Introduction

Originating in the fields of industrial and service marketing, customer marketing really took off in the 1990s: the emergence of customer databases offered a new way of understanding the consumer, and customer relationship management software made it easy to calculate return on investment [GAB 14]. Transactional marketing gave way to relationship marketing.

Of course, the reality proved a little more difficult. Databases could not capture the customer’s every facet, but a large body of research has enriched our knowledge of customer relationship management, its core variables (satisfaction, trust, engagement and relationship quality) and its tools and models (loyalty programs, customer lifetime value, etc.).

The use of computers has been democratized, the consumer Internet has been widely re-populated and a digital business has emerged on the web. The customer has become “augmented” by digital technology, and so have customer relations [N’GO 19]!

Data have never been so easy to collect. Digital marketing, social networks, etc., the range of tools available to marketers, have continued to expand, sometimes side-lining companies from the human relationship: metric-based approaches have sometimes taken precedence over people-based approaches, with the result that customers and companies have become further apart rather than closer [JAL 18].

Customer relationship management has become more developed and professionalized and is now part of the strategic management of customer management: we speak of customer strategies to designate the strategic choices and trade-offs required to make pertinent decisions [VOL 12].

Table I.1. Organization of the book and contributions to customer strategy frontiers

Alongside these developments, humans have also begun to become aware of the consequences of their consumer activity regarding the exploitation of natural resources [VOL 22]. Responsible expectations are emerging among consumers, and companies are beginning to question their practices in order to integrate sustainable development and social responsibility. However, the customer relations field remains relatively permeable to these developments, which are driven by customers, supported by organizations and, more often than not, dictated by changes in the legislative environment. Take the fashion industry, for example. For a long time, this sector thrived during discount sales periods, selling off unsold products and boosting sales through these exceptional promotions. However, a growing number of brands are refusing to do so, both to affirm their engagement with society and to remind us that their products are “fairly” priced all year round. The same is true of Black Friday, a promotional operation imported from the United States, which corresponds to the last Friday in November – the day after Thanksgiving and the first day of festive shopping. To capture this early spending, retailers offer “huge” discounts. However, as you will read in Chapters 2, 5 and 15 of this book, some retailers do not play this game and justify their choice for the same societal and fair-price reasons as those mentioned above. These initiatives reflect a change of paradigm. In the same way as brand engagement, the authors of the various chapters present the questions posed by the arrival of these societal issues and the need for brands to transform their customer relations: not to sell less, but to better satisfy the needs of customers and the stakeholders around them. Among these stakeholders, environmental and social issues are at the forefront of current thinking.

This collective work presents the new frontiers of customer strategy. We identified four themes, which are not mutually exclusive, as in Chapters 5, 8 and 12, which, respectively, link theme 1 (“Frontiers and the Environment”) and theme 2 (“Digital Frontiers”); theme 2 and theme 3 (“Inclusive and Ethical Frontiers”); and theme 3 and theme 4 (“Governance of New Frontiers”). Chapter 16 concludes the book by examining the complex management of the multi-stakeholder customer experience.

Theme 1 – Frontiers and the Environment

Accelerated climate change in recent years has prompted us to question our consumption patterns and the business models of many organizations. The evolution of our consumption can cover a wide range of realities: no longer consuming certain products and services, consuming less, or even consuming better. In all cases, it is all about thinking in terms of sufficiency. As Valérie Guillard justifiably writes in the first chapter of this book, “sufficiency calls into question the way companies are managed, their business models, their marketing strategies and, in particular, their customer relations”.

So, what happens to customer relations in this transition? Is it a hindrance? Or, on the contrary, can it play a decisive role?

Companies’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) and customer relations initiatives are often in their infancy and highly heterogeneous. Customers themselves have widely varying expectations and behaviors. This variation can be found between individuals, in line with their degree of pro-environmental sensitivity, but also within the same individual, who can behave like a chameleon according to the product category (paying close attention to waste management, but regularly taking the plane) or according to their position (responsible consumer versus employee whose remuneration system is hardly compatible with pro-environmental practices).

The issue of responsible environmental customer relations is eminently complex. It sometimes seems that every good deed hides the devil! The following paragraphs provide a concrete illustration of the paradoxical injunctions that regularly emerge when companies and consumers seek to be more responsible.

The question of sufficiency arises strongly for people with high purchasing power, who consume a lot. It is also an issue for people with low purchasing power, who consume less de facto, but potentially low-cost products manufactured on the other side of the world in conditions that are sometimes questionable, and often poorly repairable.

However, deciding to withdraw products from sale because they are not eco-responsible can lead vulnerable populations to be removed from consumption. In Chapter 2, Sarah Lasri, Lionel Nicod and Valérie Renaudin examine the example of a DIY store that has made the conscious decision to stop selling energy-wasting heaters. While this choice is environmentally justified, it also excludes customers for whom the low purchase price of these products remains the only way to access heating.

The development of second-hand or rental products may be an interesting solution. When the brands themselves organize circulation of second-hand objects, they often transform the sale into a voucher for new products, thus forgetting the logic of circularity.

The first part of the book raises the question of the compatibility of customer-oriented marketing with the environmental transition we need to undertake. The very role of marketing in our consumption patterns, but also in developments we may consider virtuous, needs to be revisited.

Chapter 1, by Valérie...