Customer World

Join the WSJ's data transparency weekend!

Your data is the single biggest business for many existing and emerging companies across the world.

The web browsing you do is tracked thro' your IP and the cookies that get dropped in your PC or tablet leaves trails of our behaviour which many companies trade for money! The mobile phone that you use creates data repository on your location making it valuable information for  retailers, travel companies and leading brand marketers to name a few. Companies need to co-opt customers, collaborate and working with them closely if they want to build trust and meaningful conversations with them.

 

The need to be transparent about your data and its usage - is the single most important priority for companies. WSJ is conducting an event next week on data transparency and they are inviting developers to build free web tools to promote data transaparency and control. Think it is a great initiative and co-opting developers, customers by making them aware of their rights is great first step. 

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How marketing automation software need to tag the quality of leads better.

Sharon Drew Morgan makes very interesting points in her article where she draws attention on how marketing automation software needs to add decision facilitation technology to their offerings.

She writes, any such marketing software like Marketo, Eloqua,  just help capture some names - email addresses, telephone nos etc. which is great but there is no way to understand at what stage is the prospect in the buying process. This is the precisely where such software must add value to any company's lead management process.

I agree with her, as "stage of buying/decision process" decides in the lead's mind, the kind of information they need & plays a huge role in evaluation & purchase decision. According to me, each person, who is a lead, could be in different stages in the buying/decision process:

1. Trigger stage - where the person is just evaluating the need
2. Consider stage - where the person is considering to buy or not
3. Search stage - where the person is actively looking at all choices before making the decision
4. Choose stage - where the person is close to making the decision & is in a compare mind-set
5. Buy Stage - Where the person looking at all offers/discounts and ready to pay the cheque

Marketing automation software need to "integrate" or "tag" this decision-based thinking that goes through a prospect's mind to ensure a precise method of tagging the lead. This will certainly have downstream effects on what information is shared at each stage with the prospect by both the sales  and the marketing team that can accelerate decision making or conversion.

Capturing the name alone is not good enough. Calling it Hot/Cold/Warm may be better but not good enough too. It is important for marketing automation softwares to "tag" the leads by the the stage in the decision cycle to truly value-add to the marketing automation process.

 

How do you define success for data-driven marketing programs?

I often have been wondering off-late how does one define success for data-driven marketing programs - the reason being tons of hours are spent in understanding data, organizing data, cleansing the data make it ready for analysis and then time taken for building insights by analysts, getting organization-wide buy-in into the insights and developing a roll-out plan, measuring them etc.

The opportunity I see with all this, is a need to clearly define how is a company benefitting with all of this is increasingly becoming critical. No amount of insights & discovery is worth its weight in gold till it becomes actionable and value is returned in dollars for them. Also, another important question is how do such programs get more investments to provide more value year after year? I also don't see this being driven from one corner or department while participation from senior management teams and other departments is critical for its success, adoption and growing investments.

Interestingly as I got thinking about it, I got something from my archives which had an interesting reference to how to define success by Pat LaPointe.

He has got a lovely definition of defining success. Here's the forumula according to him which may be worth looking at:

It is a simple summation of all experiences of transforming insights into action and the value it created divided by the number of resources consumed to get this value and this is raised to the power of perception!

From my experience, I agree with him that the hard part is transforming the insights into action in any company. Also, perception of quality plays a critical role as enterprise-wide buy-in is critical for such programs as they need collaboration from other departments like sales, customer service, IT, channels etc. So, continued success of such programs must be exponentially raised to the perception and alignment of metrics & hence the value each of them get from such initiatives.

Would love to hear any other method of measuring sucess of data-driven marketing programs.

It's time for companies to think of a Chief Marketing Technology officer!

When I talk and work with people and clients on many assignments, the challenge I find for enterprises to be customer-centric is, how to bring marketing & technology together. Increasingly, technology is getting adopted in many customer-centric channels like never before and marketing is getting more & more real time & thefore technology is becoming a nerve-centre for marketing. The future , I have always thought is the changing( or can I call it merging) role of marketing & technology folks and the need for them to work together.

