Simply Better: Winning and Keeping Customers by Delivering What Matters Most

Simply Better: Winning And Keeping Customers By DeliveringWhat Matters Most is the collaboration of Patrick Barwise (Professor of Management, London Business School) and Sean Meehan (Martin Hilti Professor of Marketing and Change Management at IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland). A straightforward guide to what customers really want, and how to attract and keep them - not with silly bells and whistles, or trivial differences between brands, but rather by offering the solid benefits of good service, on-time delivery, and quality products. Chapters address the challenges of striving for innovation, warn against the impracticality of "inside-the-box" advertisement, the importance of distinctive advertising (far more so than having a distinctive product!), and much more. A solid treatise, recommended especially for business managers and owners striving to improve the bottom line through higher quality and better customer reputation.

In the course of my work I am required to read many Marketing books during any given year. Since I often have to recommend Marketing books to practicing managers I tend to divide the world of Marketing books into three simple categories. There are books that are: 1. Useful basic text books and reference books that cover the entire gamut of Marketing and are useful for those about to embark on their marketing careers. In Marketing the classic examples would be Kotler's series in Marketing Management in all its many editions and variations, or for European audiences the late Peter Doyle's Strategic Marketing Management. 2. Useful reference guides for those familiar with Marketing but who feel uncertain in certain aspects of the profession, such as pricing or event marketing. 3. And finally there are books that argue a definite point of view about the profession. These are the books I am most likely to recommend to seasoned marketers since they invite reflection on current behaviors and challenge existing mental models. Simply Better falls into this last category of books. In truth I rarely manage to read an entire book in this last category. Too often the point of view would have been better expressed (if less lucratively for the authors) in a business journal article. I have already grasped the major thrust by the end of the second chapter and the rest is just padding. Simply Better I read cover to cover. That is not to say that you need to read to the end to understand the main tenet of the authors' argument. You can grasp that easily within the first few pages. It is cogently summed up on page X of the Preface: "You need not offer something unique to attract business. Customers rarely buy a product or service because it offers something unique. Usually, they buy the brand that they expect to meet their basic needs from the product category - gasoline or strategy consulting or mortgages - a bit better or more conveniently than the competition. What customers want is simply better - not more differentiated - products and services." And if this paragraph seems to you in any way to defy conventional wisdom - then you will understand why this is the book that I am now recommending to seasoned marketing professionals. Simply Better is worth reading cover to cover because it deals in depth with the vexing but essential paradox of Marketing: If Marketing is so conceptually easy to understand, how come it's so difficult to do properly? That so many companies find it difficult to deliver something better to customers is powerfully demonstrated by the authors' inclusion of data from the American Customer Satisfaction Index, which depressingly show that in the last 10 years - a decade during which customer satisfaction has been more has been written about, talked about, and even measured than in any previous time - customer satisfaction is now lower than it was in 1994 - and has been lower than the 1994 figure for the entire decade.

'Common sense' and 'obvious' are great compliments for a book like this. These charges are often made when powerful ideas that no-one else has come forward with are well argued and clearly presented - and that is the case here. This book cuts through so much of the overly complex nonsense that is written about marketing and presents down to earth, pragmatic ideas that can be acted upon immediately. The case examples are terrific and the style is very reader friendly. All in all a great and useful read. This should be on every marketer's bookshelf.

If you are in management or a student of management this is a must read. Anyone from staff supervisors to CEO's will benefit from this work. In plain language with great practical examples the authors show how to keep customers and clients happy, and in the end that is how you keep customers and clients. Students of management should especially take note of the concepts and ideas outlined. Theory is one thing but this is what works. I am sure it will become required reading at both undergrad and graduate level before long. Those already in management, at all levels, will find themselves appreciating the straight forward approach the writers take to complex questions, and from that clarity become better managers. Shane Humphries General Manager and Chief of Operations Third Colony Corporation New York, New York.

... what goes on in your customer's mind, here's a chance to step into your customer's shoes. Literally! Challenging conventional wisdom on differentiation as the critical factor in winning customers, Simply Better provides a straightforward, no-nonsense approach (thinking inside, rather than outside the box) that will help marketers determine which basics matter most to their customers and offers the necessary tools and ideas for delivering them. Meehan and Barwise do a thorough job in identifying what is most important to the customer, what you can do to understand your customers better, and how this can translate into actionable tasks you can implement into your marketing strategy. By utilizing examples in both B2B and B2C markets, they have showed how companies have increased market shares and customer satisfaction levels or even drastically reversed downturns in their revenues. Some interesting thoughts include: Think simplicity, not sophistication - how Shell understood the commoditized nature of gasoline retailing and still grew leaps and bounds by offering the customer shelter from sun, wind, and rain along with a quick payment method. And unlike its competitors, it didn't run to offer them a great cappuccino instead. Think opportunities, not threats - how successful companies look at today's technological innovations, changing governmental regulations, or societal shifts as opportunities instead of threats and give their customers what they really want. Think immersion, not submersion - the authors describe several companies which have shown that immersing themselves in the realities of the marketplace is not just a way to find and prioritize opportunities-it is also key to energizing the organization and keeping it focused on what really matters. The authors have a website noted on the back flap of their book which has some interesting articles worth a read - look up www.simply-better.biz