Theodore Roethke and The Waking :: Waking Essays

Theodore Roethke and The Waking   In portraying the manner in which he gets life's exercises and learned encounters, Theodore Roethke utilizes redundancy of two unique sentences and a straightforward rhyme plan to enable the peruser to comprehend his attitude toward how to suffer life. The two sentences rehashed all through the sonnet are I wake to rest, and take my waking moderate and I learn by going where I need to go [with slight variety in the latter]. I wake to rest, and take my waking moderate appears in verses 1, 2, 4, and 6 and allegorically implies that Roethke stirs in the first part of the day and gains from the day's encounters. In contrast to the vast majority, Roethke doesn't hurry during that time as though he anticipated another. He survives the day in a quiet and moderate way so he finds out about existence without missing anything en route. Around evening time, he nods off substance with the day's encounters and stirs the following morning in the equivalent moderate way. When Roethke states I learn by going where I need to go in verses 1, 3, 5, and 6, he announces that he goes anyplace and wherever to encounter all that he can. He watches uncommon things all through his excursions and commits errors en route, however any place he goes, he secures the encounters his memory and rehashes the cycle. The redundancy of the sentences in the sonnet set a pace of assurance and persistence to appreciate the entirety of life's encounters that come Roethke's direction. The feeling depicted by the sentences is an inspiring inclination in light of the fact that Roethke watches and appreciates even the most minor parts of life, for example, when the modest worm moves up a winding step. The rhyme plot started by the creator follows the rhyme conspire ABA in the initial two verses, CDA in the third through fifth refrains, and ABAA in the last refrain. This specific rhyme plot makes an agreeable progression of clear rhyming. In the initial two refrains, the rhyming is the equivalent (ABA) as R oethke discusses how to encounter life by feeling. The rhyme plot changes in the third through fifth refrains as the concentration in the theme changes to how Roethke exemplifies his experience by feeling thought by sharing the particular instances of the worm and the ground. The last verse comes back to an ABAA rhyme plot a lot of like that of the initial two refrains.

The Opening battle scene in Saving Private Ryan Essay Example

The Opening fight scene in Saving Private Ryan Paper In the couple of seconds going before the arrival of the boats at Omaha sea shore, we see the scene from an abstract Point-of-see high edge shot (POV high) which confines us from the scene and permits us to see a building up shot of the activity. We likewise observe the scene from a typical emotional POV shot; this incorporates the crowd and permits us to perceive what's going on as though we are really there. The main sound we hear is diegetic. The sound of the ocean is one that suggests to the vast majority quiet and harmony; it is keenly utilized in this scene to make a momentary difference between this quiet and the disarray of fight going to happen. The activity, in the primary couple of minutes of the film is practical. We start off with a Close up (CU) of a metal hedgehog (metal cross to stop tanks) and afterward go straight into seeing the arrival vessels as though we were a traveler in one ourselves. We can see the fighters in different pontoons squatted down attempting to maintain a strategic distance from the ocean shower and some that are regurgitating over the side of their vessel; either through dread, or nausea. The camera flicks to a CU of Captain Millers shaking hands. This greatly affects the crowd, since they understand the dread, and nerves that the warriors more likely than not been feeling before they went into fight. We zoom out of skipper Millers face with the goal that we can see different warriors on the pontoon and their individual responses. We will compose a custom article test on The Opening fight scene in Saving Private Ryan explicitly for you for just $16.38 $13.9/page Request now We will compose a custom article test on The Opening fight scene in Saving Private Ryan explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer We will compose a custom article test on The Opening fight scene in Saving Private Ryan explicitly for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Recruit Writer I saw that there were two principle reactions to the nerves that the officers were feeling and this profoundly affected me; one trooper was eating a type of bread (as though it was his last feast) this represented to me that he expected either not to get back home from the fight or that he would eat something better later on when they commended; the subsequent response was to implore god or kiss a four leaf clover this shows they felt that they would require divine intercession to win. As the arrival make entryways open, significant trouble becomes unavoidable; most officers don't make it off the pontoons alive. We see the aggressors from the safeguards perspective and see the way that the entirety of the English and American warriors are shot somewhere around the German automatic rifles. This abstract POV high point shot, recommends at the prevalence of the protectors and their discharge power. We return to seeing the scene from an emotional POV. In franticness to escape from the coming down slugs, a few troopers hurled themselves off the sides of their pontoons. The camera follows these men, and because of the nonappearance of non-diegetic sound, the diegetic sound of the blasts and weapon shoot gets quieted. This adds a feeling of authenticity to the film, since Spielberg has conflicted with what we would regularly expect in a war film-rather than some sensational overlaying bit of music there is nothing. This in certainty makes more show to the film since it permits us to completely process the sounds that you would hear on the off chance that you did battle. Adding to the feeling of authenticity, Spielberg took a practically narrative style take in transit the principal scene was shot. By utilizing hand-held cameras Spielberg said that he had the option to film the sets a lot of like a newsreel camera man following officers into war. By utilizing this strategy for recording, the