Managing Customers

Challenge of Managing Customers

While on the surface the process for managing customers may seem to be intuitive and straightforward, in reality organizations struggle to accomplish this.  One reason for the struggle is that no two customers are the same.  What is appealing to one customer may not necessarily work for another. 

For instance, a marketer may change how it issues coupons to customers by reducing the frequency of issuing coupons by regular mail and instead directing customers to electronic coupons found on its website.  The marketer makes this move to encourage customers to visit the website more often with the hope it will lead to cost savings (e.g., sending out traditional coupons by mail requires postage expense), allow the marketer to acquire more customer information (e.g., monitor their activities when they visit the website), and give the marketer the opportunity to sell more product to the customer (e.g., special promotional messages on the website).  However, some long time customers may view electronic coupons as requiring more work on their part compared to coupons delivered through regular mail.  In this example the introduction of a new feature may satisfy some customers while irritating others.