What’s the Most Important Marketing Function for CRM?

True of false?

--With the right sales approach, marketing can always generate more customers.

--The best measure of success is current sales and earnings.

--Company value is created by offering diffentiated products.

Each of these traditional business concepts is false, argued Don Peppers, a marketing consultant and co-author of several business books, including "The One to One Manager", at the introduction of Dynamics CRM 4.0 in Boston Thursday. He and his partner and co-author, Martha Rogers, are the keynote speakers at the Launch CRM events being put on by Microsoft in 22 cities around the country over the next few weeks. (See the MSDynamicsWorld.com article about the Launch CRM events. 

"Only customers create value," he maintained in his talk to about 300 attendees at the Launch CRM event put on by Microsoft in Boston.

"Traditional marketing focuses on a need and then tries to find as many customers as possible," he said. Instead, he argued, "focus one customer and try to satisfy as many needs as possible."

What that means in practice is treating each customer differently, based on an understanding of particular needs. "Treating customers differently is fundamentally CRM" (customer relationship management).

Learning customer needs requires establishing relationships. "Relationships predispose customers to be loyal. The more the customer interacts to tell you what he wants, the more the business will come to you. If the customer wants to go someplace else, he has to teach the new company everything he's taught you. Loyalty is a very big driver of company value."

Customers create value in two ways: they generate sales and costs, and "they change their intent to buy or their likelihood to buy."