stun of war is uncovered to the crowd. As we see Miller show up out of the ocean, the camera eases back down, this permits us to take in the bloodletting that is evident on the sea shore front. Part path through the intrusion, skipper Miller gets confounded, in view of stun, and the camera eases back down so much that it resembles seeing the fight in moderate movement, additionally the shade of the screen is cleaned out, adding to the dramatization causing the turmoil to appear to be a practically fanciful state, which numerous different troopers would have entered also. The first non-diegetic is presented and a low whistle replaces all other clamor. We see one officer from Millers abstract POV and the dread that the man is believing is depicted through how he is falling down behind one of the hedgehogs and crying to himself (in a condition of stun. ) We come back to a medium close up (MCU) of Millers confront and can consider the to be as he watches a few of his men bite the dust. The non-diegetic whistling ascends in pitch and stops out of nowhere as a fighter yells at him What do we do now sir? This inquiry uncovers the vulnerability of the troopers who were included at the skirmish of Omaha sea shore and by and by depicts a sentiment of authenticity. Mill operator recuperates from his disarray and requests his men to move out and clear the sea shore. With this little demonstration of re-statement, the crowd is taken back to the abhorrent reality that is occurring around them. As the warriors are moving out, Miller sees one fallen on the ground and chooses to attempt to drag him to security. A shell is discharged and kills the man who he was hauling, yet in addition triggers the equivalent cleaned out befuddled impact that occurred previously, this time anyway it spoke to shell stun. This is a reasonable occasion that would have occurred the same number of warriors were incidentally stunned by the boisterous blasts, to add to the authenticity, the camera focal point is splashed by blood and mud by the blast simply like an ordinary officers eyes would be. Mill operator rapidly stands up and makes a break to the ocean divider, a few people would consider this to be a demonstration of edginess, on the grounds that the men who have just attempted to do that, have wound up being destroyed yet by some supernatural occurrence Miller makes it. He begins to hand-off to the remainder of his time a few requests. The camera see switches between the aggressors emotional POV shot and the safeguards abstract POV high point shot. This permits us to see the fight from the two perspectives. Seeing the bloodletting from the assailants perspective permits us to feel the frenzy and dread that the warriors would have done, and seeing the fight from the safeguards perspective, we get a feeling of the simplicity of which the Germans slaughtered the English, this adds to the stunning idea of the film. Mill operator and his group continue to move along the sea shore until they are halted by and by foe fire. Taking asylum behind a divider, we see (using a Long Shot-LS) that on the peak of a slope there are two Germans with assault rifles shooting down at them. The LS shows us exactly how simple it was for the Germans to take out the rival side; they could fire from about fifty feet away yet still reason annihilation. By and by the stun that an assaulting gathering would have had is depicted through the ordinary activity. The utilization of ordinary activity, is seen in such a significant number of movies that it turns into a characteristic thing yet is as yet powerful now as it was the point at which it was first utilized. For instance in this specific film show is utilized all through the first observed Guns consistently execute out and out, Screaming methods you are in torment or frightened, and running implies that you are terrified or urgent. Each of these is utilized in the film to make a feeling of authenticity. The fight is transformed when a youthful Sniper marksman is sent into an effect cavity where he has an unmistakable taken shots at the two German Machine firearm administrators. We see a CU of the Snipers face and afterward promptly go to a LS of his casualty. This camera workmanship, permits us to completely welcome the ability it took to pull off such a shot. This is adding another measurement to the film: Awe. Sparing Private Ryan shows us the grime, the clamor, the agony and the stun of war, leaving us with a feeling of wonderment for the individuals who battled to guard our nation in both the First and the subsequent universal wars. The diegetic sound of the marksman rifle discharging adds to the authenticity since it implies finalism and a neatness to death. As the fight closes, the camera flicks to a CU of Captain Millers shaking hands. This is a rehashed outline from before just this time the importance is totally extraordinary. The shaking connotes help that the fight is finished, and furthermore the frightfulness of what was relinquished to do it. The camera zooms into an Extreme Close Up (ECU) of chief Millers eye and afterward to all the dead bodies abandoned on Omaha Beach. This is secured by both diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The diegetic sound is that of the waves, which hint harmony and quiet (the break after fight) and the melancholy cries of seagulls. The non-diegetic sound is a passionate, moving strings instrumental piece, this can hint the lament, agony and bitterness that the troopers would have felt for their fallen friends. The colloquialism the ocean ran red, is actually enlivened and has a last effect of stun on the crowd. Taking everything into account, the initial fight arrangement of Saving Private Ryan was made both stunning and reasonable through the notorious pictures showed all through the scene and the demonstrations of benevolence that are depicted through the characters activities. The main scene affected me by and by. This was: I emphatically feel for the fighters and their fallen companions, since this film has given me what they needed to experience to secure my future. The jerky camera development made a feeling of authenticity and caused me to feel as though I were with the warriors at the skirmish of Omaha Beach. I likewise feel that the nonappearance of non-diegetic sound so anyone might hear me to take in the sounds that make up a battling officers world.

