Turning the tables: Customers tell companies why they buy and how to behave
24 May 2006
Mumbai: A just released customer research study, titled Customers Say What Companies Don't Want to Hear, throws a bucket of ice water in the face of some core business management tenets plus a number of keystone principles of the marketing, advertising and customer relationship management (CRM) industries.
Freed from the editing and selectixve hearing businesses often invokes to avoid hearing unpleasant truths, customers dish out an earful to companies about what they want, what they don't want and what they ignore and how they really make purchase decisions.
The new study is co-authored by long-time research partners Dr David J. Mangen of Mangen Research Associates and Richard A. Lee of High-Yield Methods. Commenting on the findings, Paul Greenberg, author of the industry best-seller CRM at the Speed of Light: Customer Strategies for the 21st Century, says, "Lee and Mangen have verified and amplified with hard data the growing perception that the new breed of customer is here to stay and businesses need to react or risk their very existence. Moreover, there are lessons in this study for customers, marketers, advertising agencies and CRM practitioners as well."
Greenberg adds, "Customers Say What Companies Don't Want To Hear proves a mission-critical strategic point. Businesses need to rethink their logic and develop new operating models based on customer centric behaviors and valuations."
Among the study's key findings are: