will be invaluable.
We have dramatically increased the emphasis on the financial issues that often confound marketers as they try to justify the business value of a better customer experience that may cost money in the short term. We've also radically reshaped the sections on customer analytics, to empower marketers with the knowledge they need to have intelligent conversations with the quantitative analysts, and to make objective, data-driven decisions without having to write an equation or calculate a standard deviation.
How to Use This Book
Each chapter begins with an overview and includes these elements:
Glossary terms are printed in boldface the first time they appear in a chapter, and their definitions are located in the full glossary at the end of the book, and all of the glossary terms are included in the index for a broader reference of usage in the book.
Sidebars provide supplemental discussions and real-world examples of chapter concepts and ideas.
Food for Thought discussion questions for each chapter appear at the end of Part I, Part II, and Part III of the book.
We anticipate that this book will be used in one of two ways: Some readers will start at the beginning and read it through to the end. Others will keep it on hand and use it as a reference book. For both groups of readers, we have tried to make sure the index is useful for searching by names of people and companies as well as terms, acronyms, and concepts.
If you have suggestions about how readers can use this book, please share those at [email protected].
One more thing: In The One to One Future we did make one big prediction that has not come true, at least not yet anyway. Back then, we made this prediction in Chapter 9, which we titled “Make Money Protecting Privacy, Not Threatening It.” If anything, recent experience has shown that there are a number of giant, even monopolistic businesses today that show no intention whatsoever to protect their users' privacy. Indeed, some businesses have become very profitable, even though they were built on the premise that the private, personal data of their users is a commodity to be bought and sold to the highest bidder (quite literally). And we say users in this case because the consumers who use platforms like Facebook, Google, or even LinkedIn are not actual customers at all. Many such social media platforms' customers are the advertisers and other businesses that pay to gain access to users' personal data—data about the products or services a user has looked at, or even about the messages a user has exchanged with friends. As the saying goes, if you think an online product is free, that means you're not really the customer—you're the product.
So in this fourth edition we have also added extensively to our discussion of privacy protection—what it means, how it can happen, how it might occur in the future, what regulations are beginning to enforce it, and so forth. But don't get us wrong. We still think that the ultimate future will be one in which the most successful companies will be trustable—proactively trustworthy. They will want to act in their customers' own interest, because in the long run this will create the most value from each customer. We believe that the moral arc of progress continues to point upward—that, over time, more and more enterprises will find it in their own best interest, not just ethically but financially, to embrace a more socially beneficial purpose and to act in their customers' interest. Moreover, we predict that as more businesses embrace trustability, consumers will show less and less tolerance for privacy-abusing companies, even those that offer their services absolutely free to their users.
In the future, we believe, business executives will strive to treat every customer the way they'd like to be treated themselves, if they were the customer. And we very much hope that you will be one of these future business executives. Enjoy our textbook and let us know what you think at [email protected].
Don Peppers and Martha Rogers Ph.D.
January 2022
Notes
1 1 Internet Live Stats, “Total Number of Websites,” https://www.internetlivestats.com/total-number-of-websites/, accessed September 23, 2021.
2 2 Amazon.com book description, The One to One Future, available at https://www.amazon.com/One-Future-Don-Peppers/dp/0385485662, accessed September 23, 2021.
3 3 Amit Mathradas, “Covid-19 Accelerated E-Commerce Adoption: What Does It Mean for the Future?” Forbes, December 29, 2020, at https://www.Forbes.Com/Sites/Forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/12/29/Covid-19-Accelerated-E-Commerce-Adoption-What-Does-It-Mean-For-The-Future/?Sh=2b6c021a449d, accessed September 23, 2021.
4 4 “US Consumer Sentiment and Behaviors during the Coronavirus Crisis,” McKinsey & Company, August 19, 2021, at https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/survey-us-consumer-sentiment-during-the-coronavirus-crisis, accessed September 23, 2021.
Acknowledgments
We started the research and planning for the first edition of this book in 2001. Our goal was to provide a handbook/textbook for students of the customer-centric movement to focus companies on customers and to build the value of an enterprise by building the value of the customer base. We have made many friends along the way and have had some interesting debates. We can only begin to scratch the surface in naming those who have touched the current revision of this book and helped to shape it into a tool we hope our readers will find useful.
We are indebted to the chorus of contributors and writers whose voices have helped to make this book what it is. As big as this book is, it is not big enough to include formally all the great thinking and contributions of the many academicians and practitioners who wrestle with deeper understanding of how to make companies more successful by serving customers better. We thank all of you, too, as well as all those at dozens of universities who have used earlier editions of the book to teach courses, and all those who have used the book as a reference work to try to make the world a better marketplace. Please keep us posted on your work!
This book has been greatly strengthened by the critiques from some of the most knowledgeable minds in this field, who have taken the time to review this book as well as earlier editions and to share their insights and suggestions with us. This is an enormous undertaking and a huge professional favor, and we owe great thanks to Becky Carroll, Jeff Gilleland, Mary Jo Bitner, James Ward, Ray Burke, Anthony Davidson, Susan Geib, Rashi Glazer, Jim Karrh, Neil Lichtman, Charlotte Mason, Janis McFaul, Ralph Oliva, Phil Pfeifer, Marian Moore, David Reibstein, and Jag Sheth. Thanks to John Deighton, Jon Anton, Devavrat Purohit, and Preyas Desai for additional insights, and we also appreciate the support and input from Mary Gros and Corinna Gilbert. And thanks to Maureen Morrin and to Eric Greenberg, and to John Westman, co-founder of Novellus, Inc. and adjunct professor at the