“You can undo good work so quickly if you don’t balance your channels.”

Mark Selcow pointed out this unfortunate truth yesterday when we were discussing the importance of having a consistent customer experience across channels. Selcow is president of Merced Systems, a performance management vendor focused on the contact center—for now. Merced has begun expanding into other areas of its customers’ organizations (field service and installation, back office, retail channel), courtesy of those customers. It’s not alone. Witness Systems is another contact center vendor whose customers are using its applications to improve service in other areas of their businesses (watch for our upcoming article on Banco Popular in the Jan/Feb issue of 1to1 magazine).

What makes this interesting to me is twofold: First, it shows that companies are increasingly recognizing the need to create a consistent multichannel service experience. Many are doing so by sharing common service processes across channels, in some cases supported by technologies that can help guide those processes. Second, it demonstrates the positive impact customers can have on a company that listens to and acts on their feedback.

Continue reading "Where Will Customers Take You Next?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Walker Information just released its 2007 The Walker Loyalty Report for Online Retail, which reveals what it found to be the eight websites that garner the most loyalty. One thing I thought was interesting about the findings is that offline brand awareness doesn’t always translate into online sales or loyalty.

Continue reading "Offline Brand Preference Doesn’t Always Equal Online Sales" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I buy into Time Magazine's choice of "me" as the 2006 "Person of the Year." If you haven't seen it, the media behemoth overlooked Al Gore, George Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the person who "for better or worse" affected the news in 2006. It chose instead, everyone who gets onto blogs, social media sites and product review boards as that person. I think the choice is a complete copout personally, but let's put that aside. If the average Jack and Jill is "Person of the Year," then Fred Reichheld should have run a very close second. Here's why. The huge rush toward product recommendations, personalized marketing and the power of social "internetworking" has been driven by media companies and consumer marketing entities (agencies, brands, etc.) It has been in their best interest to drive consumer participationto access its resulting customer intelligence. No one person has been more influential than Reichheld in creating this environment. No single person has influenced the power of customer influence the way he has. His ideas have crystallized a new direction for business. Now, it ain't exactly overshadowing global warming or nuclear proliferation, but here's a reserved vote for Fred.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday in my blog entry, Redefining the C in First Call Resolution, I discussed how to overcome the six main barriers to first contact resolution, based on a conversation I had with Rob McDougall, president of Upstream Works. During that call, McDougall made another great point: Companies need to measure first contact resolution – not just in terms of the pure numbers of closed cases, but also in terms of why callbacks are happening. This is especially important because understanding and reducing or eliminating the sources of callbacks can cut contact centers costs and significantly improve service. It call also improve interdepartmental processes.

Continue reading "Do You Really Know Why Customers Are Calling? " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

First call resolution is a favorite metric of many customer service leaders. But in today’s multichannel environment, first contact resolution is fast becoming a more fitting moniker. This thought hit home for me during a recent call I had with Rob McDougall, president of Upstream Works. We were discussing the six main barriers to first call (er, contact…) resolution and how to overcome them. We also discussed what first contact resolution actually means.

Continue reading "Redefining the C in First Call Resolution" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In a feature article that I wrote in the May/June issue of 1to1 Magazine, I quoted a Delta Air Lines financial report as reading, “Unless we change our direction, we’re likely to end up where we’re headed.”

Seems like Delta is sticking to that proverb. Delta yesterday announced that it rejected U.S. Airways $8.3 billion hostile takeover bid. Instead Delta outlined a five-year reorganization plan. In the plan, the airline lists US Airways as being a “poor strategic fit” and because of its negative synergies, the acquisition would have created an impact of “reduced customer service.”

Continue reading "Delta Sets Its Own Course" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Word-of-mouth marketing is certainly a hot trend. It's growing to the point where complex strategies and programs have been put in place to make them happen. But with growth comes the potential for misuse. So last week the FTC ruled that companies engaging in word-of-mouth marketing, in which people are compensated to promote products to their peers, must disclose those relationships.

