Romancing the Customer: Maximizing Brand Value Through Powerful Relationship Management

Citation

Chapman, K.J. (2003), "Romancing the Customer: Maximizing Brand Value Through Powerful Relationship Management", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 372-374. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760310483711

Your CRM program will undoubtedly enhance the value and equity of your brand. It will build customer relationships, increase brand loyalty, attract new customers, and make your brand a true friend to all of your customers. Through dialogue and interaction, CRM will make your customers feel appreciated and wanted. They will feel genuine affection for your brand. A well‐planned and executed CRM program will put the romance back into your brand‐customer relationship (p. 186).

Who would have known? I thought I was reading a book on marketing and I actually received friendship and marriage advice. Yes, getting to know your customers in order to serve them better is a key element to long‐term success in business and a focal element of the marketing function; however, the relationship with a customer is not the same as a relationship with a friend. I must confess that I felt the authors take the metaphor of CRM to an extreme. For example, the authors state that “Brands can add romance to the lives of the most ordinary of people” (p. 7), and, “You will be [the customers’] best friend, the person they turn to when they need help, guidance and, ultimately, someone to buy from” (p. 31). I cannot remember the last time I had, or for that matter, wanted, romantic involvement with a company.

Although this book has some good ideas for someone who is new to the world of CRM, its consistent and excessive statements that the relationship one builds with a customer is like the bond with a special friend is a bit ludicrous – customers do not want romance from companies. Most customers want a company that is reliable (Will my cell phone work as expected?), that can be trusted (the phone company will behave in an ethical manner and treat me as a valued customer), and that communicates in an efficient, effective, and appropriate manner (my call to the phone company gets me the answers and solutions I need in a timely fashion – OK, this might never happen with a phone company – but, you get my point). Yes, some of the basic premises of trust between a friend and a brand are similar, but I really do not want to be married to Sears. My relationship with Sears or any other company will never be remotely close to the relationship I have with friends or loved ones. Given the terrible service I get from most businesses, before they try to romance me, perhaps first they should train their front‐line employees to treat me like a human being, let alone, a valued, paying customer.

Romancing the Customer distills in a mere 211 pages basic ways to build customer loyalty by serving your customer well and in the manner they want to be served. The book is an easy read that anyone new to the CRM world might appreciate. The authors use numerous examples throughout the book, and each chapter includes one or more short cases to illustrate points. In fact, these short cases are a considerable strength of the book. It is nice finally to see CRM anecdotes other than the ubiquitous Ritz‐Carlton example embedded in every marketing textbook. Another nice aspect of these caselets is that not a single subject is a US firm (The one US company example is Ford, but it is Ford, UK). Thus, the book has a nice international flavor to it. This aspect alone makes the book valuable as a teaching tool for instructors looking to add some international examples to a course.

The book has ten chapters, including: “CRM and brand value”, “CRM explained”, “Brand‐building benefits of CRM”, “Organizing for brand management and CRM”, “Building brand value through customer profitability”, “Implementation strategy”, “Making your brand more customer‐focused”, “Final steps and touches”, “New media: the challenges for branding and CRM”, and “Romancing your customer: are you ready?” Of these ten chapters, three stand out as comparatively more interesting and compelling.

In Chapter 3, “Brand‐building benefits of CRM”, the authors introduce the reader to the basics of CRM. This includes having dyadic communication with the customer, making it easy for a customer to interact with your business, how to use CRM to get to know your customer better, and the value of existing data (pp. 29‐30). However, the heart of the chapter addresses how CRM can help build your brand and business. The authors succinctly and clearly explain how CRM can be used as both an offensive and defensive strategy to attract and keep customers, sell more to existing customers, and “shield customers from approaches by your competitors” (p. 37). Furthermore, the authors discuss how CRM can lead to increased returns on brand investments, stronger and cheaper customer acquisition rates, increases in customer referrals, lower rates of customer defections, a way to clearly express a brand personality, increased staff loyalty, more effective use of advertising and promotion budgets, and increased profits and overall brand value. This chapter has two short cases from Mercedes‐Benz and British Airways that aid in bringing the issues alive. Finally, compared to other chapters, this chapter has a fair amount of data to support the authors’ contentions. The use of data to substantiate claims is something I would have liked to have seen more of in other chapters.

Another noteworthy chapter is Chapter 7, “Making your brand more customer‐focused”. The title to this chapter is a bit misleading as the chapter focuses on the planning and implementation of the CRM strategy. The chapter addresses some basic financial considerations (cost/benefit), then the authors guide the reader through the process they, as consultants, would go through to help a company begin a CRM strategy. The authors discuss a six‐step process including: auditing the system – an investigation into existing information technology systems, auditing the data – an assessment of the quality of existing data, auditing existing customer relationships – analysis of customer’s attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, satisfaction, etc., auditing financials – analysis of cost, sales, and profit related data, creating a CRM strategy – a “blueprint” of how to best serve the customer while increasing sales, profits, and brand image, and, creating tactical CRM programs – addresses the implementation details of the CRM program.

Finally, in Chapter 8, “Final steps and touches”, the authors focus on the value of partnerships. Developing partnerships has become a very common model of business, and this chapter does a nice job of introducing the value and implementation of partnering. Using examples from their consulting business, the authors present a five‐step partnering process that includes:

1. 1.

   (1) Finding what will attract potential partners. Here the authors argue that a company needs to consider why someone would be interested in becoming a business partner with the firm. The authors get the reader to consider issues such as: What data do you have that might be valuable to a partner? What are your company’s core competencies that a partner might value? What advertising and marketing activities are planned off which a partner might be able to “piggyback”?

2. 2.

   (2) What else might you be able to sell to your customers? The authors argue that a company should look for products that are associated with their core business and are of interest to their customers, and then find a partner to offer this product.

3. 3.

   (3) Research your ideas. They suggest conducting focus groups to ensure the new offering makes sense to your customers.

4. 4.

   (4) Selecting potential partners. Here, the authors discuss how important it is to carefully select a partner and to consider things such as synergies of branding and market position, corporate cultures, and partnering objectives.

5. 5.

   (5) Defining your marketing programs. Finally, the authors discuss how to work closely with a partner to develop joint marketing programs.

A significant shortcoming of Romancing the Customer is that the authors scarcely address how technology is becoming synonymous with CRM. Nowadays, when someone talks about CRM, it inevitably means how software, computers, and the Internet can help a business collect, manage, and use data about its customers to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their marketing and sales efforts. Do not buy this book if you are trying to understand how mySAP.com or a Siebel system gets implemented or will add value to your business.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is relatively new to CRM and wants to read something to get a few basic ideas. Romancing the Customer does give a good overview of the many ways in which adopting a CRM orientation will, and should, permeate nearly every aspect of business, including partnering, product development, research, and internal marketing. In fact, a particularly valuable message that weaves its way throughout the book is that being a customer‐centric business means empowering front‐line employees, which is important because happier employees means happier customers. “Remember, as far as your customers are concerned, each member of your staff is the company. You have given them the responsibility of representing your company and your brand each and every day” (p. 119). The authors clearly convey that any CRM program is only as successful as its implementation by front‐line employees.

All‐in‐all, reading this book should convince you of the value of CRM. Indeed, after reading Romancing the Customer, not only will you want to be more customer‐centric, but you might also want to write a romantic sonnet or two to those top‐tier customers.