Clienteling is not just about retail

At Dreamforce 2014 (Salesforce.com’s annual event), executives from Louis Vuitton showed how their founder carried a little black book where he captured his client interactions. This diary helped him engage in a personalized and meaningful dialog with customers. Fast forward to today and the talk of “Clienteling” is everywhere. It is possible now to make information available to the store associates which can help them engage and service the customers much better. Everything is fair game – past transactions, social interactions, coupons redeemed, coupons not redeemed, merchandise browsed both online and in the store, among many other things. No doubt, this is ushering in an exciting era of customer service and sales. The premise is that by providing a seamless experience to the customers, and by offering them the right product at the right time, we will not only secure higher sales, but also higher customer satisfaction and stronger loyalty. If we extract the fundamentals of this exciting story line, the most important aspects can be applied not only to other consumer oriented areas such as banking, insurance, travel and hospitality, but also to many other areas that have not yet caught up to the marketing bandwagon. For example, how about the area of investments management, or the business of B2B industrial distribution? These areas don’t look that cool, but as we review case studies of what several firms in these areas are doing, the “Clienteling”  concept really starts to shine. And we come to see that these exciting initiatives are hidden under other topics such as sales process improvements. For each […]

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