How to protect client list?
Discussion
Looking for some guidance...
Let's say Arnold Clark have 100 customers and they use RBS for their customer finance. RBS then see that Arnold is making a fortune and decide to go into the car business. They know his 100 car buyers because they already have their details via their finance arrangement.
Are these punters fair game for an approach from RBS' new car division? What can Arnold do to protect those clients from approaches?
Essentially if company A wants to sell company B's service under their own umbrella, but the nature of the service involves customers providing their details to company B e.g. an online registration, how can company A stop company B stealing them with a better price/other incentive?
White labelling the service is not an option.
Let's say Arnold Clark have 100 customers and they use RBS for their customer finance. RBS then see that Arnold is making a fortune and decide to go into the car business. They know his 100 car buyers because they already have their details via their finance arrangement.
Are these punters fair game for an approach from RBS' new car division? What can Arnold do to protect those clients from approaches?
Essentially if company A wants to sell company B's service under their own umbrella, but the nature of the service involves customers providing their details to company B e.g. an online registration, how can company A stop company B stealing them with a better price/other incentive?
White labelling the service is not an option.
Unless you are market leader and 100 times bigger then the chances are the company you are working with will not sign anything saying they will not enter the market. When you do get them to sign the will find a getaround and screw you anyway. Back in the day when I used to do a huge amount of affiliate marketing it was the managers who were driving the Ferraris. I recently done some work with a massive well known company who are nuns knickers clean and they just "hired" a guy from a company they were trying to buy who happened to know every customer and every part of the business.
Generally never works like that. RBS in your example will be providing finance to people through the car dealer. So a) they just got tied into an agreement for 3-5 years, so they're not very good immediate prospects and b) they're a bank, so generally dont know much about cars.
c) they probably deal with more than just Arnold Clark, maybe they also deal with every other main dealer sales place. Because they'll have all these other relationships going on, not just in automotive but in any and every other vertical, and because they're not exactly just giving out money without making any themselves, I dont think it'd be in their interest to cut out the middle man and spend time, money and effort on setting themselves up with a car dealership chain, plus the overheads that come with it.
Also, in this example, the customer will be a finance customer of RBS and a customer of Arnold Clark
c) they probably deal with more than just Arnold Clark, maybe they also deal with every other main dealer sales place. Because they'll have all these other relationships going on, not just in automotive but in any and every other vertical, and because they're not exactly just giving out money without making any themselves, I dont think it'd be in their interest to cut out the middle man and spend time, money and effort on setting themselves up with a car dealership chain, plus the overheads that come with it.
Also, in this example, the customer will be a finance customer of RBS and a customer of Arnold Clark
Edited by andy-xr on Monday 28th November 15:23
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