Managing Customer Relationships: A Strategic Framework

The authors stress the importance of changing the organization’s focus from customer acquisition to customer retention in presenting the evolution of CRM. As a text book of sorts, the authors provide an exhaustive overview of the development of customer relationship management as a subfield of marketing and touch upon some of the more recent topics including mass customization and customer experience, providing a unique book that can be used as a text, devoted specifically to developing the customer relationship.

While Managing Customer Relationships is extensive in terms of theory and practice and illustrated with examples and case studies,  some practitioners, whether consultants, marketing professionals or managers, may find it light on prescriptions for implementing change in the organization and customer interaction. However, the book is organized more as a text or reference, seeking to cover as many topics as relevant without trying to be an implementation manual.

Now fully revised and updated with new examples, case studies, and references with contributing works from industry leaders and academic experts, Managing Customer Relationships is one of the first books designed to develop an understanding of the pedagogy of managing customer relationships. With an emphasis on customer strategies and building customer value, the Second Edition focuses on marketing accountability and metrics and advanced customer valuation approaches, including Return on Customer. The new edition offers a full discussion of the influence of social networking on customer empowerment and customer relationship management (CRM).

In Managing Customer Relationships, Second Edition, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, credited with founding the customer-relationship revolution in 1993 when they coined the term “one-to-one marketing,” provide the foundational overview of what it takes to keep customers coming back, presenting world-class guidance on:

• The technology revolution and the customer revolution
• Tools of interactivity and customization to build learning relationships
• The importance of privacy and customer feedback
• Customer insight, dialogue, and social media
• The role of interconnectivity and social networking on building trusting relationships
• Essential qualities in a firm’s customer relationship leaders

This book serves more as a reference manual for the theory and ingredients of CRM as a profession. Any marketing executive or consulting professional will find it informative in understanding and providing suggestions as to how to manage the customer relationship with good case study examples as well as examples of how to measure the success of customer-based initiatives (customer equity, acquisition costs, return on customer, lifetime value/drivers, etc.). For more on this subject, see CRM at the Speed of Light (Senteo review).