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You Don’t Own That Customer
By Jeffrey Eisenberg
March 16th, 2009
John Gaffney’s “Ruining the fantasy of customer ownership” is worthy of a high-five. Read the entire post, it’s short, but don’t miss the conclusion:
“…at no time does a brand own a customer. That chain is cut loose too easily. Brands that approach the online marketing space for customer ownership will be disappointed. Come looking for that precious bit of attention, and marketers get paid in full.”
About the author
Jeffrey is the co-author of New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling books Call to Action and Waiting For Your Cat to Bark. Jeffrey is available as a professional speaker. You can friend him on Facebook or LinkedIn.
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March 16th, 2009
12:45 pm
Hi Jeff,
I agree this is a fascinating post and important wake up call for some, but also a few points of debate:
1. Owning a customer can mean owning the customer relationship, when used in the context of a dispute or dialog between two partners that involve company data. Relationship can mean privileged use of data or right to contact in that context.
2. a brand winning in a zero sum game space – could apple be said to “own” its devotees in the personal computing, personal audio, or smartphone spaces?
As long as one isn’t so unbalanced as to assume ownership means actual ownership of a person, there might be some value in that bathwater still??
August 16th, 2009
12:59 pm
Isn’t that the truth. A customer *always* has a choice, and there are always alternatives.