Chapter 6
Relationships with Mobile Customers
“A self does not amount to much, but no self is an island;
each exists in a fabric of relations that is now more complex and mobile than ever before.”
—Jean-Françis Lyotard (1924–1998)
The first fully mobile cellular phone was the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X. It went on sale in March 1983, weighed nearly two pounds and was priced at $3,995. Now mobile devices are small, smart, much more functional and increasingly interconnected. These devices have not only enabled consumers to be mobile and still attend to their computing and communications tasks, they have changed the behaviors of consumers and enterprises alike. This chapter considers the relationship implications of technological innovations that have increased consumer mobility and made communications and intelligence ubiquitous and real time.
Wherever consumers are, they are reachable. Wherever consumers are, they can also reach out, be influenced and influence others, give and receive information, and seek and create entertainment and other content. This always-on, 100 percent–uptime consumer has the same needs as he or she ever had, since needs are innate and never change. But now this consumer has the means to fulfill those needs as never before. The opportunity for the enterprise is not just to reach out to the mobile consumer or to open up the communications environment to new mobile platforms, although it is surely that. The opportunity is also to consider mobility as a basis ...
