customer. The teller's memory in this example is akin to today's data warehouses, which can store millions of data points, transaction histories, and characteristics about customers. Personal memory enabled the teller to fulfill each customer's individual banking needs and, ultimately, to build a profitable relationship with each one. The more the teller knew about a customer, the more convenient banking was for that customer—and the more likely the customer would continue to use the bank.
But during the past century, as enterprises sought to acquire as many customers as they possibly could, the local proprietor's influence over customer purchases decreased. Store owners or managers became little more than order takers, stocking their shelves with the goods that consumers would see advertised in the local newspaper or on television and radio. Mass-media advertising became a more effective way to publicize a product and generate transactions for a wide audience. But now technology has made it possible, and therefore competitively necessary, for enterprises to behave, once again, like small-town proprietors and deal with their customers individually, one customer at a time.
Treat different customers differently.
At the same time, technology has generated a business model that we will refer to as the trust platform.6 Becoming more and more prominent since the last edition of this book, trust platforms are epitomized by companies such as Uber, Airbnb, and Zipcar—and a host of others with brands that will always be in flux, but durable in concept. This kind of business depends on using interactive technology to connect willing buyers with willing sellers, while relying on crowd-sourced feedback to ensure mutual trust. Rather than a sharing economy, trust platforms facilitate an initiative economy, based on the entrepreneurial initiatives of thousands of individuals, all seamlessly connected to the larger network.
We must note that social interactions are not as manageable as a company's marketing and other functions are. The social interactions a company has with customers and other people can't be directed the same way advertising campaigns or cost-cutting initiatives can. Instead, in the e-social world, what companies are likely to find is that top-down, command-and-control organizations are not trustable, while self-organized collections of employees and partners motivated by a common purpose and socially empowered to take action are more trustable. (We'll address the distinction between trustability and trustworthiness in Chapter 3.)
Customers Have Changed, Too
The technological revolution has spawned another revolution, one led by the customers themselves, who now demand products just the way they want them and flawless customer service. Enterprises are realizing that if they really know little or nothing about their individual customers, they must capture a clearer understanding of each customer's needs. Customers, meanwhile, want to be treated less like numbers and more like the individuals they are, with distinct requirements and preferences. They are actively communicating these demands back to the enterprise (and, through social media and mobile apps, with each other!). Where they once would bargain with a business, they now tell managers of brand retail chains what they are prepared to pay and specify how they want products designed, styled, assembled, delivered, and maintained. When it comes to ordering, consumers want to be treated with respect. The capability of an enterprise to remember customers and their logistical information such as contact information, shipping address, and ordering preferences not only makes ordering easier for customers but also lets them know that they are important. Computer applications that enable options such as one-click, or express, ordering on the web are creating the expectation that good online providers take the time to get to know customers as individuals so they can provide this higher level of service.7
And again: Treat different customers differently.
The customer revolution is part of the reason enterprises are committing themselves to keep and grow their most valuable customers. Today's consumers and businesses have become more sophisticated about shopping for their needs across multiple channels, and more and more CMOs refer to this as multi-channel marketing or omnichannel marketing. What it really means is that customers will come at companies in various ways, in ways that suit those customers, and companies must be ready to present a logical, coherent response to each customer—not just messages sent through media channels—and to remember what is learned through each interaction and apply that learning to all channels. The idea is not just to make sure that we prepare and send a message, but to make sure each customer receives one. The online channel, in particular, enables shoppers to locate the goods and services they desire quickly and at a price they are willing to pay, which forces enterprises to compete on value propositions other than lowest price.
Contrary to the prevailing belief, a company is not omnichannel just because it is capable of interacting with customers in every possible channel. If the word omnichannel is to mean anything at all, it must stand for a customer experience that is seamlessly integrated across all the different channels any particular customer chooses.
This means a company can only be considered to have omnichannel capabilities if the history and context of each customer's interactions in one channel are flawlessly carried over into the next channel, and the next, and the next. Just because a company can interact with a customer online as well as by phone, and perhaps even by text and chat and social media, it doesn't mean they are an omnichannel company, or that they offer integrated marketing. A company may interact with its customers via a number of different channels, but if these interactions aren't linked together from channel to channel by each customer's own context and history, then the customer will be frustrated and experience more friction than is necessary.
A company may have the capability to handle many channels, but that doesn't mean it has an omnichannel capability. We'll talk more about this in Chapter 8.
A company may have the capability to handle many channels, but that doesn't mean it has an omnichannel capability.
WHAT CHARACTERIZES A RELATIONSHIP?
Merriam-Webster defines relationship as “the state of being related or interrelated.”8 Because we are talking specifically about relationships between businesses and their customers, it is important that we agree on a few of the elements that make up a genuine relationship. The most important issue for us to consider is how well our own definition of relationship helps companies compete successfully in the customer dimension. Rather than settle for a few words from a dictionary, let's list some of the distinct qualities that should characterize a relationship between an enterprise and a customer.
First, a relationship implies mutuality. In order for any state of affairs to be considered a relationship, both parties have to participate in it and be aware of its existence. This means that relationships will inherently be two-way in nature. This might seem like common sense. You can't have a relationship with someone if they don't have a relationship with you, right? It's a very important distinction for parsing out what does and doesn't constitute relationship-building activity with customers. Can a person have a genuine relationship with a brand? Well, it doesn't happen just because a customer likes the brand and buys it repeatedly. A customer can have a great deal of affection for a brand but, by our definition, a relationship between the customer and the brand can be said to exist only if the brand (i.e., the enterprise behind the brand) is also aware of the individual customer's existence, creating a new definition with an interesting new twist for the term brand awareness.
Second,