Continue reading "FTC Rules on Word-of-Mouth" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today's 1to1 Weekly article, "Amazon Sets Customer Service Standard," highlights a new customer service study from the National Retail Federation. At the top of the list for customer satisfaction are Amazon.com, Nordstrom, and L.L. Bean. It's interesting that the top three companies are also some of the top 1to1 brands out there. Two of these three companies don't even have a physical store, but their commitment to individual service and MVC treatment have propelled them to the top of the list.

Continue reading "Customer Service 2.0" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

How’s that for a burning question? The desire to know what drives customer loyalty is definitely one issue that keeps many marketers awake at night.

I was curious to know how various industry insiders – from loyalty experts to marketing and service practitioners – would answer that question, so I asked: Of the many elements that organizations might consider a signifier of customer loyalty, which is the most important and why? And then I collected the responses and put them in 1to1 magazine in a brand new column called Taking Issue. The full responses are online.

But I’d love to hear your answers to that question, too. So to get the conversation started, here are the abbreviated versions of a few of the responses:

Continue reading "What Drives Loyalty?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Social media is fast becoming the “it” online activity. Oh sure, it’s been around for ages. But with new technologies and marketers’ enthusiasm, its burgeoning role as a hotbed of advocates and influencers is undeniable. So, then, what sites are doing it well?

Continue reading "Be Social" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Consumers can buy most anything online today, so why not Christmas trees too?

The New York Times this week reported that last year 200,000 to 500,000 Christmas trees were bought online. Many of the 60 U.S. growers that sell trees online are expanding their e-commerce capacity to accommodate what they expect to be a growing number of time-pressed consumers this holiday season who plan to order trees online.

Similar to purchasing a book from Amazon, the tree is packaged and shipped FedEx or UPS to arrive in about five days. One tree grower in the Times article says he may even add virtual tree selection where shoppers can pan the fields, find their tree, and he’ll cut it down for them.

Continue reading "Technology Meets Tradition" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For the first holiday sales season on record, gift cards are expected to sell better than gifts of toys, games, music and movies, according to the 2006 American Express Gift Card survey of 1,013 shoppers. Two-thirds (66%) of shoppers plan to purchase them this year, up from 57% in 2005 and 55% in 2004, according to the survey. It's a great experience for purchasers and redeemers alike, and with a smart strategy, it could be a great interaction experience for the retailer as well.

Continue reading "Give Gift Cards, Get Customer Insight" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Jimi Hendrix was famous for asking that question. I think a lot of companies could profit from the same inquisition. As raised in our 1to1 Weekly story, the question of customer experience and its importance cannot be overstated. The mistake too many compannies make is in equating the customer experience with the retail experience. Big mistake. The customer experience is not just transactional. It is interactional. Every time a customer experiences the brand message, media, employees, contect center and even the sights and sounds of a company, that customer is having an experience. I would bet almost my whole marketing budget on improving that experience. It's the foundation of customer loyalty. If your company doesn't provide a customer experience that reflects some kind of well-thought strategy, don't bother with the meeting about revenue goals, loyalty or all that other fun stuff. Get the experience right first.

Posted by John Gaffney at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Sales professionals in B2B environments, as well as in some retail environments, often specialized in the kinds of relationship building activities that are integral to fostering long-term, high value “partnerships” with customers. Does it get more one-to-one than that? Yes. Sprinkle a bit of technology into the mix and salespeople get a powerful tool to accrue and share information not just among their peers, but also with other departments in their organization that have information integral to the sales process (Interface Software calls this relationship capital); streamline sales and administrative processes; and track and report on results in real time instead of at the end of a quarter, when it may be too late to make necessary adjustments; and more.

The catch is that there are still many, many sales forces that, although they may use CRM or SFA technologies, have not realized the full potential of those tools.

Continue reading "Can Selling Get More One to One?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending a launch event for Circuit City’s Firedog services group. The retailer has been taking direct steps to battle behemoth competitor Best Buy, including creating Firedog and hiring Samsung’s Peter Weedfald as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Not surprisingly, Weedfald dove right into the fray and brought his passion for customer and community to bear on the challenge.

