Sharing not exploitation

I think we are heading for more trouble, well some brands both big and small. We’ve spent the last fifty or so years (perhaps more) encouraging several generations of customers to demand more and more even when they didn’t need it. Now those demands are outstripping businesses ability to meet it.

Overnight, technology, people and economics have collided to create a new market, a new desire, a new need. No longer can we control and exploit customers. We can’t keep them on the threshold of our businesses and carry on with a transactional relationship. We have to invite them in to fully participate in what we are doing.

Like it’s employees/managers, customers are just as important stakeholders as the owners of the business. The word ‘shareholder’ will have a very different meaning in the future.