Maybe you’re like me – you work with (or within) a lot of large companies with big marketing departments. Everyone is crazy for “customer intimacy,” but what exactly does that mean? As much as I preach about knowing and understanding your customer – they end up as an aggregate: a persona…a segment...a model score. Maybe that’s the best we can do in large companies because there are potentially millions of customers to be “intimate” with. But it doesn’t feel very intimate, does it?

My husband works for a small specialty olive oil and balsamic vinegar retailer. The store is locally owned by a passionate husband and wife team – they developed a love for the products many years ago on a trip to Italy and found a way to bring it back to the United States. They’ve been successful enough to launch a second location next month. With the launch of the second store, the owners are putting a more robust point-of-sale (POS) system in place, replacing an older cash register system. A state of the art POS system does a bunch of neat things – it helps with inventory management, tracks popular items, and acts as a customer relationship management (CRM) system.

My husband, who has no interest in technology, marketing and whatnot, said to me last night: “I’m so excited about this new POS system because finally I can keep track of what our customers have bought.” He continued, “So many customers come back in a couple of months after their purchase and say – ‘I really want more of this product, but I can’t remember the name of it.’” Then he got all excited: “And if we have a new type of product and I know what my customers like, then I can let them know it’s available!” Secretly he’s thinking: “Then they will come to the store and we can talk about food and cooking!” – A shared passion among his customers and co-workers.

This conversation was enlightening for a number of reasons:

• All about the customer: Without explicitly knowing it, my husband’s desire was to provide relevant products and information to his customers. This included helping them to remember what they had bought in the past, When a customer asks: “Was that the basil- and lemongrass-infused oil I liked or just the basil??” he will have the answer.
• Cross-selling: Or he might say “I know you love the basil oils – we have this new basil and sun-dried tomato combo – want to try that?”
• Up-selling: “I see you bought the small bottle last time and it’s a favorite of yours. If you buy a bigger bottle, we can save you money.”
• Fact-based decisioning: In dealing directly with the customers, my husband anecdotally has a sense of what is popular and what people will like. The POS system will help prove it – what’s popular, what needs to be reordered – in order to anticipate demand. "That will help our customers from being disappointed when we don't have something they want in stock," he says. "Now we'll have a better sense of what customers will want and when to put it on the shelves."
• Being proactive: “Wow,” he says, “now I can send them an e-mail when we have a new product in that I think they would like!” and “Maybe I can even send them a reminder every couple of months to come in and refill their bottles!”

In a world where big marketers focus on customer proxies, aggregated views and personas, it’s a nice reality check to get in touch with what marketing can do to drive true customer intimacy and deepen customer relationships at a one-to-one level. I would be excited to be their customer. But what energized me was my husband's passion for being able to create true customer intimacy.