Customers Drive Your Business, They Are Not Your Assets

Yesterday’s #IMCchat (Integrated Marketing Communications) on Twitter included a conversation about customers as assets. I don’t believe customers should be called assets, and I found myself in a very lonely minority. As always, conversation refines and clarifies perspective, and the following tweet from Anna Barcelos was key in refining this perspective.

It may sound harsh, but assets are valuable. Custs. are assets that keep a company going. @wittlake @BarryBirkett @tiffinibrock #IMCChat

— Anna Barcelos (@abarcelos) June 9, 2011

Customers are incredibly valuable, and the things that are valuable in business are assets. Your marketing analytics or financial analysis group even tracks the exact value of your customer, and it is a metric you should cherish. That is reasonable, but I still will not start labeling customers “assets.” Here’s why. [Read more…]