I read an interesting article today, if there is a need for a CMTO ( Chief Marketing Technology Officer)! I thought this was quite interesting. Who  is a CMTO and what does he or she do?

" A chief marketing technology officer (CTMO) — use whatever label you prefer — is simply the lead marketing technologist, organizing and managing that team. He or she reports to the CMO, not the CIO. Again, this is ultimately a marketing responsibility. There should be collaboration with IT, of course, assuring that marketing fully leverages its infrastructure and complies with technical governance standards. But collaborating is better than being solely dependent."

I find this very thought provoking and I do feel this is doable. The role of the CMTO is to ensure the right technology - either already invested is leveraged across the enterprise or if to be invested is partnered and led by this role - to collaboratively ensure this is adopted enterprise-wide.

Finally, customers must see the benefit of technology in their interaction experience with any company. The role of the CMTO is to make this happen.

Marketing automation software - What do buyers look for?

I have been blogging a lot on marketing automation and the need for enterprises to make it a part of their marketing arsenal. Today, there is an increasing need for real-time marketing and only marketing automation software can provide them this agility. 

I came across a very interesting research by Lauren Carlson, a leading CRM Market Analyst on what do buyers look for, when they want to buy a marketing automation software. I liked her classifcation of content into market-level content & product-specific content.

Take a look at what buyers look for:

1. The most important market-level content that they look for is pricing information & product comparison. Many a times, software vendors don't do a comparison w.r.t competitors and it makes sense to have it benchmarked against top competitiors and use it effectively for buyers to take a decision.
2. The importance of online software demonstration is also extremely critical for these buyers.
3. In the product-specific content, buyers look for user ratings and I think this is an extremely important point which many buyers look for. Publishing user ratings can help the vendors gain the trust of the buyers.
4. User Reviews - is another facet that buyers want and getting business user reviews can certainly tilt the buying decision in their favour.

Before buyers take a decision on marketing software, the study shows what are the various content and information that must be addressed by marketing automation vendors. Read the full study here.

 

Dear customer, you are downgraded!

I recently received a mail from my favourite airline Jet Airways, that I have been downgraded! I am a member of their loyalty program for years now! And this is not the first time this has happened to me. It also happened in 2001 and 2002 too.

The letter read - "...since you have not had enough flights with us, you will be downagraded. Our Dynamic Tier Review (DTR) formula, unique to Jet Airways - DTR is an award winning, multi-period and multi-criteria-based tier review. It has no precedent anywhere in the world. With DTR, upgrade to the higher tier is quicker and tier renewal is easier. The DTR evaluates a member's tier based on Tier Points and Tier JPMiles earned....."

I was disappointed. As a customer, it did not matter to me if the DTR was award winning for Jet Airways! It surely did not work for me ( the downgrade letter was templated too with such high sound words and sentences!). 

It made me think about the structure of current loyalty programs across the world and their relevance when loyal customers like me are click away from the next best offer!

Here are some questions that came to my mind:

1. In a year of recession and tough 2 years for business, I was suprised how the DTR did not take care of this business environment. I did'nt fly so much as Jet would have wanted. So, Jet's view of my loyalty is transcational - fly more( at full price or premium prices and get rewarded more!). I too will behave the same way in the future, I presume. Question #1: Can't loyalty programs be flexible, adapt to new environment, and why reward only transactional loyalty?
2. Given the unsettling business environment that it was over the last 2 years, why would me even as a "fiercely" loyal customer, travel in Jet if the fares were not competitive. Finally, if there is no value, loyalty cannot be bought with points. Question # 2: When there is a challenge of intrinsic value in the product,  will loyalty progams deliver - No. It is better to focus on the product rather than upset customers. Companies must know, customers will move on in such circumstances!
3. I have been surprised with their loyalty program  not paying attention to customer experience, in spite of being a Citibank-Jet Platinum card member. Every time redeeming their upgrade vouchers was a pain. The little travel that I did in these 2 years, whenever I presented the voucher, I was told it was applicable only on full price tickets! Funny, not sure what world they were living in. Question # 3: Do companies that run loyalty programs pay attention to  such little details that affect customer experience? They took trouble  a few years back to invite me to their co-branded card, but forgot to look at my spends and credits to give me waivers at such tough recessionary period.The bank has no clue, whatsover.
   

