Dr. James Barnes

Dr. James Barnes is an internationally recognized author, consultant and speaker, and an authority on the subjects of customer strategy and relationship building. Jim Barnes provides the most insightful understanding of customers and stresses the importance of customer insight to drive strategy. He demystifies complex concepts like customer expectations, value and experience, and shows how a well-crafted customer strategy will lead to meaningful, profitable customer relationships. He regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry conferences and leads management strategy sessions and workshops for companies in many countries.

For more than 30 years, Barnes has played a major role as strategic advisor to many leading Canadian and international companies, including Aliant Telecom, eircom (Ireland), Tesco (UK), Rogers Cable, Kraft Foods Canada, SYSCO, Eli Lilly-Elanco, Molson, CCH Canadian, Xerox, McGraw-Hill, AstraZeneca, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Royal Bank of Canada, Genzyme Canada, Starwood Hotels, and IKEA International.

He was one of the first Canadians to receive the Leaders in Management Education award from The Financial Post. He was elected a Fellow of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association of Canada.

Barnes's eight books include Secrets of Customer Relationship Management; It's all about How You Make Them Feel, published by McGraw-Hill, and translated into four languages. His latest book, Build Your Customer Strategy: A Guide to Creating Profitable Customer Relationships, was published by John Wiley & Sons in September 2006.

Secrets of Genuine Customer Relationship Management: How Do You Make Them Feel?

Who Should Attend?

Senior executives, marketing VP's, chief marketing officers, sales managers, sales staff, relationship managers, customer service managers, public-sector executives.

What You'll Learn

My view of customer relationships is that the principles are the same as they are with other human relationships. The fundamentals of relationships are the same, regardless of the setting. Essentially, a relationship is an emotional concept. Customers do form close, lasting relationships with companies and brands. There is ample evidence of such relationships, most often couched in terms of brand or company loyalty.

Is the notion of developing long-lasting relationships with customers a viable, defensible concept? Of course it is. We would get almost universal agreement on this point. The payback to be realized is obvious. What is less obvious is exactly what a customer relationship is and how we achieve it; from the customer's perspective.

Many companies believe they already have relationships, but their customers disagree. A relationship is more than the retention of customers or repeat buying.

The customer has to feel a relationship. Many firms pride themselves on being customer focused, where the emphasis is on customer service. But that is different from an emphasis on relationships. There are dangers in being merely customer-focused.

This keynote takes you through the principles that underlie the establishment of solid, genuine customer relationships. It explores relationships from the customer's perspective and identifies the strategies necessary for companies to form profitable long-term relationships with customers.

This keynote will start you down the road to becoming a relationship-focused company; gaining the upper hand on your merely customer-focused competitors who are still carrying on business the way they were 20 or 30 years ago. Lots of content to start you thinking like your customers.

What We'll Talk About:

·How marketing thinking has evolved

·What it means to be relationship-focused

·Why being merely customer focused is not enough

·Understanding the drivers of customer satisfaction

·Why relationships must be genuine, not artificial

·Why most companies really don't understand their customers

·Why managers and customers are on different pages

·Understanding the "hard" and the "soft" view of the value proposition

·You must be able to create relevant value for your customers

·Why merely satisfying them is not enough

·Why loyalty programs have nothing to do with loyalty

·Building a meaningful relationship is the answer

·Why Lance Armstrong is right!

· "Planned spontaneity" is the answer

·Demonstrating that the payback is tremendous