Despite what the old adage says, the customer is not always right. Even companies that can seemingly do no wrong—like the coffeehouse giant Starbucks—have only recently started to figure this out.
Starbucks is one of many companies that has successfully executed a pivot that puts the company in a customer-centric mindset, an approach that Wharton professor Peter Fader describes in Customer Centricity. Fader advocates that in the world of customer centricity, there are good customers . . . and then there is pretty much everybody else.
In a new preface and afterword to Customer Centricity, Fader reflects on how the landscape has changed over nearly a decade since he first proposed that businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers. Using examples from Starbucks, Nordstrom, and more, Fader provides insights to help you understand why customer centricity is the new model for success in today's data-driven environment; how the ideas of brand equity and customer asset value help us understand what kinds of companies naturally lend themselves to the customer-centric model and which ones don't; why the traditional models for determining the value of individual customers are flawed; how executives can use customer lifetime value (CLV) and other customer-centric data to make smarter decisions about their companies; and more.
As a leader in your organization, you will be very familiar with your organization's key financial statements and monthly management reports. You may have spent countless hours discussing budgets and expenditures.
But how much time have you spent reflecting on the fact that these revenues are generated by actual customers-the people who pull out their wallets and pay for your products and services? In The Customer-Base Audit: The First Step on the Journey to Customer Centricity, experts Peter Fader, Bruce Hardie, and Michael Ross start you on the path toward really getting to understand your customers' buying behavior as well as the health of your overall customer base.
A customer-base audit is a systematic review of the buying behavior of a firm's customers using data captured by its transaction systems. It will help you answer questions such as: How healthy is your customer base? How realistic are your growth objectives?; How do your customers differ in terms of their behavior and value?; How has the quality of your customers changed over time?; What changes in customer behavior lie behind period-to-period changes in firm performance?; What is important to your high-value customers?; and Which products help you acquire and retain your best customers?
How did global gaming company Electronic Arts go from being named 'Worst Company in America' to clearing a billion dollars in profit?
They discovered a simple truth-and acted on it: Not all customers are the same, regardless of how they appear on the surface. The most successful companies, from Amazon to Best Buy, understand their best customers are their most valuable asset, and they tailor their acquisition, development, and retention efforts to those customers.
In The Customer Centricity Playbook, Wharton School professor Peter Fader and Wharton Interactive's executive director Sarah Toms help you see your customers as individuals rather than a monolith, so you can stop wasting resources by chasing down product sales to each and every consumer.
Fader and Toms offer a 360-degree analysis of all the elements that support customer centricity within an organization. In this book, you will learn how to: develop a customer-centric strategy for your organization; understand the right way to think about customer lifetime value (CLV); finetune investments in customer acquisition, retention, and development tactics based on customer heterogeneity; foster a culture that sustains customer centricity; and more.
Not all customers are created equal.
Despite what the tired old adage says, the customer is not always right. Not all customers deserve your best efforts: in the world of customer centricity, there are good customers...and then there is pretty much everybody else.
Upending some of our most fundamental beliefs, renowned behavioral data expert Peter Fader, Co-Director of The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative, helps businesses radically rethink how they relate to customers. He provides insights to help you revamp your performance metrics, product development, customer relationship management and organization in order to make sure you focus directly on the needs of your most valuable customers and increase profits for the long term.
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