This is yesterday's game. The true contest is to build stronger loyalty. And examples Deloitte Consulting has hit upon of how US companies are tackling the challenge across all industries should make SA companies sit up and take notice. The lack of direct customer interaction in the consumer products industry limits the availability of and access to data about consumers that is the very stuff of effective CRM, and forces manufacturers in the industry to come up with ingenious ways of winning customer loyalty by giving them a service that is as individually focused as possible. A good example cited by Deloitte is clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss, which is installing kiosks with Internet access in its stores to let customers design their own jeans online.
Customers choose from a variety of colours, shapes, styles and sizes.
This technology also gives the company scope to charge higher prices, reduce its inventory costs and more accurately determine what consumers really want. Pharmaceutical companies are looking to build customer loyalty by developing a range of drugs to treat different aspects of the same disease. This is a cross-selling exercise, one of the key features of CRM and designed to capture a greater share of the customer's wallet. But added to this budgetary shift is another trend which is almost mind-boggling in its implications. Clearly the chances of a rival company winning over a consumer who has been targeted as fundamentally as this are close to zero.