Continue reading "Loyalty on Fire" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On a visit last week to see the tree at Rockefeller Center, I was surprised less by the mob scene in front of the tree as I was with the legions of girls gathered across the street and wrapped around a building.

The building was American Girl Place—the Saks Fifth Avenue for the popular doll that bears its name. The New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles stores have become the Mecca for young girls to travel to for doll grooming and accessroy shopping.

Continue reading "American Girl Place Creates Lasting Relationships" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The corner office is usually reserved for discussions about financial impact and revenue numbers. Yet more high-level executives are rolling up their sleeves and getting in the muck and mire of customer service. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark told Business 2.0 recently that he spends at least 40 hours per week on customer service, and can't understand why other businesses don't.

Continue reading "CEO=CSR" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Does mobile marketing have potential? Our 1to1 Weekly story certainly raises a lot of that potential. And you know what they say about the heavy burdens of potential. I think that for mobile marketing to succeed it needs to grow beyond its youth-heavy culture. As it stands now, mobile marketing is a very cool and engaging way to reach kids on their cell phones. It needs to grow into a very convenient way to help organize the lives of adults. If I ran a travel company I would be all over cell phones and smart phones with alerts, text messages and small screen ads. If I ran a restaurant chain I would do the same. If I was a high volume e-retailer like Amazon, I would develop interfaces to keep busy adults connected to their music and books. I would also work hard on ways to encourage cell phone payments, or as it’s known in industry parlance, the wireless wallet. Mobile marketing has huge potential because it's starting from a customer-centric standpoint. Now it just needs to grow up.

Posted by John Gaffney at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

You may have noticed that a few of my recent blog entries (and a couple of my 1to1 Weekly “Reporter’s Notebook” articles) focus on the close connection between employee engagement and customer satisfaction. Among many the presentations I attended recently there was one common thread: You can’t train for attitude, you have to hire it.

Continue reading "Great People Create a Great Customer Experience" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

“We’re a ‘yes’ company,” Build-a-Bear Workshop’s Chief Marketing Bear Teresa Kroll said during her keynote presentation at the North American Conference on Customer Management. “If you operate a company in that manner you will succeed. We live it every day.”

Continue reading "“Yes” Is a Profitable Approach" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ComScore Networks, an Internet information provider, reported that online spending during the first 24 days of November reached $8.31 billion, a 23-percent increase versus the same days in 2005. Black Friday saw particularly high online sales—$434 million—up 42 percent versus last year.

Shoppers most likely are shifting their purchases online because of retailers’ investments in technology to streamline the shopping experience for added convenience and a less frustrating check-out. Sites are becoming more personalized and user friendly and shoppers are probably bailing out less during the check-out procedures.

To cite a few examples of outstanding online shopping experiences, I enlisted a few friends and colleagues to share a recent standout. Here’s who was top-of-mind:

Continue reading "What's Your Ultimate Online Shopping Experience?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Here's why every company needs to have a Chief Customer Officer, as discussed this week's 1to1 Weekly lead. A CCO puts an executive on the credibility case, regardless of what the pressures on that credibility might be. Credibility is different than advocacy. A customer advocate is an employee that acts with a positive customer experience in mind. So everyone should be a customer advocate. But credibility, to me, has to be considered with advertising, branding, images, communication and operations. Is a mortgage company credible when it extends loans to people who don't have the income to pay for them? Is a pharmaceutical company credible when it overprices drugs for senior citizens? Those are the issues a CCO needs to consider.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

If you’re one of the many consumers who enjoy braving the frenzied crowds of Black Friday simply for the adrenaline rush, then shopping at Best Buy this Friday may not be the best choice.

The electronics chain is treating this pivotal shopping day seriously, taking measures to ensure customers will have an easy shopping experience. Last Saturday Best Buy stores nationwide held Black Friday practice rounds with its employees. Starting at 6 a.m., employees in many stores lined up outside to pose as customers. Others walked the line to inform them how to navigate the store. In some stores, employees even made mock purchases and cashiers practiced making point-of-sale offers.

