Clued in: How to Keep Customers Coming Back Again and Again

by Lewis Carbone

Book Overview

Good, bad, or indifferent, every customer has an experience with your company and the products or services you provide. But few businesses really manage that customer experience, so they lose the chance to transform customers into lifetime customers. In this book, Lou Carbone shows exactly how to engineer world-class customer experiences, one clue at a time. Carbone draws on the latest neuroscientific research to show how customers transform physical...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0137071124
• ISBN13: 9780137071128
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: FT Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Prohibitive Cost of Being Clueless

Warren Buffett once said that price is what is charged for a product or service but value is what others think it's worth. I thought about that comment as I began to read Carbone's book. If Buffett's right (and I think he is), the key to getting customers to come back "again and again" is to create for them a purchase experience whose importance includes but is by no means limited to their perception of price relative to value. What else? Carbone: "The tangible attributes of a product or service have far less influence on consumer preference than the unconscious sensory and emotional elements derived from the total experience." He goes on to point out that creating value around multi-dimensional, well-integrated, and consciously managed experiences involves connecting with "the unconscious emotional passions of your customers and in the process, you'll discover how to differentiate yourself from competitors in ways that can be almost impossible to copy and commoditize." I agree. In Part I, Carbone makes a case for experience management and then, in Part II, explains HOW to do that effectively. In chapters 7-11, he rigorously examines five separate but interdependent disciplines, devoting a separate chapter to each. I especially appreciate his provision of basic questions. For example, here are three which must be answered by application of the Discipline of Assessing Experience: 1. What potential impact does managing customer experiences represent for the organization? 2. How is the experiential value currently being created for customers? 3. What resources are available to improve and optimize the way your organization creates experience value? The other four Disciplines involve auditing, designing, implementing, and stewarding experiences. Again, Carbone includes for each a cluster of "basic" questions to be answered or areas on which to focus. I also appreciate Carbone's provision of all manner of check-lists, guidelines, and caveats as well as "Figures" which enable his reader to concentrate on both core principles of customer experience management and effective application of them. Throughout the book, he inserts italicized comments such as these: "No one competence, discipline, or tool will be a universal silver bullet; rather it is the experience management counterpart to Disney's coveted `pixie dust.' It's the innovative blending of numerous perspectives and competencies that unlocks the full potential of experiential value creation." (Page 117) "Designing experiences begins with the customer and ends with the customer. When clues are aligned with the customer's known desires and emotional needs, distinctive experiential value is being created. When they're not in harmony, conflicts occur and the value created is eroded." (page 190) "The clues your customers place in the positive zone today may someday be neutralized, becoming basic expectations that no longer provide completive advantage but eventually become minimum thresholds

The next big thing in marketing? I think so!!

I've got a bookshelf full of business books. I read the first few chapters of a new one, and much more often than not, up on the shelf it goes. Not this time. In a world of increasingly commoditized products and services, marketers continue to focus on building the brand...to differentiate, command premium prices, and maintain customer loyalty. How come great brands are being sent to the graveyard faster and in greater quantities than ever before? Lewis Carbone's got an insightful, provocative, paradigm-busting view of the world. Sure, how customers feel about brands is important. But, it's how customers feel about themselves when they encounter brands that drives today's differentiating value proposition. He provides an easy to understand treatise on managing customer experience, chock full of real world examples. You get to understand experience from the customer's point of view, as opposed to that of the seller. He helps you look for those clues that make experiences good or bad, and keep customers coming back, or running to the competition. Anyone who is responsible for helping to build the top and bottom line of products, services and companies can't afford not to read this book. Or, put it in your bookshelf unread at your own risk.

Finally, true dedication to understandng consumers' emotions

We researchers and marketers always have known that the concept of "branding" was somehow incomplete; thankfully, Lou Carbone not only has identified the missing customer value building blocks for us, but also has given us a framework for how to put them together and ensure they stay in place. In doing so, he has succeeded at putting the customer first and foremost to an extent that never has been accomplished to date. Perhaps most importantly, Lou has demonstrated a deep commitment to understanding consumers' emotions, and to creating good feelings for them. For all of this, I applaud him.

The MUST READ Book on Customer Experience Management

Customer Experience Management is an emerging and vitally important set of principles and disciplines that should concern every enterprise, profit and non-profit alike. Until recently, however, systematic approaches to Customer Experience Management have seldom reached print. Those that have have either failed to make the case at a deep enough level to evoke change, or have failed to provide readily transferable principles. "Clued In," by Lewis Carbone, meets both challenges brilliantly. First, as the head of a non-profit deeply concerned with the guest experience, I am well aware that the first and perhaps greatest challenge in managing the customer experience is managing change within one's own organization. "Clued In" comes to the rescue! Using compelling stories and real life case studies, Carbone illustrates why Customer Experience Management is so vital as a value proposition, and he does it in a warm and readable style that will appeal even to those who typically shy away from business books. Second, many of the recent books and articles that discuss aspects of Customer Experience Management expect too much of the reader. Most tell stories and share principles. Yet often the stories are too remote and the principles -- when there are principles -- are too abstract to allow the reader to make immediate applications to his or her own enterprise. "Clued In" is the great exception. Carbone goes well beyond the success stories of his clients to share transferable principles that you can put to work immediately in your organization. I know, because that is precisely what we've done in ours. Within weeks of the book's publication, we were already putting "Clued In" to work within several of our teams, with inspiring results. I have read literally everything I can get my hands on regarding Customer Experience Management. "Clued In" is the one MUST READ book in this vitally important area. I recommend it enthusiastically.

This should become a business best seller

There are so many business books with this or that approach to fixing what ails companies that it is hard to take them seriously and impossible to evaluate them all. What is sad about this is that good ideas tend to be seen in the same color of paint as the less than good ideas if they can be seen and heard at all.This book is one of the very good ideas that should be seen, heard, and implemented. The main insight is that companies can compete more effectively by paying attention to how customers experience doing business with them. Too often companies measure what customers think about their company and its products. Mr. Carbone makes an effective case that what really matters is how the totality of the experience makes the customers feel of themselves. This is a big difference and a key insight. Companies that provide experiences that make customers feel good about themselves are going to have happy and repeat customers.This book provides how companies can gather, measure, and use the clues customers provide through their interactions with the purchasing experience. The author discusses the methods necessary for implementing the steps necessary to take advantage of what was learned in the marketplace. Mr. Carbone is wise enough to know that getting "Clued In" is not easy, nor is it a panacea. It is, however, an important tool for competing effectively. He also points out that what is a surprise and delight today may become the standard of delivery tomorrow and new clues must be gathered and implemented to gain a competitive advantage.This isn't a long book, but it does offer substance for thought and action. I recommend it.