Correspondence: Lindsay Bruce, Cranfield School of Management Demand Chain Management (YT) Cranfield, Bedford, MK34 0AL, UK. E-mail: lindsay.bruce@cranfield.ac.uk

¹is a business writer with a blue-chip marketing background. She is a prolific author in the area of customer strategy. E-mail: lindsay.bruce@cranfield.ac.uk

²is Research Fellow with the Marketing group at Cranfield School of Management. She has widely published in the area of research methodology and corporate social responsibility. Her current research is investigating the intention-behaviour gap within sustainability, and a political model of marketing accountability. E-mail: krista.bondy@cranfield.ac.uk

³is a partner in the business consultancy at IBM. He works with organisations, helping them to identify and successfully execute market-facing change. E-mail: rod.b.street@uk.ibm.com

⁴is Professor of Strategic Marketing and Director of the Customer Management Forum at Cranfield School of Management, UK. He is listed in the Chartered Institute of Marketing's Global Guru Gallery of the 'fifty leading marketing thinkers alive in the world today'. E-mail: hugh.wilson@cranfield.ac.uk.

Received 2 February 2009.

Abstract

This paper examines best practice in multichannel marketing, based on a survey of firms across sectors and sizes. Its principal findings are that the first phase of multichannel marketing implementation, focussed on the switch to low-cost channels, is now well advanced, and is making a transition into a second phase. In this phase, multichannel marketing offers the advantage of not only lower costs, but also greater customer preference. The most important activities required in moving into this second phase are focus on the customer experience, integration and interactivity of channels and adaptation of metrics to reflect this new focus. The paucity of firms currently making the transition to this second phase of multichannel activity offers opportunities for those firms still able to adapt.