To succeed in a global marketplace dominated by the new generation of internet-empowered, seller-agnostic customers, every manufacturer -- in every industry and segment -- must confront the radically changed purchasing behavior of these often-ruthless customers.

Today's aggressive, techno-savvy customers are armed with purchasing firepower unavailable to any previous generation, and they use three lethal weapons to secure the benefits they seek and satisfy their intense need to win:

1. Instant, comprehensive information from the internet about all manufactured products as well as every manufacturer's service offerings
2. Immense choice in every sector of manufactured goods -- a wide variety of options and prices from every corner in the world
3. Real-time price comparison on smarter-and-smarter technology and newer-and-newer apps on their now-ubiquitous mobile devices

Moreover, social media informs and influences these determined customers -- it shares and compares their purchasing experience with every manufacturer -- favorable and unfavorable -- in real-time throughout the world.

Make no mistake -- this era of "new experts" is permanent. In fact, it will become an even more potent force because the generations of customers that follow it will have more effective and more agile technology and they will be more adept at using technology for their benefit -- not yours.

Can you afford not to change the way you deal with customers in this period of irreversible change in the manufacturer's world?

This startling statistic documents the necessity for change: in 2009, only one in five American car buyers were loyal the company that manufactured their brand, compared to the 1980s when four out of five bought the same car brand, according to CNW Marketing Research (Bill Vlasic, "For Car Buyers, the Brand Romance Is Gone," New York Times, October 20, 2009.)

In the absence of customer loyalty, Customer Preference is the Only Differentiator and the Surest Way to Be Your Customers' 1st Choice

Customer Preference, in the context of business, is deliberately making a choice to obtain a real or perceived benefit -- a benefit the customer values enough to influence the decision about where and from whom to purchase.

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