Just Better – How to Win and Retain Customers

Author: (English) Patrick Barwise
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: Most managers believe that only by offering a product with unique characteristics can they win and retain customers. However, the current reality is that it has become increasingly difficult for physical products to achieve differentiation. As a result, many companies turn to brand marketing, advertising techniques, and unconventional thinking. Yet, customer satisfaction has declined compared to a decade ago. Patrick Barwise and Sean Meehan argue that the differentiation strategies adopted by many companies today have deviated from customer needs. Customers are unwilling to listen to corporate hype and do not care about the subtle differences between brands. What customers truly want is high-quality products, reliable services, and reasonable value for money. However, most companies have failed to meet these basic needs of customers. This book warns today's businesses: to be practical and return to customers' basic needs. Barwise and Meehan believe that the key to success does not lie in a unique sales proposition, but in the "basic category benefits" that any company can provide, such as good service, timely delivery, and high-quality products, etc. The key is to persistently offer these benefits better than competitors. This book outlines an action framework for managers through vivid descriptions of how companies like Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Hilti, Tesco, and Ryanair implement customer-oriented strategies. It enables managers to achieve the following:
· Understand what customers truly value and why they are loyal to the brands they purchase;
· Identify basic, unmet customer needs and find suitable solutions;
· Open channels to gather customer dissatisfaction information and use it to improve business performance;
· Balance conventional thinking in strategy and reform with unconventional thinking in advertising and marketing communication;
· Create a learning culture that can continuously respond to changes in customer needs.