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The Engaged Customer
Hans Peter Brondmo

The economy is quickly becoming one that's led by services. In effect, a customer-led economy. The April 2001 Inc. magazine cover story makes this contention as well.

In "The Engaged Customer," Brondmo's thesis is that in order to effectively compete in this post-dot-com economy, companies must engage customers in a dialogue, especially via email. On a customer cost-efficiency basis, it's cheap, fast and measurable. The value of "The Engaged Customer" is found in the numerous methodologies for strategy development, deployment programs and measurement systems for email-based programs that Brondmo supplies.

He also makes the well-versed argument that engaged companies are the ones more likely to prosper in the customer-led economy. An engaged company is one that makes its communications with customers completely seamless. How many times have you found that an airline or a phone company support rep must transfer you to multiple departments to accomplish small-but-related tasks?

In the customer-led economy, it doesn't matter -- nor should it -- if a customer-service department is based in Albuquerque and doesn't have access to the web-based ordering system and its technology group in Dallas. Why should customers have to hang up the phone, call another number and wait another 20 minutes to talk with another represenative? The engaged company keeps a history of every communciation with every customer ever made. Furthermore, every customer contact point across the enterprise -- from the clerk at the retail store to the technical support rep in Seattle -- has access to that same data.

This is no small endeavour for a company of well-rounded girth, but it's what many up-and-coming companies are doing, and it's a central part of their strategy to overtake their larger competitors.

Brondmo makes a somewhat compelling argument for merging customer-service departments with marketing groups. A good marketing group ensures consistency of communications internally and externally (since acompany has both internal and external customers). This idea, while not new, seems to be a lay-up, but Brondmo could have provided more insight into the strategy and mechanics of completing this rebalancing act for several types of companies.

If there are any major quibbles with in Brondmo's debut work as a business author, it's that "The Engaged Customer" should have profiled case studies other than ebags.com, CDNow and Petopia. As of this writing in April 2001, those three companies are either hobbled victims of the dot-com downturn or extinct. Also, Brondmo does not make it clear if those companies have been paying clients of himself or his company (Brondmo is the founder of Post Communications, an email marketing company that was acquired by Netcentives). Additional case-study work with traditional brick-and-mortar companies would make this otherwise enlightening book rank in importance with Patricia Seybold's declarative "Customers.com."

-- Ben McConnell