” which is a ubiquitous marketing goal, improving the customer experience may be the hottest B2B marketing trend of the past few years. In explaining Apple’s success, Steve Jobs once said that his company started with the customer experience and worked back toward the technology.
With that goal in mind, many companies are confused about the best implementation approach. Dr. Peter Fader in his book, Customer Centricity, draws a distinction between two directions, “customer-centric” and “customer-focused”:
Customer-focused marketing is defined as offering customers a consistently great and relevant experience across all touch points.
Customer-centric marketing is defined as focusing on a customer’s lifetime value and brining marketing efforts to bear on the high-value customer segment that drives profits. In other words, the customer is recognized as the catalyst for increasing ROI.
The “Customer Focused Marketing” approach looks at the benefits offered to the customer while the “Customer-Centric Marketing” approach looks to define the gain realized from its customers.
Ville Levaniemi, founder of HappyOrNot Ltd., suggests that a balanced approach to building customer loyalty is best. Use “customer-focused” techniques to attract and differentiate at the start of a relationship, then keep customers by providing extraordinary experiences across all touch points that customers value the most. Integration of the two approaches will deliver higher revenue as well as strengthen customer loyalty.
Happy New Year to all Fleet Management Weekly readers! I hope you continue to find value in the “A Call to Action” column in 2018, and I invite you to contact me with topic suggestions or comments – Phone: 610–585‑0801, email me at [email protected]
Read previous columns in Fleet Marketing archives.
