What drives Orange s phenomenal growth and excellence in customer service, and how long it will endure, are questions that concern Cascade and his customer relationship management team. Yet despite Orange s exceptional performance in customer relations, it needs to exploit opportunities to build stronger, sustainable relationships with customers. Orange has always had a retention team, but one that functioned as end of pipe , says Cascade. It was there to stop customers from leaving , not to encourage them to stay, an approach reinforced by a host of largely futile attempts to win back defecting customers, who were simply taking advantage of a buyer s market .

Following an appraisal of existing operations and, unusually, extensive consultation with colleagues of all departments, and reflecting the overall business aim to be first , ^[3]the team developed a formal CRM strategy for Orange in August 1999.

Our mission is to build strong enduring relationships with our customers, thereby increasing customer lifetime value and company profitability and building sustainable competitive advantage. We will achieve this through the application of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategies.

CRM is about building relationships to turn customers into advocates, so that their decision to stay with you becomes more automatic , they buy more and spend more, and they tell their friends and colleagues about your products and services too. (See Figure CS 3.1.1.)

The consensus was that the complete CRM strategy would take five years to deliver, although significant benefits would be realized along the way. The department...