Best Buy’s efforts to create an enjoyable Black Friday is partly the result of Wal-Mart making an aggressive push into electronics this holiday season. It's also partly because with many Circuit Cities located within a few miles, Best Buy has no choice but to make its stores attractive to consumers.

Whatever the reason may be, most of the early birds who plan to perch outside of a Best Buy this Friday will surely welcome a smooth shopping trip. And Best Buy will welcome those shoppers back in 2007 when they return again and again.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving and happy shopping!

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe it's a little less sexy than the current facination with brand co-creation, but I like the customer focus shown in our 1to1 Weekly story this week. Credit Suisse and American Express may not have a lot of MySpace friends or YouTube videos, but their branding speaks to customers in a language that all the stakeholders undertsand. "One Bank" shows a brand promise and a higher customer goal for Credit Suisse. Involving employees from the top to the bottom at Amex is a quiet but effective way of ensuring that the brand gets communicated and reinforced in every transactions. It's not brands screaming for attention. It's a little bit of welcome sanity.

Posted by John Gaffney at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

According to Winston Wright, who heads marketing for Nokia’s Experience Centers and its stores, the company’s aim is to create guest-led experiences. “Never assume anything about the customer,” he said during a presentation at NACCM. “You need to ask questions to understand them and to lead them to where they [want] to go.” That is, to find the right product or service to fit their needs.

Continue reading "There’s No I in Team" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 5:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When I ask, “What’s Your ‘Good Customer’ Quotient?” I’m not asking how many good customers your company has. What I really want to know is whether you’re a good customer. I just spend a few days at the North American Conference on Customer Management, where the focus was of course on improving the customer experience to drive growth. One of the recurring themes was to hire people who are passionate about delivering stellar service. All the talk about employee behavior got me thinking about the other side of the equation: customer behavior. So I started observing.

Continue reading "What’s Your “Good Customer” Quotient?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

In his autobiography, Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton wrote, “The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want.”

That’s exactly what Wal-Mart is doing this holiday shopping season. After launching a new fashionable apparel line in September called Metro 7, revenues fell short of Wall Street’s forecasts, leaving the chain’s executives to admit they’ve made some mistakes. Retail analysts said Wal-Mart frightened off its core customers—low-income consumers who frequent the store for everyday low prices.

Well it appears as if Wal-Mart is trying to win over its core group of customers again. It’s knocking back prices early and often and promoting holiday shopping to lure holiday shoppers. Its even promoting heavy discounts on high-end electronics like flat-panel televisions and MP3 players, potentially launching a price war between rivals like Best Buy and Circuit City.

Continue reading "Wal-Mart Seduces its Core Customers, but at What Expense?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday as I was walking through the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, I noticed a kiosk from the Star Tribune newspaper. It allowed people to search for jobs in the classifieds section. At first I was confused as to why this would be in the airport terminal, but then I realized how genius it was.

Continue reading "Recruiting New Hires at the Airport" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've always held a little facination about airlines. Continental is among those that have managed to make some money and make its customers less miserable than most, as we point out in this week's 1to1 Weekly story. What facinates me, though, is why so many people in the customer strategy business love to talk about airlines. And the reason they do is because consultants use them so much and unfortunately they provide so much material for their presentations. Airlines are customer strategy gone wrong. When one of them gets it right, you're treated well, you depart and arrive on time and maybe you had an extra bag of peanuts. It's an incredible aligning of the planets.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this week I attended the Sage Customer Summit and while there had the pleasure of hearing a keynote presentation by Mrs. Fields Cookies founder Debbie Fields Rose. Not surprisingly for someone who turned a love of baking and sharing cookies into a multimillion-dollar business, Fields’ speech focused on what some might consider the “softer” side of business: offering an experience that makes customers and employees feel valued.

Continue reading "What’s Your Recipe for Success?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It’s often been said that customers are a company’s most powerful sales force. So it’s not surprising, then, that marketers are increasingly obsessed with inspiring word of mouth, creating communities, and measure Net Promoter Scores.

Continue reading "Power Up Your Sales Force" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Creating brand awareness is no longer enough for marketers. Creating brand demand by engaging with prospects and creating loyalty is becoming the new paradigm for building profitable growth.

