Get out of the advertising mentality
Treat people as customers rather than consumers says this Harvard Business School article on the Working Knowledge site:
Companies spent $22 billion on customer relationship management (CRM) software last year, according to the Gartner Group, but just what did it buy them? The snazzy technology was supposed to make one-to-one interactions with customers a reality, but experts say all it has done is enable companies to disappoint their customers faster and more efficiently—anytime and anywhere. Customer loyalty hasn't increased. Companies still can't target their most profitable customers, and their data-mining and sales processes are just as convoluted as ever.
...Sellers must reengage with customers, but not by "creating a communications campaign," cautions Jerry Michalski, president of the consulting firm Sociate (Mill Valley, California), "because that approach has pretty much lost its credibility." Get out of the advertising mentality, which focuses on the messages your company is trying to get across to customers, and spend more time trying to discern what customers are trying to say to you.