It has been my contention for some time that building customer relationships is a journey, not an event. Well here’s some remarkable evidence that show what happens when you put a systematic program into place.
Rastar Digital Marketing of Salt Lake City has been running a customer relationship management program for Toyota/Lexus dealers for a number of years. In 2003, Rastar’s CEO, Kevin Despain told me that for every $1 a dealer invested in the program they got $32 in return. Who wouldn’t be excited about this kind of ROI?
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As a journey rather than a series of events, the program has matured over the past three years. The mechanics of the program have certainly improved. But, critically, customer trust has grown from repeated interactions and this has lead to the gathering of much more intimate information about customers.
Today, Rastar reports that for every $1 invested by a dealer they get $59 in return (http://h30267.www3.hp.com/country/us/en/case_studies/163.html).
