This follows an earlier post on Love Trails, which spoke about allowing your customers to create their own paths and destinations. Perhaps the occasional path beater tracing his or her way to your organisation's products and services would be fine. After all, this is the age of individuality where every customer is unique and different.
What happens though if one bends over backwards to one's customers so much that the following start to suffer?
1) Employees
2) Profit Margins
3) Systems and processes
4) Long-term sustainability
Would it still be catering to the customers every whim and fancy, or allowing customers so much leeway that it leads your business to the road of destruction?
Perhaps the answer is somewhere in between. While we can allow more freedom for our customers to chart their own paths, we also need to be mindful of our cashflow and resources. Products and campaigns should not be too boxed in by age-old stereotypes for sure. However, you will still need some semblance of order, market research and categorisation to make things work.Labels: folksonomy, love trails, marketing
