Barnes Marketing Associates

Secrets of Genuine Customer Relationship Management: How Do You Make Them Feel?

Who Should Attend?

Senior executives, marketing VP's, chief marketing officers, sales managers, sales staff, relationship managers, customer service managers, public-sector executives.

What You'll Learn

My view of customer relationships is that the principles are the same as they are with other human relationships. The fundamentals of relationships are the same, regardless of the setting. Essentially, a relationship is an emotional concept. Customers do form close, lasting relationships with companies and brands. There is ample evidence of such relationships, most often couched in terms of brand or company loyalty.

Is the notion of developing long-lasting relationships with customers a viable, defensible concept? Of course it is. We would get almost universal agreement on this point. The payback to be realized is obvious. What is less obvious is exactly what a customer relationship is and how we achieve it; from the customer's perspective.

Many companies believe they already have relationships, but their customers disagree. A relationship is more than the retention of customers or repeat buying.

The customer has to feel a relationship. Many firms pride themselves on being customer focused, where the emphasis is on customer service. But that is different from an emphasis on relationships. There are dangers in being merely customer-focused.

This keynote takes you through the principles that underlie the establishment of solid, genuine customer relationships. It explores relationships from the customer's perspective and identifies the strategies necessary for companies to form profitable long-term relationships with customers.

This keynote will start you down the road to becoming a relationship-focused company; gaining the upper hand on your merely customer-focused competitors who are still carrying on business the way they were 20 or 30 years ago. Lots of content to start you thinking like your customers.

What We'll Talk About:

How marketing thinking has evolved
What it means to be relationship-focused
Why being merely customer focused is not enough
Understanding the drivers of customer satisfaction
Why relationships must be genuine, not artificial
Why most companies really don't understand their customers
Why managers and customers are on different pages
Understanding the "hard" and the "soft" view of the value proposition
You must be able to create relevant value for your customers
Why merely satisfying them is not enough
Why loyalty programs have nothing to do with loyalty
Building a meaningful relationship is the answer
Why Lance Armstrong is right!
"Planned spontaneity" is the answer
Demonstrating that the payback is tremendous

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