How Customer Intimacy Helps Boost Sales

How Customer Intimacy Helps Boost Sales Typical corporate organizational structure is anti-customer intimacy. Why?Organizations are built wrong. It is as simple as that. Decision making, internal communication, power balance… everything is upside down.And it almost feels that this imbalance is invisible, before the company actually tries to introduce true customer intimacy.Usually, customers will be offered a product, based on what the company can produce. They will be offered pre-sales information as much as the company can spare, and the resources the company disposes for support will go as far as the budget, the scope of the company and the heavy time- or score- based strategies for support evaluation allow.Decisions will be based not on what customers require, but on what the company thinks they need. And when customers try to reach out, they will either speak to Sales, or to Support representatives that can’t really help them, other than escalate their issue upwards.And we all know that if it has already come to t he ‘I need to speak to your manager’ part, customer satisfaction has gone through the window.If a company truly wants to achieve customer intimacy they need to build a relationship with the customers. And that means the employees who work directly with them need to be the most powerful, most knowledgeable, best-paid, best trained people in the company. Which they are usually not.No decision should be taken without the involvement of Customer Care, because they are the ones that know the customer best.And only when the company is oriented towards the needs of the customers,   can they actually reap the benefits â€" a relationship with the customer that involves loyalty, trust, personal involvement and a large financial difference.WHAT IS CUSTOMER INTIMACY ACTUALLY?Customer intimacy is a marketing strategy. With it, the organization aims at getting closer, almost ‘intimately’ close, to the customer.Customer intimacy is, first, thought to help create better products, since the seller knows better the requirements of the customer and tailors the features of the goods or services to the demand. Each version of the product is adapted to the constructive feedback of the customer base and is therefore better and better.Second, it helps with providing better customer support. Focusing more on the customer story and their needs, allows for better problem solving post-purchase.Third, offering a personalized product and experience increases loyalty in the customer. Engagement is higher, because the base feels their feedback will be listened to and creates the impression the product satisfaction will be increased.HOW TO INVEST IN CUSTOMER INTIMACY?Customer intimacy usually sounds well to decision makers before they see the bill.It is important to have the entire picture and have a good strategy how introducing customer intimacy will look for your organization because if you want it to penetrate all levels of the organization and have ultimately the best results, it might end up being a slow, gradual, expensive process.Organizational structureCustomer intimacy is largely in the hands of employees who have face-to-face communication with end customers. Therefore complex organization structure with multiple levels of management loses its meaning. Customer intimacy is best delivered from companies with a flat structure.Moreover, customer care employees should be given higher power. ‘I want to speak to the manager’ will not fit there. ‘Lower level’ employees should be able to take management decisions, including financial decisions. In other words, ‘lower level’ must go higher.Obviously, with great power comes great responsibility.An organization who aims for customer intimacy would have to have a careful recruitment procedure and test for customer interaction preconceptions. A longer training period should be involved, including shadowing of experienced employees and learning about how to use the higher power to achieve ultimate custo mer satisfaction.With such organizational changes some departments need to be enlarged, others will lose their significance. Employee evaluation cannot be time-bound or financially-bound. Trainings, workshops, simulations and other education sessions must become a regular event to teach employees how to deal with atypical situations.Product developmentOnce the organizational structure has been adapted to the strategy of customer intimacy, next comes the product development process.From conceptualizing the product type and purpose, to designing its features and form, to coming up with its appearance and presentation, and price, customer input must be the first element to factor in.It sounds like common sense, but in practice, it is rare that customer opinion is actually acquired in advance. It takes resource and strategy to assure there is sufficient customer contribution.Johnson Johnson are a perfect example of an organization that does customer intimacy right. The company recogniz es the power of the specialists that work directly with customers. In 1983 the president of Vistakon, a JJ company received a call from an employee in another subsidiary in Denmark saying that a local ophthalmologist had created disposable contact lenses that were a popular idea among customers.Four years later, Vistakon had bought the rights over the products and were offering it to their clients. In less than 12 months of selling the product, Vistakon had surpassed serious competition, such as Bausch Lomb, who never quite caught up on that market.Customer experienceOne rule of customer intimacy is to be able to engage the customer at all times â€" at all steps of the process towards making a purchase.And the most important step in that process is the exact time of the purchase. A retail company that aims at customer intimacy must be ready to invest in the amount of available employees to all customers.Beauty consultants at Sephora engage with customers and offer them free matchin g to their perfect colors, free makeup and even free makeover.At Victoria secret, employees can help women chose the right size and style for their lingerie.At Home Depot employees are encouraged to help customers find the best tools for their needs.None of those interactions are based on the budget the customer will spend or the amount of time the interaction will take.The employee’s only task is to build trust in the relationship with the customer.Social media presenceMore than 70% of customers who are satisfied with the customer service