Thursday, August 02, 2007

The Platinum Rule

Many people is small business operate according to the Golden Rule; they treat every customer according to the way they want to be treated. Relevancy Marketing empowers an organization to operate according to the Platinum Rule: "Treat every customer according to the way they want to be treated."

In the past, I worked for a business that was big into CRM. It was a sales and service company serving the business community. A hand-written thank you card went out after every sale. The new owner visited every customer at least once a year. They stayed up day after day to bake cookies at Christmas and the 4th of July that were expensively packaged and then hand delivered. A follow up call was made after every service call. And some customers though it was great! Some laughed at it, though. And some distrusted it! This was clearly a case of operating by the Golden Rule instead of the Platinum Rule.

Virtually all CRM programs can accommodate collecting the information required to operate your business by the Platinum Rule. Surveying your client base will give you virtually all the information you need to understand how the individual wants to be treated. Or, if you operate in a business to business environment, how the client company wants to be treated.

Though the Platinum Rule is focused on the CRM or customer retention side of Relevancy Marketing, it can easily be employed in a customer acquisition mode as well. By consolidating the responses of your current clients, you can develop a fairly accurate picture of how most of your customers want to be treated. Could this be the Silver Rule: "Treat my prospects according to the way the majority of my customers want to be treated."

You may find that knowing how your customers want to be treated can revolutionize the way your company presents itself to the world. You might want to ditch the automated attendant. You might want to invest in a more useful website. You will likely decide to change the frequency and format of your marketing communications.

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