Are Customers Kings, Queens, or Victims?
– Musings of Dr. Jamie C. Hsu, 7.19.2018
The era of Consumer Centric Commerce has arrived. We are becoming either beneficiaries or victims of this megatrend.
Commerce has gone through major sea changes over the last few decades. In the very early days, in order to promote and boost sales, companies would encourage internal competition. That was what happened within GM when Chevrolet beat Pontiac, and Buick beat Oldsmobile.
As time went on, the focus shifted to the competitors in the marketplace. GM thus tried hard to beat Ford. While the Ford-GM war intensified, the Japanese companies came in to set up new factories and sold a lot of small cars.
After that era, a new popular way to compete for future success was to rely on strategic planning with intensive megatrend analysis. The consultants and forecasters had a field day offering various tools and services, and collecting ludicrous fees.
Since then, the latest fad has become “Customer Centric Commerce,” which is made viable and popular with big data, internet, social media, and analytics. Companies try very hard to understand their customers better, and target their services and products to the unique needs of their customers.
Nowadays, companies seem to know everything about us, the consumers. They know our purchasing habits, health records, travel preferences, hobbies, career histories, favorite groceries and restaurants, and even the status of our families.
We have become the focal point of many companies’ commerce efforts. A lot of information about us and for us is collected continuously. We receive coupons, sales promotions, appointment reminders, travel deals, airline schedules changes, weather alerts, fundraising requests, political candidate pleas, and the nitty gritty activity reports of our social media friends. We are bombarded and overwhelmed by these “tailored for you” offers constantly. Like it or not, we are now the center of attention and are losing our privacy.
Will this new era of Consumer Centric Commerce be a blessing or a curse for consumers? Only time will tell.
客戶是王？是后？還是個倒楣蟲？
-作者 許俊宸博士
-中譯 薛乃綺
以客戶為中心的商業世代已經來臨。我們正成為這個大趨勢下的受惠者抑或是受害者。
商業行為在過去幾十年當中，發生了徹底的變化。最初，為了提高銷售，公司會鼓勵內部競爭來刺激銷售額。這是發生在通用汽車的事情。當時Pontiac要擊敗Chevrolet；而Buick要打Oldsmobile。
隨著時間過去了，重點轉變成是市場上的競爭對手；因此，GM致力於擊敗Ford。當兩家公司的戰爭日趨激烈時，日本汽車公司開始來蓋了新工廠，並且賣了許多小型車。
在這之後的世代，是一種仰賴戰略規劃及密集趨勢分析，用來作為競爭未來成功的新趨勢。顧問及預測人員以天數為計，提供預測工具、時間、以及收取荒謬的費用。
自此之後，最新的流行就是”客戶至上”，透過大數據、互聯網、社交媒體和分析，變得可以操作而且受到歡迎。這些公司非常努力地想更了解自己的客戶，並將他們的服務與產品用在滿足客戶的特殊需求上。
時至今日，企業變得好像很了解我們這些消費者。他們知道我們的銷售習慣、健康紀錄、旅遊喜好、朋友圈、嗜好、職涯、最喜歡去的雜貨店及餐館、甚至是我們的家庭狀態。我們變成了許多公司業務上關注的焦點。有許多關於我們的訊息，或是不斷地為我們蒐集智訊。我們收到了優惠卷、促銷活動、預約提醒、旅遊優惠、航班時刻表變更、天氣預報、付款提醒、政黨候選人拜票訊息、甚至是社交媒體上朋友們最近的活動內容更新。我們不斷被這些所謂”量身訂做”的訊息給疲勞轟炸、且已經超過負荷。不管你喜歡與否，我們現在都是被關注的重點，也失去了隱私權。
這個以客戶為中心的商業世代，對消費者來說是福、還是禍？我想，只有時間才能給我們答案。