Loyalty programs are still in their 1.0 version.  Imagine a product that has not changed for 25 years! They still are in an old world order - "spend with us to earn rewards". Sometimes they have to recognize the value that customers get when they are out shopping for options, may not justfiy the reward they earn everytime if they have to stay within these products/brands. They need to transform given the new environment and options in front of customers.

Customer seek value and surely are willing to pay premium for loyalty but recognition, surprises and instant gratification will need to be weaved into these programs - on the assumption value needs to be earned in the customer's mind & wallet.

Rest assured, this is not a rant but earnestly these are thoughts that I had in my mind and coming out of experiences I have had with such programs over time.  

 

 

Customers know when to open their wallet - when you service them like nobody else!

We  have always known the importance of customer service and how it can boost customer retention and better word-of-mouth. But, the fact that it can help increase spend is an interesting statistic.

In a recent study, it is interesting to see that Indians value customer service the most!

Excellent customer service can push customer spend - Indians will spend 11% more vs Americans at  9%!

According to the same report, a majority of Americans report that quality customer service is more important to them in today’s economic environment (61%) and will spend an average of 9% more when they believe a company provides excellent service. This average spending boost ties US consumers in third place with Italian consumers, only consumers in Japan (10%) and India (11%) have a higher average spending increase resulting from excellent service.

Here are some interesting additional highlights:

• Customers themselves spread the good news. Positive Service experience generates great conversations amongst customers and their friends.
•  48% felt companies are helpful but don’t do anything extra to keep their business!
•  21% believe that companies take their business for granted!
• When deciding which companies they do business with, it includes personal experience (98%), a company’s reputation or brand (92%), and recommendations from friends and family (88%).

It's time to put the customer at the center of customer service and do what it takes to keep  them surprised, engaged and involved. Not just satisfied. 

Retention is the new acquisition

Joseph Jaffe makes some incredible points in his new book Flip The Funnel.

Most industries really forget existing customers in their strive to grow market share through new acquisitions. For example, the auto industry is no exception. He makes some fantastic points on how Automotive industry must focus on retention as a foundation for acquisition:

Instead of “ending” all outreach efforts at the point of customer purchase, why not use this moment of truth to kick relationship building efforts into high gear? For some reason, most auto brands become goldfish the moment their customers drive out of their showrooms with their new leased car. Out of site. Out of mind.

Here are some opportunities that he identifies:

Acknowledgment – everything from courtesy follow-up calls to period check-ins; calls on birthdays; updates on new accessories, technology patches. And then again there are the two most powerful words in the English language, “Thank you” (there’s also I’m sorry but that’s another story for another day). The other day I went into a local bank to apply for a loan. My contact made a point to introduce me to the owner of the bank. When last did you meet the owner of your local dealership? Do you even know who they are? Or more importantly, do they even know who you are?

Dialogue – Does your local salesperson have a Facebook page? Maybe they should? What about the brand itself: are they active on Twitter? Does that even mean anything? More importantly how do they escalate or route queries or concerns to the right and relevant parties?

In the automotive world, there is a gaping chasm between sales and service (support).

I could not quite disagree with him on this. Take a look a host of opportunities available for them

Not many companies or brands have mastered the art of treating retention as a form of acquisition. They neither have templates nor a  follow-up plan of how to leverage this. This either ends-up in poor investments in retention or even if they invest in retention programs, there is no organized method of  building a value out of the efforts that are put in. Hence, the results are neither measured nor made a part of the overall enterprise-wide initiative.

Remember, retention cannot be made a department responsibility or accountability but needs an organization-wide ownership. This has catalytic effect on acquisition because of better word-of-mouth, better customer experience, better customer feedback gathering and resolution across departments.

When is your company ready to treat retention as a form of acquisition? Make it happen today.   

How do you estimate economic impact of your business - Google shows a way!

