The Futurist: A good romance never fades

 Confronting a disruptive future, where new digital start-ups abruptly interrupt the industry with new business models, could spark new romances with your customers and sweep their feet off your books swiftly.

When this happens, to win back customers, most companies break into big data and digital innovation to revolutionise how they can attain greater customer responsiveness, and gain insights for more relationship-driven marketing strategies. After customer attraction is gained, it becomes all about retention and renewal – with in any other relationship.

But having access to big data and digital innovation doesn’t provide companies with a guaranteed happily ever after with customers. They are mere tools and if not managed well, may cast a spell of adversity on marketers – with the curse of getting swallowed up by data. It can make a marketer hesitant in making decisions without first consulting the numbers, and when you lose the ability to leverage on your intuition, you will lose precious time in engaging customers.

In the modern world, getting close to customers also means breaking down silos, products, channels and systems to make the business more customer-driven. Every part of a business holds specific data sets which should be shared to ultimately provide the right experience to the customer at the right time.

Marketers also need to have the human skills and creativity to turn this data into something more meaningful and accessible before “flirting” with customers. However, going digital has its fair share of side effects that could ruin your romance with your customers.

While it is no doubt a powerful learning machine and with a well-thought out digital strategy, marketers can turn it into incredibly effective acquisition channels. Apart from the sales made, you’ll get the real value in the data generated by the application. It allows the organisation to target customers with customised marketing messages and well-timed offers based on an individual’s specific purchasing habits.

What’s not to love about having such capabilities, right? Be reminded though, not to get ahead of yourself and make the mistake of being too eager to make a profit where you would rather sell first before making an effort to build the trust in the relationship with your customer first.

You have to be thoughtful and have the right mindset. It’s not simply about the transaction or price, nor is it the metric for an immediate transaction. The aim is to find, win and keep customers, develop a horizon for the future, ongoing work, and not to simply make an immediate sale. It’s romance, not speed dating! We need to think about lifetime value, create a “customer romance” and long-term relationships that generate a sustainable stream of sales revenue.

Despite technology changing at a breakneck speed in a business environment that’s highly regulated and bound by commercial constraints, the marketing future still depends on how well marketers build strong emotional bonds with customers.

Marketers need to be warm and human and cannot afford to be sucked into the technological quicksand. Customers will never get tired of being romanced by the brand they love and this emotional feeling will never run out of fashion. If you’re not romancing your customers, someone else will.

The writer is Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, group chief marketing officer, RHB Banking Group. The article first appeared in A+M’s The Futurist print edition.