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This is the question I posed to my contacts in LinkedIn.  The question was as follows:

"Should we 'make love' to our customers?"

"Do you think marketers should stop treating their customers like wallets and instead treat them more like the people they would like to be their dearest friends, or even a desired lover?"

I received a few interesting responses, and have decided to post them here:

Lucas Allmon wrote:

While I agree with Benny to a certain extent, business IS relationships. You are more likely to do business with someone that you like than someone you can't stand.

Companies need to start treating people more like humans than just policy numbers or walking products.

While you may get a sale by being a hardass, you aren't going to retain those clients as lifers.

Hamish Taylor wrote:

Only if you're married to them as otherwise invoicing becomes really difficult!!!

Ray Miller wrote:

There is the old expression……….you catch more flies with honey than…..

Benny Greenberg wrote:

Actually befriending your customer is a poor approach to closing a sale. I have given a few e-courses on the proper methodology involved in this strategy. You need to be the expert, the person your customer looks to as the one-and-only person to buy from. Not the person to go bar hopping with. Think people - it is much easier to say NO to a friend than to a stranger. The same way you would not present in jeans and a t-shirt, or show up with your cell phone in hand, a bic pen and torn post it notes, you do not turn your customer into your friend. If you want to know more - drop me a note

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

OK, had some time to look at the viedo, but honestly - I don't understand a thing. What's your point??

Eve Morris BSc(hons), Cert DigM wrote:

I think the FSA stance on treating customer fairly gives some valuable guidance on how UK financial services businesses should treat their customers. This guidance can also apply to non-financial services businesses. We should all treat our customers fairly & with respect - not with a veneer of false friendship which could potentially be perceived as shallow & insincere.

Outcome 1: Consumers can be confident that they are dealing with firms where the fair treatment of customers is central to the corporate culture;

Outcome 2: Products and services marketed and sold in the retail market are designed to meet the needs of identified consumer groups and are targeted accordingly;

Outcome 3: Consumers are provided with clear information and are kept appropriately informed before, during and after the point of sale;

Outcome 4: Where consumers receive advice, the advice is suitable and takes account of their circumstances;

Outcome 5: Consumers are provided with products that perform as firms have led them to expect, and the associated service is both of an acceptable standard and as they have been led to expect;

Outcome 6: consumers do not face unreasonable post-sale barriers imposed by firms to change product, switch provider, submit a claim or make a complaint.

These 6 outcomes should be the foundations upon which all products are marketed & sold to customers.

As regards your love metaphor.. to take it literally - to smile at a customer can be to engage initial interest in your product, to cuddle them can be to comfort & reassure with credibility & brand reinforcement, to make them feel special is to target & personalize the relevance of your communications to them individually, and to love is to value them as an individual who interacts with your brand time & again.

I hope this is helpful - I am open to connect
Kind regards
Eve

Pieter Dorsman wrote:

No that would be too much…

I do hope some of my suppliers say "yes" but preferably just the female representatives…

Hjörtur Smárason wrote:

Depends on what you are selling, Angela

But in general, the answer is no. You should not.

I like it when brands approach me personally and appear relaxed, secure and sincere, (the same goes for people). But if you start stroking my thigh, I'm off. So don't over do it.

Cheers
Hjörtur

Geri Rockstein wrote:

Hi Angela,

I believe that a business relationship should be a professional one where each party meets or exceeds the expectations of the other. I don't believe that is treating someone like a wallet. Being treated or treating a business relationship like a potential friend or lover does not enter into the equation for me.

Best regards,

Geri

Teemu Korpi wrote:

If there can be a person more reserved than a brit then he/she must come from Finland like myself. Like John W. I would find it very troublesome if someone in the position of a salesperson came too "close".

I would rather have that relationship in the right framework that being a customer one. Then again there are certain facts that make a good customer relationship.

One vital part of marketing communication mix is personal selling. That's the contact point where the promises are kept or not. That's the critical point where the basis of returning customer relationship are laid.

So, I would keep my pants on and hands in my pockets.

