Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever

1. Does everyone remember the Burger King slogan “Have it your Way?” The idea was for the customer to have a burger anyway they wanted it. This was done at a time when it was unorthodox to offer a customer exactly what they wanted, as opposed to mass production. Then, marketing was huge in selling a product and often a sole focus – the cola wars are a perfect example.

Did Burger King have it right? Do you think this was effective in building a relationship with a customer or was it overkill?

Thoughts?

2. In “Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever”, customer sacrifice is discussed (what the customer wants and needs and what the Company can actually supply, page 113). Please review in the paper and review/respond to the below:

Give an example of customer sacrifice – feel free to put yourself in the role of Chief Marketing Officer of a company. Pretend you need to give an elevator speech to the Board on a new proposal for your company. This proposal involves a new product and resources that must be used from multiple departments to support this product. You have concerns this product may detract from other resources.

Please comment on this in few lines:

Recently, I’ve decided to invest in a new laptop as mine was on the edge of death. After researching and asking around, Apple’s MacBook Air seemed to be the best option for my needs: A light computer (I hate carrying heavy bags all around NYC all day long), a good speed, a lot of storage capacity and a French keyboard. This is when I experienced customer sacrifice with this purchase: Indeed, even if I was in need of a new computer ASAP, in order to get a French keyboard, which is considered as a customization feature by Apple, I had to place an order and wait a little over 2 weeks to actually get my computer since NYC’s Apple Stores don’t have any computers with French Keyboards, they all sell laptop with American keyboards in their retail stores, and the only way to get another keyboard language is to order the computer and literally have it MADE for you, which I thought was pretty awesome even if it makes me wait long to get my MacBook Air – This is also a good example of what the “Do you want to keep your customers forever” article considered called mass-customization even if Apple may not be expert at it yet. Consequently, since my new computer will be made for me, it has to be delivered straight from its manufacturing center to my door which can be very convenient for people with doormans, but can become very worrisome for persons like me who lives in pre-war buildings without any doorman, package room, or intercoms. I tried to ask an Apple representative to get my computer delivered at the nearest Apple Store but it was basically not an option. I don’t want to sound like someone who’s complaining as I’m actually thrilled about this new computer and pretty satisfied with Apple Customer Service as they were very responsive, nice, and knowledgeable. However, I think that this recent experience is a good example of customer sacrifice as I only had two choices which both represented a sacrifice on my side:

1. Abandoning the idea of getting a French keyboard on my new laptop in order to be able to get it directly from a physical Apple Store without delivery issues or any waiting time due to special manufacturing. Here the customer sacrifice would have been to not get my preferred keyboard.
2. Move forward with my initial request: a MacBook Air with a French keyboard, but having to sacrifice the comfort of picking it up straight from a store without having to worry about delivery circumstances and manufacturing waiting time.

Attachment for number 1:

Attachment for number 2 is the file