Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

For instance, while conducting workshops with Japanese executives, I’ve been struck more than once by the propensity that managers from this country have to combine forces with their competitors, rather than do battle with them. Cooperating and building relationships, even with opponents, just seems to be a natural instinct. And in Germany, I have sometimes detected a kind of uneasiness with the notion that customers might all be different. In fact, after one of my first presentations on the subject in that country, a decade ago, one executive actually commented for the audience that he didn’t think treating different customers differently would work in Germany like it does in the US, because “we’re all Germans here.” He was serious.

In any case, the next morning a brilliant, sparkling sun illuminated our table as I met the client CEO over breakfast, and I found myself increasingly impressed – actually, amazed – at both the quick pace and sweeping scope of his thinking, and the entrepreneurial zeal he showed for the practical business benefits of better customer relationships. A Lebanese national, the CEO spoke excellent English in a rapid-fire cadence, and it was quickly clear to me that this man was a truly “global” business executive. Rather than the CEO of a Turkish telecom firm, he could just as easily have been the head of an American investment bank or a Silicon Valley IPO.

I guess the point of my story is that while the priority given to 1to1 marketing might vary a little bit from country to country, culture to culture, the simple fact of the matter is that as globalization pushes all businesses to compete more efficiently, building relationships with customers will become a higher priority for everyone. Because of increasingly globalized competition, in other words, best practices in 1to1 marketing are spreading around the world faster and more persuasively than ever.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this “global acceptance” of 1to1 in their own travels?