A versatile business leader involved with multiple companies, John B. Richards served as chief executive officer and lead director of the Joint Chiropractic from 2012 to 2016. Since that time, he has served as advisor partner/principal of the New England Consulting Group and founding partner/vice chairman of Actio Analytics. Two of John B. Richards’s areas of expertise are customer relationship marketing and general brand loyalty.
Although business executives often talk about them in the same breath, customer relationship marketing (CRM) and brand loyalty are two dramatically different concepts. Or, as one consumer loyalty organization puts it, CRM and loyalty actually sit at “different points of a brand-customer relationship spectrum.”
In general, brand loyalty platforms expect and accomplish far more than simple CRM. Both concepts involve reaching out to customers, asking for personal information, and rewarding customers with value-added services and special deals. Loyalty platforms tend to ask consumers to return the favor by acknowledging an admiration for a specific brand or its products. Rather than instituting specific schemes and programs to boost loyalty, the experts at Marketing Week recommend focusing on product quality and overall customer experience.
John B. Richards 