they have received on social media will recommend the brand to friends and family.First, a brand must create their social media presence. Make sure your profile speaks about who you are. Then have dedicated employees who will take care of your profile’s content.Diversify your releases into different types of content. Build your base. Encourage your existing customers to subscribe to your accounts and pay attention to your messages. Use incenti ves â€" games, prizes, discounts, etc.And finally, and most importantly, engage with your customers. Be inviting. Be responsive regardless of whether you receive feedback about a product you shared, request for support with a product that is not performing as expected, or just a good review.Make it a habit to strike a conversation with customers, who have just made a purchase, just left a comment, just followed you… Catch them while their attention is on you.Do not use Social media as a support channel. Yes, it can be that, but it has to be more. React to negative AND positive feedback. The positive should prevail.Case studiesNow that your organization, your products, and your social media presence are all tailored to the strategy of customer intimacy, you have gathered data for personal stories.Sharing case studies is a perfect way to tell your entire customer base the news â€" you care about them and your main goal is to help them individually to solve their problems via your pr oduct and to help them make their life better. Spend the time on the project.Create the habit to ask your customer care employees for top contacts they have good relationships with. Carefully reach out to ask those customers to help you share the good word of the progress of your exchange. Create the narrative together. Give the customer control over the final message but keep the focus on that customer satisfaction is intrinsic to the identity of your company.Diversify your stories. Make sure personalized product development, the helpful consultants, the support that goes the extra mile… all have their place under the spotlight. There is not one hero.Share your stories.Personalized offering and advertisingYou have built the ground. Now create more exposure around your product.As the next step in customer intimacy, make sure the product you have carefully built to answer to every need to your customer actually reaches them.Target uses behavioral research to analyze its customers s hopping lists and learn about its customers habits. Since habits form 45% of the decision making, Target adapts its offering depending on predictive analysis. It gives an opportunity to offer holiday discounts, tailor their offers to new parents or children, to football fans, to pet owners…Coca cola created the Share a Coke campaign to reach out to millennials, printing more than 800 names, popular for their generation, on the label. Cola later continues the same strategy with printing popular vacation destinations, just to remind the customers Coca Cola is the taste of summer. In order to determine what is popular, the company worked with user-generated content â€" users were encouraged to give proposals to a simple online database. It does not get more personal than designing your own label with the company that invented marketing.Check what it takes: Host eventsWhen you have built a healthy relationship with your customer base, all you need is to expand it.Events will give you a way to connect with your customers in person. An event can take different forms, but the essence of it is to involve interaction. Encourage your customers to bring a friend or a relative.A part of the newcomers are guaranteed to receive a recommendation of the product or service you are offering. And to pay it forward.Salesforce has reached an 80% rate of closing on new prospects from those who attended one of their city tour events.A customer meetup is a good way to involve customers in your company culture and strengthen your connection. Invest in a meetup in different location â€" another city for example â€" and with that introduce diversity in your meetings, so you can gain a loyal gathering.Host lunches, brunches and dinners for your new product releases. Offer free samples or presentations.DON’T-DO-ITS OF CUSTOMER INTIMACYEvery company can reorganize its strategy to achieve customer intimacy. The above segment goes extensively through the 7-step process to adapt your orga nization to build better relationship with your customer, to strengthen it, to nourish it long-term and to expand your customer base word-of-mouth.Every company is compatible with the strategy, but not every customer is.Interpersonal experienceEducate your employees to know when in-person customer intimacy is too much. Usually loyal customers know what they want.A regular customer will not be happy if he or she is constantly asked about how they can be helped during their shopping.And their body language and actions will show it.MeetingSome customers will respond well if you ask them to meet in person to discuss their needs, to offer them exclusive pricelists and show them personal attention. Some will not. Your requests for a meeting in person cannot be repetitive and insistent.Create a strategy to discuss with your customers how involved they want you to be at first contact and carefully keep record of their wishes. Your sales representative being insistent on a get-together will lose customers for you.NewslettersOffer different levels of engagement especially when said engagement involves automated processing. A great example would be your newsletter. Some customers may develop tolerance towards your constant reaching out, or even full-on rage.It is a legal requirement that a customer is able to unsubscribe from being contacted. Don’t do the small print stunt. Allow the user to cancel. It is their right.HOW CUSTOMER INTIMACY HELPS BOOST SALESWhen a brand has reached true customer intimacy, the customer feels more confident in each and every step of their purchase:Choosing against the competitionIf you have gone through all steps listed in the first segment of this article, your fame will speak for you. You have empowered your employees to take management level decisions to make customers happy.You have created and told the stories of satisfied customers and have shared them on your social media. You are engaging with users in different platforms. You are getting a great overall exposure.Amazon is definitely a successful business model, but it has been under fire from relentless competition from the Chinese market. One of