Tim Chattaway [LION] wrote:

In the industry I work In It pays to be nice, even through gritted teeth sometimes.

However I work with clients/people I get along with, I know this is not always possible, but if you find clients you enjoy talking to the desire to go that extra mile for them is there. Willing to take phone calls from Clients in various time zones at 3am in the morning for example.

We all work to get paid, thats life, but whats to say we can't be nice and treat people with a bit of respect whilst they are also lining are pockets?

John Welford wrote:

I'm not so sure! If a marketer treats me in this way, I will immediately know that they are only pretending to be my dearest friend. If someone said that they wanted to be my lover, I'd get really worried!

The point is that when the marketer is clearly acting out a falsehood, how can I trust anything they say about what they are trying to sell?

This may have something to do with cultural differences. I understand that Americans have a different attitude in these respects from Europeans. As a "reserved" Brit I do not want to be grabbed by the elbow when I meet someone for the first time, and I want people to earn the right to use my first name, not to assume it. In marketing terms, I am deeply suspicious of advertisements voiced in American accents, simply because they sound, to my British ears, less sincere than those that use British accents.

(What I find even odder is the public prudery in America that goes alongside the personal chumminess. Look at the absurd shock and horror generated by Janet Jackson's costume malfunction!)

No - in the same way that I will not jump into bed with you after only one date, don't expect me to buy your product simply because you "come on strong" with your first marketing contact!

Eugene Rembor, MBA wrote:

I don't need to watch the video to yell from the bottom of my heart "YES, they should!".

Thanks so much for all of your responses.  I will be contacting you all tomorrow with your downloads.

The question will be live for 7 days, but from the looks of things, very few people are watching the video.  The question in itself is enough to evoke a passionate answer.  And viewing my video without first reading the Attention Age paper is confusing, as one reader, Eugene mentioned in his second post above after watching the video.  However, when I took a look at my YouTube statistics before writing the post, there were 72 views of the video, so SOMEONE is watching out there!!! Yeah!!!

Apparently, a lot of people do not like the idea of becoming your customer's best friend.  Opinions are also divided.  Many of the interpretations are far from what my intention was.  Eve hit the nail on the head with her analysis and explanation, and I think we can all learn a thing or two from her answer.

For those of you who have not yet seen the video, here it is again:

http://www.strategicprofits.com/66-seconds-compelling/angela-wickenberg/

Talk soon,

Angela Wickenberg

This weekend, I was flown in from Stockholm to Orlando by StomperNet to participate in the beginner fast track competition as a finalist!  I joined StomperNet in late October 2006 with the intention of gaining knowledge of SEO and other methods of gaining natural traffic. Since I am a non-technie kind of person, the creation of websites and blogs is quite an accomplishment in itself.

Although I live in Sweden, I was born and raised in a family from Louisiana that migrated to Los Angeles. I often feel I would like to move back home. My most immediate concern and goal with my business, of course, is to support my family, but I want to become hugely successful, too.   I sold my car and took out loans to go into business last fall, so I think that shows the degree of my commitment.

I am both emotional and passionate, and so I have poetically espressed the trials and tribulations of being the single mother of four children - one at university - with a large house note and of starting up a business from scratch.

A version of my presentation will be divided up in articles, where I may or may not expand concepts, on this blog, as well as the lyrics to the song that I wrote in connection to my application.  Hopefully, I will also successfully record the song and upload it. Earlier attempts weren't very promising. Not being a professional singer, I am self-conscious of uploading an inferior product.  I promised to give freebie info and products to my fellow Stompers and readers; and who better to do this than someone like me who has had to find all the free resources possible in order for my business to survive! I have collected this information over the past few years, and will soon re-organize my blog so that they are uploaded and more easily found and accessed.  More to come on this in the coming weeks.

