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Boosting Customer Value

In my recent entry "Getting to Yes" I discussed selling top management on the idea of treating different customers differently. The gist was to ensure that management understands that low-value customers will not be treated badly, but that higher-value customers would be treated accordingly. At the Gartner CRM Summit, principal research analyst Adam Sarner made another interesting point about the importance of creating a baseline for your customer experience that treats low-value customers well. According to Sarner, if you treat low-value customers poorly, they will stay low value because they have no motivation to become high-value customers. Sarner makes the point that companies need to create a value proposition between themselves and their customers. In other words, create a balance between company needs and customers needs. Having a customer strategy means thinking win-win, no matter what the customer value. Because even low-value customers can benefit an organization -- whether through referrals or growth opportunity or by spurring a company to create more efficient, cost-effective service channels. The trick is to find that benefit and use it to both your and your customers' advantange.