the factors that recently contributed to a boost in its popularity is the personal involvement from its CEO Jeff Bezos. The chief executive has announced that he takes care that issues sent to him on his personal email @amazon.com are ultimately resolved.The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. (…) We talk about it, customer obsession, as opposed to competitor obsession (…) If your whole culture is competitor-obsessed, its hard to stay motivated if you are out in front. Whereas customers are also unsatisfied, always discontent, always want more. So no matter how far you get in front of competitors, you are still behind your customers. They are always pulling you along,Choosing between diversity of productsConsultation during purchase can be priceless. When the customer is matched to the right product that has several positive consequences for your brands.Higher customer satisfaction. Immediately the customer is more likely to return.Satisfaction with employee interaction increases the chance that the customer recommends the product or service to a friend or a relative.A customer is likely to share information about themselves â€" do not lose that information. Train your employees to report and process that data for product development.A customer is likely to share information about the competition. They have done their research and can tell you what they could not find with your competitor, or why sometimes they prefer them. Do not lose that data either.Customer experience â€" using the productWhen the user has a closer relationship with the seller, they trust they are using the best products.Using a new shampoo, the customer will give it more time to see the better effects. Going to a hotel from a trusted chain, the customer wil l have better relationship with the staff.Experiencing a digital service, the user will be more confident in its features.When it comes to the digital, confidence is particularly important, because there are aspects of the service the customer cannot experience first-hand â€" the security measures in the code, for example.SupportWhen the customer trusts the brand and believes they have been recommended the right product their cooperation when they need support will be more productive.If you ask any support representative they will tell you the worst aspect of their job is dealing with unhappy customers. Good customer-support relationship, all else aside, will improve employee retention.Long-term support representatives and experienced employees overall can offer deep-level support for additional pricing.A customer, loyal to the brand, will be more likely to use those services and bring additional profits to the company â€" they will be more trusting of the competence of the support to resolve the issue, and that the situation actually requires the extra time they are paying for.Customer reviewsIn the digital age the customer has quick and fast access to the opinions and experiences of their peers.The message that comes from the brand’s website, their advertising and even their social media loses its meaning when they can see the average rating of the brand or the product and compare it to the competition with a few clicks.We can check product rating over multiple platforms. Every star in the rating matters when the customer filters out the products by rating, they will only click on the first result.When it comes to online reviews, customers are more likely to share their experience if they are unhappy. Your customer intimacy strategy can switch this imbalance in your favor.When you have a personal relationship with your customer they will feel personally invested in the success of your company. They will take it on themselves to recommend, to like, to shar e your content, to get their friends and family to try and receive impeccable customer treatment.Your good reviews will swamp the bad reviews. Your ratings will hit the rooftop and with that come sales.Subscription for productIf your advertisement is good and your interpersonal experience during the sale is satisfactory, if your price is right, you may get a user to purchase your product once.But if your product has been created, tailored to the customer needs, if your consultants have made sure have recommended the correct product, if the relationship with support is flawless, you have true customer intimacy. And customer intimacy creates, in various ways, subscription.If a customer has purchased the wrong shade of foundation for her skin color at a drugstore, they will only purchase the product once, even if they do not return it. If a beauty consultant at Sephora has matched her to the right shade and got personal with the customer, they will purchase the foundation between six a nd twelve times a year, and then maybe a lipstick and a night cream, and a mascara…Subscription mentality can increase your yearly sales from one customer between five and twenty times.Increased loyaltyIncreased loyalty is the ultimate goal of any organization that needs to boost its sales. Because now it does not just involve rational choice. It involves passion for a brand that you believe in.Increased loyalty in one customer increases their budget to spend with that brand. They will do repetitive sales of the same products and variations or entire collections including said product.They will recommend the brand to friends and family, and to strangers, via social media and online ratings and reviews.They will fight for the image of the brand and will be forgiving during times of public relations disasters.They will feel personally involved with the success of the organization.CONCLUSIONMany organizations will tell you they have an impeccable relationship with their customers.‘ Yes, we tailor our products to what our customers need.’’Yes, we truly listen to customer feedback.’’Yes, we have high levels of customer satisfaction.’’Yes, our customer support truly goes out of their way to work on your issue.’Unfortunately, more often than not it is a lie, or, at best, a delusion.True customer intimacy requires organizational changes, investments in training and education, a shift in the balance of power between organizational levels.And when, and only when, a company is performing on its strategy of customer intimacy and they do it right, customers feel personally invested in the brand.They will never forget to reach for their favorite product, to recommend it to a friend, to subscribe to regular purchases online, to attend events and to contribute to the image of the brand.And so, it is worth it.

