97 Things About Ethics Everyone in Data Science Should Know

Chapter 93. A Lifetime Marketing Analyst’s Perspective on Consumer Data Privacy

Mike McGuirk

Faculty Member, Babson College

In today’s business environment, more and more companies are adopting customer-centric business practices. According to marketing and customer experience experts Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, the authors of Managing Customer Experience and Relationships (Wiley), a customer-centric business ensures that the customer is at the center of the business’s philosophy, operations, and ideas.

From my perspective, these customer-centric practices provide benefits to both consumers and businesses. Consumers benefit from companies setting up processes to listen to their needs and using analytics and insight-driven approaches to modify their business operations to improve the overall customer experience. Businesses benefit from implementing customer-centric practices by building consumer trust, value, and brand loyalty and by gaining more consumer advocates. I will once again cite Don Peppers and Martha Rogers to highlight some of the core traits of customer-centric businesses:

• They collaborate with customers.

• They use interactive communications to determine individual needs.

• They differentiate customers from each other to interact with consumers in a more relevant, customized manner.

Underlying these core traits of customer-centricity is a critical theme/topic: consumer ...