Becoming a customer of choice (2010)

Description

Published October 2010. Written by Robert East, Kingston Business School.

In this review we consider the customer from the standpoint of the supplying organisation or firm. In particular, we answer three questions:

– which customers are more profitable?
– what factors should we consider when trying to target services at specific groups?
– what strategies may a firm/organisation use to capitalise on this evidence, to manage the customer relationship?

There is substantial misunderstanding in this field. Ideas have been promoted rather too enthusiastically with the result that managers have accepted a number of beliefs that now appear to be ill-founded or simply wrong.