Prior to the trip, my youngest son caught the flu and all of the others caught bad colds, so life was hectic before leaving. I was lucky to have escaped getting ill myself - just a sore throat.  After the 24 hours of travelling time, including layovers and missed planes, I finally arrived to the seminar, but only a few hours late.  I met a lot of fantastic people whom I admire; John Reese, who had a rare appearance as the Keynote Speaker, Andy Jenkins, Brad Fallon and Ben Mack, whose book I had just started reading, to name a few. It's surprising how gracious and generous these famous marketers are!  My camera was broken, but Sharon Odom Fling in the photos was so kind as to take a few with her camera.  Thanks Sharon!  Here are some of the photos from the seminar. 1st  photo: John Reese. 2nd photo: Andy Jenkins. 3rd photo: Brad Fallon. 4th photo: Ben Mack. Group photo with my new friend Sharon Odom Fling. I am Angela, the lady in red.

I didn't win the competition, Britt Taylor did, as well as the surprise gift of a BMW M5, presented by John Reese, but I had the chance to touch the hearts and minds of many others in my presentation and feel that, in a sense, I am also a winner in this competition and that my relationship to StomperNet is more than a mere passing fling.

Angela Wickenberg

It's a 40 Minute PURE CONTENT video that introduces a totally geeked-out "Cognitive Psychology-Based Web Site Design Method" that will dramatically increase the magnitude of your customer interactivity.

(Yeah, that's a lot of big words all strung together - here's what it means:)

The first part of the video is from Andy Edmonds, StomperNet's Chief Experience Officer. He teaches a technique of web design based on "Foveal and Peripheral Vision" data.

In this video, we actually measure how the human eye and brain interact with your web site design elements.  This is pure science backed up by tons of analytical data.

***This stuff isn't being taught -anywhere, not in any eBook, or any other video.

And we publish the test results.

If you just change ONE element of your web site based on these results, you could see a 12% increase in conversion.  Here's a hint: It's your NAV.

http://www.stompernet.net/jvp/aw.aspx?A=105

— Then, there are the other 4 parts to this video, each from one of StomperNet's stellar faculty…

–> Leslie Rohde unleashes his white hat technique for structuring Page Rank Distribution by creating separate site navigation for Humans and Spiders. It's called "Follow Your Tail".

–>Dan Thies demonstrates Ninja Ad Words Split Testing techniques that allow you to test huge amounts of creative WITHOUT disturbing your already successful campaigns.

–>Don Crowther introduces the 3 Critical Metrics that you need to analyze to find out EXACTLY where your prospects leave your site and exactly WHAT position your advertising should be in.

–>Jerry West shows how to identify Rank-Destroying Duplicate Content on your site (99% of sites have it) AND exactly what files to drop onto your site to re-capture ALL of your wasted Page Rank, Link Reputation and Link Popularity.

http://www.stompernet.net/jvp/aw.aspx?A=105

And that's just Part 1.

Part 2 gets released tomorrow - 3 more videos from Sherman Hu, Ed Dale, and Dave Taylor plus a BONUS!

–>A Multi-Million Dollar business case study from a StomperNet member who currently ships more USPS packages to her customers than any other business in Orlando.  She does so much business that the Postal Service is creating a custom box to ship her material in. She'll let you peek inside and tell you the dead-simple strategies she learned in StomperNet to make it happen.

http://www.stompernet.net/jvp/aw.aspx?A=105

—–

**Its official - StomperNet will re-open its doors on Thursday, May 3^rd at NOON Eastern Standard Time.

When StomperNet began it was just 2 people and a web master.

Today, it's grown to 20 Full Time and 10 Part Time Employees, 8 Full-Time Faculty Members (you just watched ONE video from 5 of them), 400 hours of Audio and Video Content, Thousands of Exchanged Links and Articles, and over 50,000 posts in the membership portal.

And on May 3^rd, we're accepting new members.  But here's the thing:

**StomperNet filled to MAXIMUM CAPACITY in less than 24 hours, and that was seven months ago - it hasn't been open to the public since. 

**The waiting list is now 7,598 people long.

End of quote.

Good people - Stomper videos are usually extremely high quality and well worth your time. In fact, they are so good they could sell them, if they wanted to.  But they're not.  It's free to watch and to download.

All the best!

Angela Wickenberg