Most often, I have been left wondering, what impact does my company make with businesses  that I deal with, the value difference some of the activities/programs that my clients' customers see of what we do for them and how to measure it effectively, showcase the value created to our employees who spend a significant part of the day of their lives( across the year!) with getting our clients' businesses customer ready!

Google has found an interesting way of  measuring the economic impact of their business across America. They have kind of looked at the what economic growth they have added to all the states in the US!  A whopping US $ 54 billion according to them!

Some interesting facts that I took out of the study:

• According to Google's own words - "Aside from being a well-known search engine, Google is also a successful advertising company.". Interesting to know that advertising business can drive economic value to the tune of several billion dollars when it is measured & accountable. 
• Google's business is based on 3 core offerings - Google Search & Ad Words, Ad Sense & Google Grants. When you are able to  build and measure the ability to connect customers to business, you create value. When you share a part of the revenue you make with a business, you create immense value to that business.
• Google Grants has supported over US $ 600 million in advertising for non-profit organizations worldwide. When businesses move from  participating in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to driving Customer Social Responsbility( CuSR), there is immense value that can be created.
  

• How do we define economic value is key to a business - Google estimates that for every $1 Ad Word spend, businesses earn $ 2 of revenue. Also, businesses receive 5  clicks on their search results for every $1 ad click. Interesting. In our business, if we were helping business cross-sell & up-sell or retain customers, it is a great way to quantify the value we bring to the table.Imagine you are in a Insurance business, the economic value added to the family of the deceased can be measured over time and the impact it creates on millions of households.Or if you were a MF company, the economic impact of making dreams of daughter's education, retirement, daughter's marriage expenses & consumption that happens around these events can create great economic impact in the economy.

Here's the report for you to read

I wonder though, why only the US!  Google, I believe has to be more global. The web and Google Ad Sense are pretty much well penetrated across countries today. May be this is a start but I would have liked Google to measure this across geographies.

Making Analytics actionable - Add the power performance management to it as a catalyst

With  zillions of data points becoming available in organizations today, there has been a lot of buzz around the following:

1. Using analytics in marketing campaigns driving relevance, immediacy, reducing wastage and optimizing spends
2. Making marketing more accountable using the power of data that's becoming available like never before
3. Getting analytics closer to business - Making it simpler and business manager friendly for action to be taken
4. Getting organizations more customer-centric as customers leave a lot of trail about their behaviour - likes and dislikes

I have been always of the belief that analytics is not worth its weight in gold, if you don't make it actionable. The key to this has always been taking this power to the ultimate decision maker where ever he or she is in the organization - it could be the tele-sales rep on the phone, the customer service executive on the field, the marketing manager at customer's office etc. To make that happen, this has to be linked with performance management of employees who ultimately play a role in making this happen on the ground. Peppers & Rogers too seem to make this point in their recent  Expert Opinion( Mark Selcow)article: 

Organizations are beginning to recognize that these massive volumes of data are valuable for more than the immediate insights they reveal: By leveraging metrics, dashboards, and other PM components, data can also be harnessed to change behavior and processes.

The connection between the growing interest in analytics and PM is not coincidental. Analytics is about mining data for patterns and insights – making big discoveries that help advance big ideas. PM is about turning operational data into metrics that show performance versus a goal on a task or process that matters. Simply put: Analysis, Action.

Here are a few quick thoughts on how analytics and PM can fit together in a single project initiative:

1. Select the best projects to execute against that will help advance a critical goal, such as customer churn reduction (analytics)
2. Determine what the metrics and goals should be in each project (analytics)
3. Uncover patterns that can be addressed with process reengineering or team/individual intervention (both analytics and PM)
4. Plan out the financial impacts of making operational change, such as modifying compensation, or tightening/relaxing SLAs (PM)
5. Operationalize the insights and plans by introducing to the organization, for example, in dashboards or in incentive systems (PM)
6. Measure and control performance (PM)

This will continue to be an area of growing interest in organizations as the results then get tangible, metrics then become a measure for evaluation of employees who are responsible for making this happen.