Addicted Customer Concepts Resonate at the Future of Marketing Summit

What is the major challenge facing marketing today and in the immediate future? John I. Todor, Ph.D., of The Whetstone Edge, LLC claims there is a growing disconnect between what most companies are delivering and what customer increasingly value. Customers want emotionally and psychologically gratifying experiences, not just things. The principles of Addicting Customers was presented as the solution to reducing the disconnect.

Pleasant Hill, CA (PRWeb) November 27, 2006 -- "In an era of abundance and overwhelming choice, customer relationships, not products are the most important source of competitive differentiation." John I. Todor, Ph.D. and William D. Todor, Ph.D., partners of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, firmly made this point at the Future of Marketing Summit in Toronto, Canada. As featured thought leaders they argued that the practices of most businesses interfere with the building of strong customer relationships.

Building on the concepts in his new book, Addicted Customers: How to Get Them Hooked on Your Company, John Todor provided insight into how and why today's customers make purchase decision and what leads to loyal, long-term relationships. He illustrated how customers buy with one of two distinct personalities. According to him, "most business are courting the wrong buying personality, their strategies and practices appeal to the indifferent buying personality where customers seek the best trade-off between price and convenience, and this never leads to loyalty."

"In contrast," continues Todor, "when the engaged buying personality comes into play, customer get intrinsic satisfaction from the experience further stimulating desire. Engaged customers seek relationship that enable these experiences." Addicted Customers are engaged customers. Not only do they have high lifetime value, they make the shift from buying "things" on price and convenience to valuing the relationships that reduce stress and help them adapt to a rapidly changing world. They willingly buy a company's widget but much more, they seek assistance on big picture issues.

William Todor agreed that delivering a compelling and engaging experience is essential to sustainable profits and growth. He forcefully argued, "the majority of employees are at least partially disengaged on the job. They are physically present but at least partially psychologically absent." He cited research by Gallup that showed how disengaged employees contributed to lost productivity but quickly added, "the most damaging aspect of disengaged employees is that they undermine the delivery of compelling customer experiences and this undermines long-term, trusting customer relationships."

He discussed how the psycho-economic principles spelled out in the Addicted Customers book provide a cohesive framework for courting engaged customers and stimulating employee engagement.

Addicted Customers: How to Get Them Hooked on Your Company is available at www.AddictedCustomers.com as well as Amazon.com and other book purveyors.

John I. Todor, Ph.D. and William D. Todor, Ph.D. are partners of The Whetstone Edge, LLC, a customer experience consulting and training firm that applies scholarly research on human behavior to buyer-seller dynamics including customer loyalty, trust, retention, customer service, CRM--customer relationship management, and marketing strategy. Customer care, acquisition, and client relationships are profoundly affected by the underlying psychological principles that lead to customer satisfaction, trust, loyalty, and long term, high lifetime value. Both partners speak worldwide on these topics. Information on their services is available at www.TheWhetstoneEdge.com.

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