Acquisition, Conversion, Retention

I spent some time this evening on the topic of customer relationship management (CRM). Acquisition refers to the costs and strategies related to getting customers in the door. Conversion is the process by which customers become more valuable to the organization. Retention is the goal as the average company loses 50% of its customer base over 5 years.

I think this is akin to having friendships. Sometimes it means putting in effort, but there's something meaningful about having enjoyable lasting personal relationships with history.

Since it is our actions that define us, people are more likely to trust those they know. Once people become familiar and comfortable with an interface, it normally takes something dramatic to produce change.

For example, why use some new Microsoft search engine when I've enjoyed a lasting relationship with Google for years?

See:
harvard 1 or harvard 2

Good night.

It is your actions that define you. - Batman Begins

I've been obsessed with Google recently, as I've come to love the company for its culture, mission, and values. I try to stay very close to the incredible evolving story that is Google and share it with others. If you haven't already, do yourself a favor and check out some of the incredibly useful things Google is coming out with. Microsoft is so last decade. Google will be the reigning champion this decade because Google won't be evil.

I hear that people are concerned that Google does not have a competitive advantage because switching costs are low for users. In terms of customer loyalty, I would be much more concerned that Microsoft will lose customers to Google, not vice-versa. Sure users could switch back to Microsoft, but only if Microsoft can do a complete make-over and offer more innovative products for the same price. (Free.) Google prescribes to offer useful services that scale, meaning they sacrifice features for speed. Microsoft is driven solely by profit motive rather than by an inspiring mission, and thus will always attempt to lock-in customers on their platform to purchase features they are likely not to use. People hate it when technology doesn't work for them. As Microsoft was unable to see beyond personal computing to a world of networked machines, networked services, and networked people, their operating system was built upon a faulty, insecure foundation.

I believe that Google has vision, and they have worked for the last seven years towards acheiving a goal Microsoft could not or would not envision. When the rest of the world was busy trying to cash in on the dot-com bubble, Google worked quietly towards its mission "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." I've seen that Wall Street can't wait to call this company another dot-com wonder. But if it was just that, it would have already come and gone.