This moment is when you can convert a one-time customer into a repeat customer and an advocate and referral source for your company.

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Since the fundamental idea was so important to them, we ended up using it twice: Customers for Life: Turning That One-Time Buyer Into a Lifetime Customer.

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One early customer for time-sharing is Mobil Travel Guide, the restaurant-and-hotel rater partly owned by ExxonMobil.

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In essence, Groupon is claiming that its massive expenditures on marketing and related customer-acquisition costs are a one-time thing, a side effect of creating an entirely new market.

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"Our confidence level is high, and we know how to keep the momentum going--continuing to rebuild our profitability one SKU and one customer at a time, " Smith said.

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Jobs didn't often pick up the phone to go back and forth with customers, but at least one Apple customer, Scott Steckley, recalls a time when an e-mail to Jobs, explaining how there seemed to be no end in sight to his wait for a computer repair, was met with a phone call.

CNN: Mark Milian,

Roadway is a less-than-truckload carrier, meaning its trucks can carry freight for more than one customer at a time.

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