Creating Customer Evangelists

In this summary you will learn

• The traits that identify a customer evangelist
• The six principles that companies can apply to create customer evangelists
• How two companies turned their customers into evangelists

getAbstract rating

Why you should read Creating Customer Evangelists

What does it take to get your customers to see the light, to praise your product like evangelists selling their creeds? How do you create customer evangelists whose word of mouth will convert other acolytes to your product? Authors Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba offer chapter and verse. They tell you how to encourage customers to preach your message for you. However, before consumers will take to the pulpit, you must have an excellent product or service that converts their thinking. There's good information here, though not much new. The last chapter sums everything up as nicely as a homily, and the appendix provides additional tips on e-mail marketing and jump-starting the evangelical process. The authors' penchant for name-coining adds little; at best it's confusing and at worst downright annoying ("word of mouse" is cute, but "Napsterizing"? "Customer Plus-Delta"?). getAbstract.com is glad to see someone preaching the cause of being customer-oriented — we’re already pretty faithful about that.

About the Authors

Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba are the founders of Wabash & Lake, a marketing consulting firm that helps create communities of evangelists for client companies. McConnell and Huba were formerly executives at an Internet marketing firm, where they helped develop and expand the online marketing strategies of Fortune 500 clients. They often speak at sales and marketing conferences.