At the Ad-Tech New York conference this week marketing pundits toiled with not only the definition of engagement, but with how consumer-generated media is fast becoming the leading mechanism for engagement.

No one would argue that social media is fueling a growing number of engaged customers. Ze Frank, founder of zefrank.com, a videoblogger who receives thousands of clicks per week, knows about engagement. He recently challenged his audience to make an earth sandwich…and they did. Someone in Spain held a piece of bread to the ground at the same time as his counterpart in New Zealand knelt to the earth with bread in hand.

Continue reading "Earth Sandwich Builder, or Brand Ambassador?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"We should all take more risks in the marketing community," Tim Mahoney, SVP and CMO of Subaru, told last week's Conference Board Marketing Conference audience. That sentiment was also echoed by Carlson Marketing CEO Jim Schroer during his keynote. He explained that many marketers don't take the risks they know they should take because "it's too damn hard."

Continue reading "The Risky Business of Marketing" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Politics, regardless of the progress reported in this week's 1to1 Weekly story, has a long way to go to reach anything like modern times. Face it, we use voting machines that can't even hang with cash registers. We have political campaigns that still rely on trashy ads and pressing the flesh when much more honorable strategies are available.

Did I say honorable? Sorry. Back to politics.

Political campaigns could cop some easy lessons from customer-centric companies. Stop the telemarketing. Leave the IVR machines off. Focus on events that disseminate honest and clear information. Use the internet wisely. Find your influencers and work them intelligently. Leave my inbox alone unless I ask you to send me stuff. And look at the process on Tuesday as one giant NetPromoter score: Would you recommend this candidate to a family member or friend?

Posted by John Gaffney at 2:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBacks (0)

There's a lot of buzz about customized multichannel communications, and for good reason. When done right, the results can be staggering. Regent Seven Seas Cruises, for example, mailed personalized letters to past cruisers--complete with a photo of the ship they had last traveled on and suggestions for new destinations based on their known preferences--connecting them with Regent's travel agent partners, and as a result generated a 40 percent lift in the targeted cruises. Nice. And Regent's not alone.

Continue reading "Now That's Lift!" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Companies aren’t the only business entities asking customers what they want. Today even musicians are creating customer engagement by asking for feedback.

Continue reading "Customers Make Sweet Music" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Interactive marketing can be challenging because if you’re an international company, you don’t always see every consumer transaction. Event-based marketing, however, provides a way for consumers to experience the brand in person and possibly make a connection with a company, while the company has the chance to build its brand personality.

At Brown-Forman Beverages, which distributes a variety of beverages like Fetzer wines and Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, it's known that the brands are more important than the Brown family.

Continue reading "Branding Gets Experiential" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Halloween from 1to1 Media! Every year we celebrate by dressing up as part of a theme. This year we are dressed as 1970s and 1980s TV characters (link to pictures below).

Continue reading "Happy Halloween!!!" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I see from our 1to1 Weekly story that AOL has stepped up its privacy efforts. Hey, I can be as cynical as the next former AOL customer, but it’s more than hot air as far as I can see. I think AOL CEO Jon Miller is a good man who understands the value of a brand. He’s taken AOL much farther than it really had any business going by leaning on the brand. It has had its business model taken away more times than I’ve taken away my six-year old’s Pokemon cards. That’s at least ten times over the past seven days. AOL’s brand can not afford any further erosion through security breaches. But one thing I will never give Miller or AOL any credit for is the negative option/free dial up offers that it still has out there. While it’s still doing that, AOL can never be customer-centric.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier this week I attended Oracle’s Open World conference, along with about 41,000 customers and partners. The keynote speakers were a heady group of high-tech players, including Oracle President Charles Phillips, Dell Chairman Michael Dell, Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd, and Cisco President and CEO John Chambers. And, of course, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison – but I was off to Vegas for Better Management Live, so missed his presentation. Each took a different approach to their presentations.

