If your customers don't benefit from the way you manage interactions with them, you won't get many return visits. You know that - we all do, because we all slam poor service, online or off, when we're the customer. The more I'm recognized on my second visit to a site, the more I'm offered, the fewer blanks I have to fill in, the more I'll order. Sounds ridiculously simple when you put it that way, but the fact is that there's a growing divide between companies that respect their customers' time and those that haven't given the issue any thought at all. It's especially true in the professional arena where business relationships dominate everyday exchanges.
Effort management is the key to optimizing customer relations.
You can imagine what it costs to manage these exchanges. Now it's time to put this asset to use profitably in all customer-related operations. For that to occur, you have to be able to gather the data more or less automatically, so that over time you build a valuable history around which the relationship can revolve. What's driving personalization applications is the need to shift from mass to more personalized production. Whether it's cars or computers, no one has to be convinced of the benefits of a BTO production system driven by the end-customer's order.