How Customer Intimacy Helps Boost Sales

How Customer Intimacy Helps Boost Sales Typical corporate organizational structure is anti-customer intimacy. Why?Organizations are built wrong. It is as simple as that. Decision making, internal communication, power balance… everything is upside down.And it almost feels that this imbalance is invisible, before the company actually tries to introduce true customer intimacy.Usually, customers will be offered a product, based on what the company can produce. They will be offered pre-sales information as much as the company can spare, and the resources the company disposes for support will go as far as the budget, the scope of the company and the heavy time- or score- based strategies for support evaluation allow.Decisions will be based not on what customers require, but on what the company thinks they need. And when customers try to reach out, they will either speak to Sales, or to Support representatives that can’t really help them, other than escalate their issue upwards.And we all know that if it has already come to t he ‘I need to speak to your manager’ part, customer satisfaction has gone through the window.If a company truly wants to achieve customer intimacy they need to build a relationship with the customers. And that means the employees who work directly with them need to be the most powerful, most knowledgeable, best-paid, best trained people in the company. Which they are usually not.No decision should be taken without the involvement of Customer Care, because they are the ones that know the customer best.And only when the company is oriented towards the needs of the customers,   can they actually reap the benefits â€" a relationship with the customer that involves loyalty, trust, personal involvement and a large financial difference.WHAT IS CUSTOMER INTIMACY ACTUALLY?Customer intimacy is a marketing strategy. With it, the organization aims at getting closer, almost ‘intimately’ close, to the customer.Customer intimacy is, first, thought to help create better products, since the seller knows better the requirements of the customer and tailors the features of the goods or services to the demand. Each version of the product is adapted to the constructive feedback of the customer base and is therefore better and better.Second, it helps with providing better customer support. Focusing more on the customer story and their needs, allows for better problem solving post-purchase.Third, offering a personalized product and experience increases loyalty in the customer. Engagement is higher, because the base feels their feedback will be listened to and creates the impression the product satisfaction will be increased.HOW TO INVEST IN CUSTOMER INTIMACY?Customer intimacy usually sounds well to decision makers before they see the bill.It is important to have the entire picture and have a good strategy how introducing customer intimacy will look for your organization because if you want it to penetrate all levels of the organization and have ultimately the best results, it might end up being a slow, gradual, expensive process.Organizational structureCustomer intimacy is largely in the hands of employees who have face-to-face communication with end customers. Therefore complex organization structure with multiple levels of management loses its meaning. Customer intimacy is best delivered from companies with a flat structure.Moreover, customer care employees should be given higher power. ‘I want to speak to the manager’ will not fit there. ‘Lower level’ employees should be able to take management decisions, including financial decisions. In other words, ‘lower level’ must go higher.Obviously, with great power comes great responsibility.An organization who aims for customer intimacy would have to have a careful recruitment procedure and test for customer interaction preconceptions. A longer training period should be involved, including shadowing of experienced employees and learning about how to use the higher power to achieve ultimate custo mer satisfaction.With such organizational changes some departments need to be enlarged, others will lose their significance. Employee evaluation cannot be time-bound or financially-bound. Trainings, workshops, simulations and other education sessions must become a regular event to teach employees how to deal with atypical situations.Product developmentOnce the organizational structure has been adapted to the strategy of customer intimacy, next comes the product development process.From conceptualizing the product type and purpose, to designing its features and form, to coming up with its appearance and presentation, and price, customer input must be the first element to factor in.It sounds like common sense, but in practice, it is rare that customer opinion is actually acquired in advance. It takes resource and strategy to assure there is sufficient customer contribution.Johnson Johnson are a perfect example of an organization that does customer intimacy right. The company recogniz es the power of the specialists that work directly with customers. In 1983 the president of Vistakon, a JJ company received a call from an employee in another subsidiary in Denmark saying that a local ophthalmologist had created disposable contact lenses that were a popular idea among customers.Four years later, Vistakon had bought the rights over the products and were offering it to their clients. In less than 12 months of selling the product, Vistakon had surpassed serious competition, such as Bausch Lomb, who never quite caught up on that market.Customer experienceOne rule of customer intimacy is to be able to engage the customer at all times â€" at all steps of the process towards making a purchase.And the most important step in that process is the exact time of the purchase. A retail company that aims at customer intimacy must be ready to invest in the amount of available employees to all customers.Beauty consultants at Sephora engage with customers and offer them free matchin g to their perfect colors, free makeup and even free makeover.At Victoria secret, employees can help women chose the right size and style for their lingerie.At Home Depot employees are encouraged to help customers find the best tools for their needs.None of those interactions are based on the budget the customer will spend or the amount of time the interaction will take.The employee’s only task is to build trust in the relationship with the customer.Social media presenceMore than 70% of customers who are satisfied with the customer service they have