Hurd and Nyberg (2004)

Management > Organisational Knowledge and Information Systems > Lectures > Independent Research > Hurd and Nyberg > Turbulent Market Strategy > Vision > Empower employees > Qantas > Control > Customers > Customer relationship process

Customer relationship process

To build a long-lasting relationship with customers, it is essential a firm adheres to the following process:

Acquisition - identifying and attracting the right customers
Communication - communicating effectively with prospective and existing customers. "A communication strategy is a dialogue with the customer, not a monologue". Marketing is useless if you don't know what a customer really thinks about your product. To enable this information to be gathered, communication between divisions of a firm is necessary. "A problem shared is a problem halved" etc.
Retention - retaining the best customers. If a customer leaves a firm, an online company can trace that customer's behaviour with accuracy and analyse the reasons for the departure. This information can be used to prevent further losses.
Profitability - increasing wallet share, customer profitability and lifetime value. "Understanding the profitability profile of customers is an essential ingredient for success"

Integrated customer experience

A customer should always be talking to the whole enterprise, meaning there should be no disconnection between a customer's purchases on the internet, their calls to customer service and their visit to the high street store.