The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time

This book is a departure from traditional marketing techniques and encourages looking beyond the basic customer segments, instead placing emphasis on the individual customer. This belief pertains to the idea of customer relationships and establishment of regular, individualized contacts that create the mutualistic connection between customer and business. While the information is not entirely relevant anymore, it is important to understand that this book gives us an understanding of why we use certain marketing tools. Instead of focusing on the methods for reaching customers that are discussed in the book, we read the book at a deeper level and found that it promotes the very idea of developing systems that build a stronger connection with the customer. The user guide and chapter descriptions are helpful in making it so that there is a constant quick reference to the principles of the book. Dated as it is, we can still see that the principles of relationship marketing and the beginnings of creating a relationship centric organization.

The book and its content were interesting to read, but the authors created a book so verbose that it is difficult to see past the repetition of concepts. Articles written by Peppers and Rogers offer a concise view of these same concepts written in the book, and we recommend them as a starting place for understanding the primary components of much of this book. A small departure from relevance was made in the book towards the end when the authors transitioned into discussing privacy and speculation towards the future. We believe that this was unnecessary and did not contribute to the context of customer relationships; the book would have benefitted from remaining entirely dedicated to customer relationships and the methodology associated with creating these relationships.

The One to One Future revolutionized marketing when it was first published. Then considered a radical rethinking of marketing basics, this bestselling book has become today’s bible for marketers. Now finally available in paperback, this completely revised and updated edition–with an all-new User’s Guide–takes readers step-by-step through the latest strategies needed for any business to compete, and succeed, in the Interactive Age.

Most businesses follow time-honored mass-marketing rules of pitching their products to the greatest number of people. However, selling more goods to fewer people is not only more efficient but far more profitable. The One to One Future is a radically innovative business paradigm focusing on the share of customer–one customer at a time–rather than just the share of market.

Authors Don Peppers and Martha Rogers reveal one to one strategies to:

• Find the 20 percent–or 2 percent–of your own customers and prospects who are the most loyal and who offer the biggest opportunities for future profit;
• Collaborate with each customer, one at a time, just as you now work with individual suppliers or marketing partners;
• Nurture your relationships with each customer by relying on new one to one media vehicles–not just the mail, but the fax machine, the touch-tone phone, voice mail, cell phones, and interactive television.

Leading-edge companies such as MCI, Lexus, Levi Strauss, and Nissan Canada, and thousands of smaller enterprises, have already adopted the one-to-one perspective. The strategies outlined in this book work just as well–often even better–for small companies, from two-person accounting firms to flower shops to furniture stores.

As with The Innovator’s Dilemma, we caution that this book is quite dated at this point and relies on research that notes traditional mail as a primary marketing tool. For that reason, we would recommend this book for those looking to better understand the concept of customer relationships and the foundational framework for creating a system that orients the business towards this system of relationships. The entire book may be used for gaining in-depth knowledge on the topic, but the user guide may be used as a smaller reference for any business as a reminder of how to maintain customer relationships. General managers would do well to read this book and apply the concept of relationships into everyday operations.