received on social media will recommend the brand to friends and family.First, a brand must create their social media presence. Make sure your profile speaks about who you are. Then have dedicated employees who will take care of your profile’s content.Diversify your releases into different types of content. Build your base. Encourage your existing customers to subscribe to your accounts and pay attention to your messages. Use incenti ves â€" games, prizes, discounts, etc.And finally, and most importantly, engage with your customers. Be inviting. Be responsive regardless of whether you receive feedback about a product you shared, request for support with a product that is not performing as expected, or just a good review.Make it a habit to strike a conversation with customers, who have just made a purchase, just left a comment, just followed you… Catch them while their attention is on you.Do not use Social media as a support channel. Yes, it can be that, but it has to be more. React to negative AND positive feedback. The positive should prevail.Case studiesNow that your organization, your products, and your social media presence are all tailored to the strategy of customer intimacy, you have gathered data for personal stories.Sharing case studies is a perfect way to tell your entire customer base the news â€" you care about them and your main goal is to help them individually to solve their problems via your pr oduct and to help them make their life better. Spend the time on the project.Create the habit to ask your customer care employees for top contacts they have good relationships with. Carefully reach out to ask those customers to help you share the good word of the progress of your exchange. Create the narrative together. Give the customer control over the final message but keep the focus on that customer satisfaction is intrinsic to the identity of your company.Diversify your stories. Make sure personalized product development, the helpful consultants, the support that goes the extra mile… all have their place under the spotlight. There is not one hero.Share your stories.Personalized offering and advertisingYou have built the ground. Now create more exposure around your product.As the next step in customer intimacy, make sure the product you have carefully built to answer to every need to your customer actually reaches them.Target uses behavioral research to analyze its customers s hopping lists and learn about its customers habits. Since habits form 45% of the decision making, Target adapts its offering depending on predictive analysis. It gives an opportunity to offer holiday discounts, tailor their offers to new parents or children, to football fans, to pet owners…Coca cola created the Share a Coke campaign to reach out to millennials, printing more than 800 names, popular for their generation, on the label. Cola later continues the same strategy with printing popular vacation destinations, just to remind the customers Coca Cola is the taste of summer. In order to determine what is popular, the company worked with user-generated content â€" users were encouraged to give proposals to a simple online database. It does not get more personal than designing your own label with the company that invented marketing.Check what it takes: Host eventsWhen you have built a healthy relationship with your customer base, all you need is to expand it.Events will give you a way to connect with your customers in person. An event can take different forms, but the essence of it is to involve interaction. Encourage your customers to bring a friend or a relative.A part of the newcomers are guaranteed to receive a recommendation of the product or service you are offering. And to pay it forward.Salesforce has reached an 80% rate of closing on new prospects from those who attended one of their city tour events.A customer meetup is a good way to involve customers in your company culture and strengthen your connection. Invest in a meetup in different location â€" another city for example â€" and with that introduce diversity in your meetings, so you can gain a loyal gathering.Host lunches, brunches and dinners for your new product releases. Offer free samples or presentations.DON’T-DO-ITS OF CUSTOMER INTIMACYEvery company can reorganize its strategy to achieve customer intimacy. The above segment goes extensively through the 7-step process to adapt your orga nization to build better relationship with your customer, to strengthen it, to nourish it long-term and to expand your customer base word-of-mouth.Every company is compatible with the strategy, but not every customer is.Interpersonal experienceEducate your employees to know when in-person customer intimacy is too much. Usually loyal customers know what they want.A regular customer will not be happy if he or she is constantly asked about how they can be helped during their shopping.And their body language and actions will show it.MeetingSome customers will respond well if you ask them to meet in person to discuss their needs, to offer them exclusive pricelists and show them personal attention. Some will not. Your requests for a meeting in person cannot be repetitive and insistent.Create a strategy to discuss with your customers how involved they want you to be at first contact and carefully keep record of their wishes. Your sales representative being insistent on a get-together will lose customers for you.NewslettersOffer different levels of engagement especially when said engagement involves automated processing. A great example would be your newsletter. Some customers may develop tolerance towards your constant reaching out, or even full-on rage.It is a legal requirement that a customer is able to unsubscribe from being contacted. Don’t do the small print stunt. Allow the user to cancel. It is their right.HOW CUSTOMER INTIMACY HELPS BOOST SALESWhen a brand has reached true customer intimacy, the customer feels more confident in each and every step of their purchase:Choosing against the competitionIf you have gone through all steps listed in the first segment of this article, your fame will speak for you. You have empowered your employees to take management level decisions to make customers happy.You have created and told the stories of satisfied customers and have shared them on your social media. You are engaging with users in different platforms. You are getting a great overall exposure.Amazon is definitely a successful business model, but it has been under fire from relentless competition from the Chinese market. One of the factors that