Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most Patrick Barwise, Sean Meehan
For years, managers and marketers have been told that the surest route to winning and keeping customers was to give them something no one else could. They were told to innovate, revolutionize, think outside the box, break the rules, and above all,differentiate or die! But while companies were busy working on better “bells and whistles”, customers were still waiting on hold, receiving bad customer service, and dealing with products that don’t work. In a world in which customers have more choices than ever, they are still as dissatisfied as ever. What are companies doing wrong?
Authors Patrick Barwise and Sea'n Meehan argue that customers have much lower expectations than we think and that companies have gone so far trying to differentiate themselves that they’ve often neglected the basics.
In SIMPLY BETTER: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most, Barwise and Meehan advocate a radical “back-to-basics” approach that replaces the relentless quest for differentiation with a relentless focus on basic customer needs. While things like on-time delivery, quality, and good customer service might seem blindingly obvious, the authors’ research shows that most companies have been ignoring these basics for too long and that customers care much less about “unique” and “different” than they do about fundamental needs.
At the heart of the “simply better” approach is a new and controversial view of why customers buy what they do. Barwise and Meehan argue that customers rarely choose a product or service because it offers something unique. Instead,customers usually choose the brand which they think will most reliably deliver the basics – the generic category benefits which all the reputable brands provide but which some provide better or more reliably than others.
Using examples such as Toyota, Procter & Gamble, Tesco, Medtronic, Hilti, and Shell, the book shows how companies can successfully differentiate themselves by providing the basics “simply better” than the competition.
About authors
Patrick Barwise is Professor of Marketing and Management at London Business School. He joined LBS in 1976 having spent his early career with IBM. His many publications include the books Television and Its Audience, Accounting For
Brands, Strategic Decisions, Predictions: Media, and Advertising in a Recession, as well as numerous academic papers, reports, and practitioner articles on strategic investment decisions, brands, consumer and audience behavior, marketing
expenditure trends, and new media.
Professor Barwise has held a range of management roles at LBS, including Faculty Dean, Director of Alumni Affairs, Director of the London Executive Programme, and Chairman of the Future Media Research Programme.
His outside activities comprise consulting, applied research, executive development, and pro bono work, including three years as Deputy Chairman of the UK Consumers' Association. He is currently an advisor on audience research for Ofcom, the new UK communications regulator.
He is also a frequent conference speaker and an experienced expert witness who has been involved in commercial and competition cases in London, Washington, Brussels, Paris, and Milan. Professor Barwise holds a Masters in Engineering
Science with Economics from Oxford University, an MBA from London Business School, and a Ph.D. in consumer behavior from London Business School.
Seán Meehan is The Martin Hilti Professor of Marketing and Change Management
and director of the M.B.A. program at IMD, in Lausanne, Switzerland. His interest in the practical application of customer-centric management crystalized during his early career at Arthur Andersen, where he served clients in oil and gas, media, retail, and inancial services, and at Deloitte & Touche, where he was a director of marketing.
His doctoral work on customer-centric management at London Business School was recognized in the Marketing Science Institute's Alden G. Clayton Award, the Academy of Marketing's Houghton Mifflin Award, and scholarships from the
Economic and Social Research Council and from LBS.
Since joining IMD, he has focused on corporate strategy, customer focus, and marketing. He has designed and/or delivered management development programs for companies such as Credit Suisse, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Caterpillar
Overseas S.A., Hilti, Mastercard International, Swiss Re, and Toyota.
His research continues to focus on the nature and effectiveness of market orientation and customer value creation processes. Meehan holds a B.S. in business studies from Trinity College in Dublin, and M.S. in marketing from the
University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and a Ph.D. in marketing from LBS. He is also a certified public accountant.
References
“Simply Better is well titled. Admirably clear, it puts new life into old truths, contributes many new ones - and elegantly punctures quite a lot of old nonsense.”
Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO WPP
“Deserves a warm reception. Simply Better is a compelling articulation of the argument that - whilst creativity matters - high-quality service delivery is invariably the basis of success.”
Philip N L Chen, Director and COO, Cathay Pacific Airways
“Simply Better is an essential book filled with refreshing advice on discovering and delivering what customers really need. Written in fluid, engaging prose replete with examples, it deserves the attention of all senior managers.”
Bill George, former Chairman and CEO of Medtronic, Inc. and author of Authentic Leadership
“Too often, companies forget the core needs of their customers. This book is a good reminder to get the basics right. Managers may disagree with the message, but they cannot ignore its importance.”
Matti Alahuhta, Executive Vice President, Nokia
“Too many firms focus on creating minor brand differentiators but they fail to deliveron the basics of a product category. Controversially but persuasively, Barwise andMeehan reveal the competitive advantage of simply giving customers what they really want. ”
Philip Kotler, S.C. Johnson & Son
Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University
“A very impressive, provocative book-not just a repetition of what you
already know, but a frank analysis of what you can do simply better than
your competitors. ”
Helmut Maucher, Honorary Chairman of Nestle' S.A.
“Simply Better reminds us that customers' logic should always trump
suppliers' logic. It is a back-to-basics business manifesto for all levels of
management across industries.”
Nobuyuki Idei, Chairman and Group CEO, Sony Corporation
“This is a book about marketing for people who have read too many books
about marketing... [Simply Better] is a welcome book that sheds light on a
glaring deficiency in contemporary business culture... the empathy gap
that exists in all too many executive suites.”
