Remember, one-third of customer contacts will be obsolete in one year, IBM’s Dan Flack warned the audience in a session on best-customer relationship management at the DMD conference on Wednesday. “Your database is not going to remain static,” he said. So, it’s important not only to seek out new customers, but to make sure the old ones are handled with care.
That goes for internal customers as well. IBM’s loyalty program, called Gold Service, comprises 250 accounts, and reaches out to specific employees within the member companies, because, as Flack, a Gold Service executive, pointed out, a relationship is not with a company, but with people at the company. IBM markets four product channels, but targets its communications based on which product the client-company’s employees use.
At one company, “John just deals with PCs; Mary just with Unix,” said Dianne Lucca, IBM
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