recently contributed to a boost in its popularity is the personal involvement from its CEO Jeff Bezos. The chief executive has announced that he takes care that issues sent to him on his personal email @amazon.com are ultimately resolved.The thing I have noticed is when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. (…) We talk about it, customer obsession, as opposed to competitor obsession (…) If your whole culture is competitor-obsessed, its hard to stay motivated if you are out in front. Whereas customers are also unsatisfied, always discontent, always want more. So no matter how far you get in front of competitors, you are still behind your customers. They are always pulling you along,Choosing between diversity of productsConsultation during purchase can be priceless. When the customer is matched to the right product that has several positive consequences for your brands.Higher customer satisfaction. Immediately the customer is more likely to return.Satisfaction with employee interaction increases the chance that the customer recommends the product or service to a friend or a relative.A customer is likely to share information about themselves â€" do not lose that information. Train your employees to report and process that data for product development.A customer is likely to share information about the competition. They have done their research and can tell you what they could not find with your competitor, or why sometimes they prefer them. Do not lose that data either.Customer experience â€" using the productWhen the user has a closer relationship with the seller, they trust they are using the best products.Using a new shampoo, the customer will give it more time to see the better effects. Going to a hotel from a trusted chain, the customer wil l have better relationship with the staff.Experiencing a digital service, the user will be more confident in its features.When it comes to the digital, confidence is particularly important, because there are aspects of the service the customer cannot experience first-hand â€" the security measures in the code, for example.SupportWhen the customer trusts the brand and believes they have been recommended the right product their cooperation when they need support will be more productive.If you ask any support representative they will tell you the worst aspect of their job is dealing with unhappy customers. Good customer-support relationship, all else aside, will improve employee retention.Long-term support representatives and experienced employees overall can offer deep-level support for additional pricing.A customer, loyal to the brand, will be more likely to use those services and bring additional profits to the company â€" they will be more trusting of the competence of the support to resolve the issue, and that the situation actually requires the extra time they are paying for.Customer reviewsIn the digital age the customer has quick and fast access to the opinions and experiences of their peers.The message that comes from the brand’s website, their advertising and even their social media loses its meaning when they can see the average rating of the brand or the product and compare it to the competition with a few clicks.We can check product rating over multiple platforms. Every star in the rating matters when the customer filters out the products by rating, they will only click on the first result.When it comes to online reviews, customers are more likely to share their experience if they are unhappy. Your customer intimacy strategy can switch this imbalance in your favor.When you have a personal relationship with your customer they will feel personally invested in the success of your company. They will take it on themselves to recommend, to like, to shar e your content, to get their friends and family to try and receive impeccable customer treatment.Your good reviews will swamp the bad reviews. Your ratings will hit the rooftop and with that come sales.Subscription for productIf your advertisement is good and your interpersonal experience during the sale is satisfactory, if your price is right, you may get a user to purchase your product once.But if your product has been created, tailored to the customer needs, if your consultants have made sure have recommended the correct product, if the relationship with support is flawless, you have true customer intimacy. And customer intimacy creates, in various ways, subscription.If a customer has purchased the wrong shade of foundation for her skin color at a drugstore, they will only purchase the product once, even if they do not return it. If a beauty consultant at Sephora has matched her to the right shade and got personal with the customer, they will purchase the foundation between six a nd twelve times a year, and then maybe a lipstick and a night cream, and a mascara…Subscription mentality can increase your yearly sales from one customer between five and twenty times.Increased loyaltyIncreased loyalty is the ultimate goal of any organization that needs to boost its sales. Because now it does not just involve rational choice. It involves passion for a brand that you believe in.Increased loyalty in one customer increases their budget to spend with that brand. They will do repetitive sales of the same products and variations or entire collections including said product.They will recommend the brand to friends and family, and to strangers, via social media and online ratings and reviews.They will fight for the image of the brand and will be forgiving during times of public relations disasters.They will feel personally involved with the success of the organization.CONCLUSIONMany organizations will tell you they have an impeccable relationship with their customers.‘ Yes, we tailor our products to what our customers need.’’Yes, we truly listen to customer feedback.’’Yes, we have high levels of customer satisfaction.’’Yes, our customer support truly goes out of their way to work on your issue.’Unfortunately, more often than not it is a lie, or, at best, a delusion.True customer intimacy requires organizational changes, investments in training and education, a shift in the balance of power between organizational levels.And when, and only when, a company is performing on its strategy of customer intimacy and they do it right, customers feel personally invested in the brand.They will never forget to reach for their favorite product, to recommend it to a friend, to subscribe to regular purchases online, to attend events and to contribute to the image of the brand.And so, it is worth it.