Jerry Flint suggests that once a customer is lost, it is very difficult to get he or she back. Indeed, he suggests that most customers don't care what Detroit is building. Getting those folks back into the showrooms will be very difficult. So not only do dissatisfied customers switch, they may not come back.
This has is roots in Dr. Deming's message in Total Quality Management. The end result is that GM and Ford are probably stuck with a 25 and 18 percent market share that won't budge.
Nowhere is there a better example of a company in need of a strategic plan than Chrysler. Can this company be saved, I wonder?
Here are multiple examples of strategic mistakes. You tell me, are these marketing or management or accounting mistakes? What i know is that when mistakes are made, no one wants to take responsibility in any department.
I am intrigued by Flint's obervation that it is not possible to sell multiple brands under one roof. Invariably the sales folks cannot know everything about all the products and the customers are confused. I think this is why Olympus is trailing Nikon and Canon in the camera business. Olympus has a great product. But walk in a camera store selling multiple brands and the sales folk usually recommend Nikon or Canon. Pentax, Olympus, Sony, Fuji all get lost in the shuffle. I suspect these smaller brands need to work much harder on the internet with more innovative campaigns like folks on You Tube showing satisfaction with those brands. They are never going to get their 'time in the sun' in showrooms the way it is now.
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