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“This book is an excellent exploration of the area of CRM. It is practical, yet insightful, and establishes that CRM is too crucial a discipline for marketers to ignore in this new century. It takes away some of the ‘where do I start?’ feeling, and helps in setting direction and action.”

- John Goodman, President of OgilvyOne Asia-Pacific

“In Romancing the Customer, Paul Temporal and Martin Trott have provided a timely and insightful contribution in an easy-to-read and how-to-do it style. Supported by a wealth of contemporary and helpful advice, this book offers the tools to enable practitioners to turn CRM theory into profitable reality.”

- Professor Laurie Wood, University of Salford and Past Chairman of Chartered Institute of Marketing

“Brand and CRM are sometimes regarded as two separate disciplines, but they should always be working hand in hand. CRM helps build brands quickly and this expertly written book demonstrates exactly how effective it can be. It is a very powerful tool.”

- Steve Jaggard, Director of Strategy, The Point Organisation

“Paul Temporal is a leader in the field of branding. When he speaks I listen carefully, and when he writes I absorb every word. In his book, Romancing the Customer, he shares his experience and gives new insights into the explosive and important area of customer relationship management. It is an invaluable and indispensable book for anyone interested in building their brands and keeping their customers happy.”

- James R Gregory, CEO of Corporate Branding LLC and author of Marketing Corporate Image and Leveraging the Corporate Brand

The Customer is Always Right
In Romancing the Customer, Dr Paul Temporal and Martin Trott have rationalised how customer relationship management (CRM) is important in today’s business. Quite plainly, the key to success in today’s business landscape lies in becoming customer-centric rather than product-centric or technology-centric.

The book sheds deep insight into branding; its importance and its value to business. Branding is the basis of building a strong CRM strategy, conclude the authors. Thus, they go into a lengthy description of branding before exploring CRM.

Romancing the Customer would have read like a business textbook had it not been for the interesting case studies provided. Examples from companies that have made CRM their main agenda are inspirational. The ones that are particularly interesting are Pan Pacific Hotels and Tesco. Undisclosed companies that fail to implement their CRM are also mentioned and discussed.

The authors also outline several guidelines for decision makers to start a pilot CRM project. They also have put a lot of thought in overcoming the “roadblocks” to achieving it, and have developed three golden rules in CRM building: developing a clear objective, making things easy for the customer and being realistic.

In short, this book provides clear evidence as to why branding is important and why CEOs and managers everywhere should consider building CRM as their main agenda in business. The outcome from investing in CRM is much greater than many of us had thought.

- Ayu Aziz, Malaysian Business, July 16, 2001