A prime piece on the chessboard

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Wanted: CEOs from India

: importance of understanding the Customer and his perceptions of you and your competition, which is an important tool to help build the Customer asset.

“So, if you accept Customers are assets requiring nurturing, with needs to be fulfilled, then we have to ask who is responsible for the maintenance and growth of the existing Customer asset and the Customer experience? Traditionally, a company has a CEO and he has reporting to him (in the hierarchy) a VP or General Manager of Quality Control, a VP of Technology, a VP of Finance, etc, but no VP of Customers exists. The closest to this position is a Customer service department. Where is the person or department with executive authority to oversee the needs of the Customer or his experience?”

“Generally isn’t the sales department responsible for Customers?” asks Doug.

“Yes, but the responsibility of the Customer rests with the entire organisation.

“Who in the company should be responsible for maintaining, developing, expanding and appreciating this valuable asset? Certainly a VP of Customers would help. He would have to coordinate a variety of functions with different end goals.

“If we can find a way to expand he Customer asset, we will most certainly gain sustainable competitive advantage.

“Some companies try to do some of this: One division of Nortel, a US telecom company, has developed a Customer Value and loyalty team reporting directly to the President of the Division, thereby ensuring measurement and follow-up of the implementation of Customer Value. The data collected is shared with employees to motivate them.”

“What is the strategy for maintaining and growing the Customer asset? Just looking at Customer loyalty is not enough (it’s the result); the real cause is recognising the Customer as an asset and then maintaining and growing that asset by increasing Customer Value.”

Doug says, somewhat sheepishly, “I agree then that there is no focused Customer strategy in my marketing plan.”

Customer Strategy

Krish adds, “What do we need to do to develop customer strategy? We have to start at the beginning.”

“Of course,” agrees Dough. “We have to begin with the reason for our being a business. I guess we have to start with our vision and mission statements and then build a synergistic, holistic, focused strategy, driven by Customer needs.”