Common wisdom says that all companies should have a loyalty program to reward customers based on how much they spend. But in this time where pinching pennies is chic and frugality rules, much of the population gets left out in the proverbial loyalty cold. In addition, brands with low absolute margins themselves get marginalized because they can't financially justify enough monetary rewards for customers.

Loyalty is about more than how much money is spent. So why create a loyalty program that sticks to the old rules of points and discounts?

Continue reading "Customer Strategist Matthew Rhoden:
Your Wallet Does Not Dictate Your Loyalty. So Why Does It Dictate Your Loyalty Program?" »

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More and more companies are finding that social media tools can be useful inside companies for facilitating collaboration and working together. There are a wide range of products offered to companies to help workers collaborate and share information with each other, including full-suite collaboration tools from IBM's Lotus, Microsoft, Novell, and Cisco. Many of these tools have direct analogies to social media platforms. Salesforce.com's "Chatter" software, for instance, is a micro-blogging status updater very much like Twitter, but limited to those within an enterprise. It's especially good for coordinating activities at firms with employees who are either functionally or geographically scattered around in different areas.

Continue reading "Enterprise Social Media - Getting Social Inside The Firm" »

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Please help us write our next book! As we explained in a previous blog post, Martha and I are working on our next book, EXTREME TRUST. We will argue that in a more socially connected, transparent future, companies will be held accountable by customers for proactively protecting their interests, rather than simply passively refraining from cheating them or deceiving them. We're using the word "trustability" to stand for proactive trustworthiness. When i-Tunes reminds you that you already own a tune you're trying to purchase, or when Amazon warns you that a you've already bought a book you're trying to order - these are examples of trustable behavior.

Continue reading "What Constitutes Trustability in the Automotive Category?" »

Posted by Don Peppers | Permalink | Comments ()

"Because we've always done it that way" no longer applies in today's hyper-connected, customer-empowered environment. There are old, established ways of doing business that most businesspeople working today grew up on -- and the more successful you are, the more you have relied on following these rules to get you where you are. This makes it hard to accept that continuing to adhere to them will not be good for you or your company. But today, you must break these rules.

Continue reading "It's Time to Break Some Rules and Rethink Customer Strategy" »

Posted by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. | Permalink | Comments ()

How many carriers can sign the consumer pledge below?

We, as your telecom operator of choice, realize that:

1. Your lifestyle depends on our services.


2. You need our services anytime anywhere.


3. You demand your money's worth.


4. Your experience is the source of longevity of our business.


5. You have many options to choose from.


6. You need resolution right away when our services break.


7. You demand end-to-end transparency.


8. You care only when we are relevant.


9. Your evolution is light years ahead of us.


10. You expect us to "top up" our transformation, fast.

Continue reading "Customer Strategist Mujdat Ayoguz:
Building Extreme Trust -- 10 Commandments for Telecom Operators " »

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It's a great time to be a telecom consumer. Technology advances have enhanced voice and data communications. And competition has opened up because of deregulation, new emerging providers, and more choice about plans and payments. What's good for customers, however, can be a nightmare for operators if they don't take action based on this reality.

Continue reading "Customer Strategist Mounir Ariss:
Save At-Risk Customers With Safety Nets" »

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Martha and I are working now on our next book, which will be published by Penguin early in 2012. The title of the book is EXTREME TRUST. Basically, here's our thesis:

Interactions among people are increasing at the pace of Moore's Law, becoming faster, cheaper, and more pervasive. But rising interconnectedness leads to more transparency and increases the level of trustworthiness we demand from others. Businesses will be particularly affected by this because today they earn substantial profits by taking advantage of inattentive, passive, misinformed, or error-prone customers. In the transparent future, when a company doesn't proactively protect the interests of its customers it will soon be exposed and competed out of business. This is a different, more extreme kind of trust being demanded of businesses, and we call it "trustability," or proactive trustworthiness.

Continue reading "Please Help Us Define Trustability: Telecom" »

Posted by Don Peppers | Permalink | Comments ()

In the aftermath of the global credit crisis that began in 2007, many banking customers have lost trust with financial institutions that has yet to be regained. During the height of the global financial crisis the average investor saw their net worth tumble by 20 percent, according to The Brookings Institute. Meanwhile, just 34 percent of bank customers say they plan to stick with their existing bank, compared with 46 percent in 2007, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study.

Continue reading "Customer Strategist Gokhan Gumuslu: Best Practices for Retaining High-Value, High-Potential Banking Customers" »

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