In B-to-B-to-C, Who Owns the Customer?

A “simple” definition of customer relationship management might be “a continuous loop between the customer and marketer in which, through interaction, the marketer better meets the customer's needs, and the customer rewards the marketer with ever-increasing loyalty.”

This is fine when there is one marketer and one end user. In the business-to-business-to-consumer (B-to-B-to-C) arena, however, the definition goes haywire, because questions such as “Who owns the consumer?” and “Who is the customer?” muddy the waters.

B-to-B-to-C marketing involves an intermediary between the initial producer of the good or service and the ultimate consumer. Examples include insurance, which is issued by an underwriter and often sold by an agent, or a packaged good, which is distributed by a manufacturer but in the end is sold by a retailer.

According to Dale Hagemeyer, a principal analyst at Gartner, a true partnership between any manufacturer (a term Hagemeyer used as a catch-all for any insurer, provider or issuer), channel partner (his term for the agent, retailer, catalog or Web site that sells the item, yet is not part of the manufacturer) and consumer includes a benefit for all three parties.

At Gartner's CRM summit in Baltimore last month, he noted that one example of this is Maytag.com, which allows consumers to choose the features they want in durable goods. These are then shipped to the retailers, which also function as service centers and — should the durable goods prove to be not so durable — return centers.

Is this a win-win-win situation for all parties? You bet. Maytag.com gets customers more involved in its products, so they stand a good chance of being more loyal. Retailers sell more product as well — and they do so without requiring sales staff on the floor.

The retailers are also tapping into an audience they might not have otherwise captured: Hagemeyer estimates that half the orders that come through the Web site are done outside of normal business hours.

But the Maytag example is a rarity among manufacturer/channel partner/consumer situations. The things that stop it from becoming a more common experience are either conflicting interests on one part of the business side, or territorial warfare.

Regarding the question “Who owns the customer?” Hagemeyer offered the example of a car dealer who offers a variety of makes and models. Ford wants to see all of a dealer's customers drive away in an Explorer, Taurus or any vehicle of the customer's choosing — provided it's a Ford. But the dealership's need is simpler: The dealer is happy as long as the vehicle being driven away was formerly parked on his lot.

In the pharmaceutical industry, he said, the direct-to-consumer advertising trend has upset the classic physician dynamic in which the doctor diagnoses a malady and prescribes a cure.

For data sharing between these three groups to be effective, any CRM structure — and this includes both technology and technique — has to satisfy the needs of each group. The manufacturers seek effective promotions, long-term value and loyalty from both the channel partners and, ultimately, the consumers. The channel partners want to optimize the products they offer, providing the greatest number of desired items in a limited amount of space, whether physical floor space or catalog pages or main Web pages.

And the consumers? They're looking for variety, convenience and a satisfying purchasing experience, said Hagemeyer.