Keeping customers happy is good business 101, so we marketers obsess about it. We track their satisfaction and we train our employees to be responsive. We hire management consultants to help us please our customers and we champion customer centricity in every nook and cranny of our organizations. Because happy customers are better customers.
There are many different approaches to keeping customers happy, but they all share one thing in common: customer attitudes are viewed as an output issue. The consequence (or output) of what we do at every exchange and touch point should be happy, satisfied customers. But what about the attitudes that customers themselves bring to marketplace interactions? Are customers who are happy to begin with the best customers of all? Is there a competitive advantage to be realized from thinking about customer happiness as an input issue? Should customers and prospects be targeted based on their positive attitudes?
In a word, the answer is yes.
Groundbreaking research conducted by DIRECT and Yankelovich Inc. (
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