Using information technology to manage customer relationships: lessons for marketing in diverse industries

It is noted that progress in information technology (IT) makes it possible to capture detailed customer data and analyze individual customer purchases, even in support of marketing inexpensive, routinely purchased goods and services. The goal of this research is to suggest some potentially valuable uses of this information and to examine their strategic implications. A study of numerous companies, in diverse industries, leads to the following classification of opportunities to use IT to tailor customer offerings: segmentation of customers and identification of the common needs of each segment; differentiation, and the development of offerings for each segment, based on their different needs; and value-based pricing. Four cases, selected from a larger set studied by the authors, are presented in some detail.< >