Seven Simple Rules to Better Customer Service

Many leading marketing textbooks discuss how the “marketing era” evolved in the 1950s and beyond when companies began to emphasise a customer focus and the marketing concept. While the idea that there was ever a “production era”, where consumers merely accepted what companies could produce, has been largely debunked by Ronald Fullerton (see Fullerton 1998) and others,1 I wonder whether marketing practice in 2000 and beyond has really evolved in the way that marketing scholars would have hoped. According to the textbooks, we are currently in the “marketing era” where the customer is better served. Certainly, much good academic work has been done on market orientation, starting with key conceptualisations of what it takes for a firm to be market oriented (e.g., Kohli and Jaworski 1990; Narver and Slater 1990). Additionally, there is ample evidence that market orientation has a positive long-run impact on firm profitability and performance (e.g., Day 1994; Hunt and Morgan 1995; Javalgi et al. 2005).