JIM BARNES
PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY, NOW PRINCIPAL AT BMAI STRATEGY
Jim Barnes is an educator, author, entrepreneur and consultant. Passionately curious about customers, he has spent a career listening to them and sharing what he has learned with others.
1. The customer is often right.
2. You can’t do great marketing unless you really understand the customer and what she is trying to get done. Most of us don’t invest nearly enough time listening to customers and truly getting to know them.
3. What we sell is only part of the value proposition. How we treat the customer and how we make her feel is much more important.
4. Avoid cutting prices if you can. Once you start discounting, there’s only one way to go and that’s down. The better strategy is to add value that the customer is prepared to pay for.
5. You don’t want, can’t get, and shouldn’t have all of the customers. Be selective and court only those that fi t with your brand and business.
6. At the end of the day, customers are people. They’re not accounts, data points, targets or bodies—all of which are terribly depersonalizing concepts.
7. Find out what customers dread and then help them avoid it.
8. By my reckoning, half or more of human conversation is about things people have bought or companies and brands they’ve dealt with. You have to make sure they have good things to say about you .
9. They don’t really need what you are selling; they need a compelling reason to buy from you rather than from the guy down the street. You have to give them that reason.
10. Most customer experiences are exceedingly mundane and anything but memorable. The challenge is to create meaningful experiences.
11. Just because people come back again and again to buy doesn’t mean they are loyal. There’s repeat buying and then there is genuine loyalty.
12. Customers think inside the box, too. Their expectations are predictable and not diffi cult to exceed. Simply meeting expectations does not lead to loyalty.
13. Some companies could be far more profi table if they would only pay more attention to what they are doing that drives customers away. Get rid of irritants and stupid rules.
14. Customers want fi rms to be proactive. One of the most damning things I hear from customers is “I never hear from them.” There can be no relationship without communication.
15. Customers aren’t expecting to be surprised.
16. Loyal customers want their loyalty acknowledged. Think about how many complaints begin with “I’ve been a customer of yours for 30 years!” They deserve to be treated better .
17. At least 50% of marketing research spend is wasted, and it is possible to tell which 50%.
18. One of the most important “marketing” decisions you will ever make is hiring.
