Dr. Jim Barnes

Jim Barnes is an internationally recognized author, consultant and speaker, and an authority on the subjects of customer strategy and relationship building.  He provides the most insightful understanding of customers and stresses the importance of customer insight to drive strategy. He demystifies complex concepts like customer expectations, value and experience, and shows how a well-crafted customer strategy will lead to meaningful, profitable customer relationships. He regularly delivers keynote speeches at industry conferences and leads management strategy sessions and workshops for companies in many countries.

For more than 30 years, Barnes has played a major role as strategic advisor to many leading Canadian and international companies, including IKEA International, Bell Aliant, eircom (Ireland), Tesco (UK), Rogers Cable, Kraft Foods Canada, SYSCO, Eli Lilly-Elanco, Molson, CCH Canadian, Xerox, McGraw-Hill, AstraZeneca, Ivanhoe Cambridge, Royal Bank of Canada, Genzyme Canada, Starwood Hotels, Verafin Inc., and Johnson Inc.

He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a PhD in Marketing from the University of Toronto.  He was one of the first Canadians to receive the Leaders in Management Education award from The Financial Post. He was elected a Fellow of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association of Canada.  In April 2011, he was inducted into the Canadian Marketing Hall of Legends.

Barnes's eight books include Secrets of Customer Relationship Management; It's all About How You Make Them Feel, published by McGraw-Hill, and translated into four languages. His latest book, Build Your Customer Strategy: A Guide to Creating Profitable Customer Relationships, was published by John Wiley & Sons.

• 5. Where's Your Customer Hat? why everything you do impacts your customers

  DURATION: plenary, half-day, one-day

  TARGET AUDIENCE: customer service managers, HR directors, general managers

  · understand why we often ignore the customer's view of the world
  ·we wear the wrong hat to work
  ·every business decision affects the customer's view of the brand
  ·explore the customer's view of what creates value for her
  ·ignore the little things at your peril
  ·avoid negative surprises, create positive ones
  

• 4. At the End of the Day, They're People: creating powerful customer engagement

  DURATION: plenary, half-day, one-day

  TARGET AUDIENCE: customer service managers, HR directors, general managers

  · understand the customer more deeply than you ever thought possible
  ·explore customer context; what they are trying to accomplish
  ·understand true customer insight; how they want to be treated
  ·build the customer into your business decisions
  ·the role of the employee in delivering the customer experience
  · encouraging employees to live your brand
  ·why HR must be involved in building a customer experience/engagement strategy
  

• 3. Behave Outside that Box: how to deliver memorable customer experiences

  DURATION: plenary, half-day, one-day

  TARGET AUDIENCE: strategists, customer service managers, retailers

  ·every interaction with your firm is a customer experience
  ·customer expectations are bounded and predictable; the bar is low
  ·the most meaningful customer experiences involve surprise
  ·it's what they are not expecting that's most important
  ·understand why merely meeting customer expectations will not lead to loyalty
  ·being consistently predictable will get you nowhere
  ·stand out from the competition by creating surprise-based value
  

• 2. Where Growth Comes From: understanding how customers drive growth in your business

  DURATION: plenary, half-day, one-day

  TARGET AUDIENCE: executives, general managers, customer service directors

  ·the key to growth in your business lies in building customer retention and loyalty
  ·your most important asset is the loyalty of your customers
  ·growth comes through the creation of various forms of value for your customers
  ·understand the importance of creating functional, emotional and experiential value
  ·understand how business decisions affect the customer's view of value
  ·growth comes through standing out from the competition learn how to behave differently as a firm translating customer value into shareholder value
  

• 1. Why is she buying this? Using insight to drive your customer strategy

  DURATION: plenary, one-day; two-day

  TARGET AUDIENCE: executives, strategists, marketing directors

  · this workshop follows the template for customer strategy building presented in Jim Barnes' most recent book, Build Your Customer Strategy 
  ·participants will be encouraged to think deeply about customers, to get inside their hearts and minds and lives, to truly understand what they are trying to accomplish
  ·we apply our "drivers of customer relationships" model to explore what you can do to build meaningful customer relationships and achieve customer loyalty
  · we will explore the 4 E's of customer strategy - customer expectations: focusing on what they are not expecting - customer emotions: it's all about how you make them feel - customer experience: the memorable versus the mundane - customer engagement: personalizing and involving we will help you build employee commitment to a customer strategy
  

• If you would like your employees to look at your business differently and feel engaged and energized about your own customer strategy, I would highly recommend working with Dr. Jim Barnes.  He is by far the most interesting and inspirational speaker with whom we have ever worked.

  Johnson Inc. Canada

• TDC Integris is proud to have invited Dr. James Barnes for our annual series of international seminars in Brazil. His in-depth view of customer relationships and proven insights on how companies can cope with the relationship challenges and boost their customer equity really added tremendous value to the participants. Dr. Barnes also stands out as one of the best professionals we've worked with for his intense dedication and professionalism both in the seminar preparation and follow-up.

  TDC Integris

• We received a tremendous response to the Congress and specifically your presentations. You truly closed off day one on a very positive note receiving a quite remarkable 93 per cent delegate satisfaction rating. And you continued the good work on day two with your second presentation, setting the bar particularly high for those unfortunate enough to have to follow you.

  Irish Direct Marketing Association

• It is without hesitation that I recommend Jim for speaking engagements. His presentation style is relaxed and professional and his message thought provoking. Jim was one of our top rated speakers and provided Congress delegates with valuable information and ideas to take away and implement in their own organisations.

  Executive Congress for Customer Strategies (ECCS)

• Jim is one of the most thought-provoking gurus from the international arena whom we were happy to host in one of our events. The audience thoroughly enjoyed his keynote and workshop. [Jim was] very particular to look into the details which the attendees would enjoy and learn. He is one of the best international speakers I have dealt with and heard, with immense knowledge about his subject. We definitely plan to get him back in the near future. It was a pleasure to have him on board. He is a very professional and down-to-earth personality who lets his words do the talking.

  Loyalty Summit, India

• Customer Futures forums are different from 'open' seminars/conferences. The experts and speakers are asked to go into much greater depth than can be delivered on a conference platform, and are quizzed intensively by the group. Jim did a fantastic job on all levels - as an educator he enhanced our knowledge on the subject, as an experienced consultant and practitioner he gave us real insight and case studies on how to do things differently, and as a professional speaker he presented it all in a motivating and engaging way. I would wholeheartedly recommend Jim.

  Customer Futures

• 
  August 2006

  Build Your Customer Strategy: A Guide to Creating Profitable Customer Relationships

  With his profound insight, simplicity, and uncommon sense, industry expert and author Jim Barnes shows you how managers and executives can create lasting and genuine customer relationships that will withstand the competitive overtures of other companies. He draws on his more than thirty years of experience listening to end-consumers and business customers from a wide variety of industries to enable you to develop your own customer strategy, using the building blocks of successful customer relationships that are presented in this book. Required reading, this book urges you to adopt—and keep in mind—the customer's perspective and what it means as a customer to have a relationship with a company or brand.

  
  
• 
  September 2000

  Secrets of Customer Relationship Management: It's All About How You Make Them Feel

  Secrets of Customer Relationship Management explores the emotional side of a customers attachment to a specific company your company, for example and discusses how companies of all sizes can develop and strengthen that attachment using techniques similar to the time-honored strategies of the corner grocer. It provides an in-depth understanding of what customers actually mean to a business and, conversely, what a business must mean to an individual customer to maximize its marketplace position and success. Examining case studies of smaller businesses that have succeeded in developing long-term relationships, Barnes explains how these personalized approaches can be adopted by corporations of any size.