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You are no longer in control of your company's destiny . . .

It happened in the music business and it will happen in yours. It's only a matter of time. Customers actually take control of an industry and reshape it from the outside in. Customers decide that the way they want to use an industry's product doesn't fit the current business model.

Patricia Seybold, author of the influential, bestselling Customers.com would say that that's a revolution. Thanks to the Internet and to mobile wireless devices, both business and consumer customers are demanding that you change your pricing structure, distribution channels, and the way you design and deliver products and services. Your business must be transformed so that it is completely customer-centric, or you will be out of business.

Her advice to companies facing the customer revolution? You can fight it if you want, just as Don Quixote fought imaginary windmills and thought he was winning battles. But naturally he lost the war and so will you. Better, says Seybold, to practice "sweet surrender," just as the music industry has started to come to terms with Napster. In the words of one music executive, "Thirty-eight million people can't be criminals."

Many try to characterize the changes taking place as the New Economy, the Internet economy, or the information, knowledge, or bio-economy. There's a grain of truth to all of these descriptions, but they fail to get to the heart of the changes taking place. Simply put, what we now have is a customer economy and it's going to result in changes that you would not have thought possible even a few short years ago.

Patricia Seybold has been on a worldwide quest to find the companies in North America, Europe, and Asia that are developing the state-of-the-art practices that will help them win in the new era of the customer economy. They're profiled and analyzed in case studies ranging from small businesses to multinational giants and range from manufacturers to retailers, and service firms. They include financial services giant Charles Schwab, the British Vauxhall Division of General Motors, Snap-on Tools, custom backpack manufacturer Timbuk2, Hewlett-Packard, Medscape, and W.W. Grainger.

As she so ably demonstrated in Customers.com, Patricia Seybold is ahead of the curve. For most companies, the issue of customers in control is just coming onto the radar screen. In The Customer Revolution Seybold makes it plain that this can be either your biggest problem or your greatest opportunity. What she provides is not only a brilliant analysis but also a practical program for how you can make the customer revolution a profitable one. The companies that thrive in the customer revolution will be those that measure and monitor what matters to customers, in near real time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2074656 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03
• Released on: 2001-03-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.60 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Amazon.com Review
It used to be that developing customer relationships in a mass-market economy didn't matter. All a successful company had to do was make products that people generally liked--build it and they would come. Patricia Seybold thinks those days are long gone. Thanks to the Internet, customers matter more than ever, and companies that don't get it simply won't make it. In The Customer Revolution she writes, "For the first time in the history of modern business, it's now cost-effective for companies to establish relationships with each and every customer who wants us to know him."

Seybold outlines the principles of the "customer economy" and looks at 14 companies, including Charles Schwab, Snap-on, and Hewlett-Packard, who are in the process of refocusing their businesses to meet customer needs and expectations by measuring and running their businesses on metrics such as customer satisfaction, acquisition, retention rates, and wallet share. In the customer economy, building brand means more than creating a clever logo--it requires creating an "experience that your customers love." She offers up a set of practices--what she calls a "Customer Flight Deck"--that allows companies to monitor and tune the success of their customer contacts. Customer relationships are so important, Seybold believes that a new metric of corporate reporting will emerge alongside profit and loss, return on assets, and P/E ratios--one she calls a "Customer Value Index" designed to give investors the means to measure a company's performance by looking at the present and future value of its customer base. As with her previous book Customers.com, The Customer Revolution should be required reading for managers at any company--old or new--who are assessing the real impact of the Internet on their businesses. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly
The quality of a company's customer relations with today's better informed, more demanding consumers will determine its future success, contends Seybold, a consultant and author of the bestselling Customer.com. "Thanks to the Internet and to mobile wireless devices... customers are challenging and disrupting the standard practices in virtually every industry.... They won't be denied. They have power and they know it," she writes, pointing to the music industry as an emblematic crucible of change. Variations on this argument have been proposed for more than a decade, but Seybold asserts that it holds true for all industries and throughout the world. To help managers capitalize on this inevitable shift, she lays out three "principles" ("Customers are in control"; "Customer relationships count" and "Customer experience matters"). Drawing on 14 case studies of companies from Charles Schwab, Hewlett-Packard and Tesco to Finland's largest bank and the apparel manufacturer Timbuk2 Designs, she also offers eight steps for achieving success in this new environment, such as "Create a compelling brand personality" and "Value customers' time." But like any true believer, Seybold tends to get carried away. She directly attributes the recent turmoil on Wall Street to an ongoing customer revolution though value investors might disagree and blithely predicts that in less than five years "investors will be actively assessing the quality of companies' customer relationships." Still, her worthwhile central points come through loud and clear, and her arguments could help frame future market debates. (Apr. 3)Forecast: Seybold's solid track record, a national print ad campaign in the Wall Street Journal and the Industry Standard and an NPR sponsorship should help this book garner strong sales.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
"Expect to change your business four times a year," Seybold advises her clients regarding today's turbulent business economy. The author and founder/CEO of her own consulting and research firm contends that traditional business strategies do not work and companies need to concentrate on the customer rather than on market share. While Seybold's previous book (Customer.Com) dealt with the use of the Internet to increase sales and improve profits, here the focus is on how to attract and retain customers. Part 1 analyzes three core principles that will create new strategies for reshaping customer relationships; Part 2 outlines her "eight steps to success" and details how to apply these strategies using examples from case studies of large and small companies that have embraced the new customer economy. With each case study, she offers suggestions for improvement and change, as well as measurement grids to assess results. The author is on target and provides sound, practical business advice; however, the material could have been abbreviated. Nonetheless, it is recommended for libraries with specialized business management collections. Bellinda Wise, Nassau Community Coll. Lib., Garden City, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.