Continue reading "View From the C Suite" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Company executives have gathered customer intelligence from multiple sources for ages: demographic data, survey feedback, and the like have long been mainstays for marketers. But today it is becoming increasingly important to not only look at that data holistically, but also to look further for that insight. Blogs, online communities, contact center interactions, and more reveal information on customers' feelings -- good and bad -- about your products, service, customer experience, staff, and brand image. Mining those channels is a start, but are not enough.

Continue reading "New Paths to Customer Insight" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

The staff at 1to1 Magazine has been hearing a lot of buzz from readers about Crutchfield’s http://www.crutchfield.com/S-nKhQJuStEw7/ excellent customer service. Last week, J.D. Power and Associates recognized the audio and car accessory call center operation for customer satisfaction excellence under its Certified Call Center Program.

To attain certification, a contact center must meet J.D. Power and Associate’s cross-industry customer satisfaction criteria. This includes evaluation of courtesy, knowledge, concern for the customer, usefulness of the information provided, convenience of operating hours, ease of reaching a representative, and timely resolution.

Continue reading "Taking a Cue From Crutchfield" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Email is entering into a renaissance as a business tool, but with new opportunities bring new challenges. It's not all about deliverability and the volume of the email list anymore. Creative and qualitative issues now run the show. Bill Nussey, Silverpop CEO, explained that click rates and retention success come down to a creative message presented in a way customers want to receive it.

Continue reading "Solving the Email Mystery" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I have to admit when you see Business Week, Harvard Business Review, Knowledge @ Wharton and a slew of other respected business publications devoting entire issues to China and Chinese consumers, you start to ask yourself: "When do we get a shot at this?"

This week's 1to1 Weekly provides that shot, finally. It's a bit of an underrated facet of the Chinese consumer tiger. That facet is customer loyalty. In the US and EU we tend to think we've invented loyalty and we do all the cool thinking about it. Turns out we don't. The authors of the study we highlight this week are from Peking University and the National University of Singapore. That sound you just heard was the sigh from every CEO that has considered the fact that the millions of consumers in the Pacific Rim and China could ever be loyal. Can you imagine that? In China, the thought leaders are on the case. Their conclusion is that delayed reward is the key to effective loyalty programs. This is a very Eastern concept. In the Western economies we want immediate gratification. But maybe what we want in the West is not as universal as we thought.

Posted by John Gaffney at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the October issue of “Treasury & Risk” (before you ask - my UBS broker sent it to me, thinking I would be interested in it, and she was right) the cover article urges CFO’s to pay more attention to customer satisfaction and service, because customer satisfaction is a key to long-term success. One metric the article considers at length is Reichheld’s NPS, or “Net Promoter Score,” which most of you already know boils down to the difference between the percentage of customers likely to recommend you to a friend or colleague, and the percentage likely to denigrate you. The advantage of NPS is also its disadvantage – it is a single number, based a single survey question ("On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us..."). As Reichheld says in the article, everyone knows “customer satisfaction is a key component of value. They just don’t have a good way of measuring it.” Until NPS, of course, which he maintains, with good reason, is an excellent and well-documented leading indicator of competitive marketing success.

Continue reading "CFOs and CMOs - Maybe we can help each other?" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been blogging sporadically about the information I gathered at the Gartner CRM Summit over the course of the past few weeks because there was so much meat at the event. I filled nearly an entire notepad with data, predictions, and insight gathered at the event that I've been dutifully transcribing since my return from Chicago. Here are some of the highlights of the sessions and one-on-one meetings I enjoyed while at the conference.

Continue reading "Musings From the Gartner CRM Summit" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

During the DMA 2006 conference in San Francisco, John Greco, president and CEO, of the Direct Marketing Association, called for widespread use of something he’s coined the Three R’s: Results, Responsibility, and Relevance. He said they represent a delicate balance in the power of direct marketing. “Our goal is to build a bridge of trust with consumers,” he told the crowd.

But building that trust may be more challenging than we think. Some marketers at the DMA told me about the pressures and barriers that they and their clients face every day.

Continue reading "On the Minds of Direct Marketers" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In some ways the recent news that Tower Records was finally shutting its doors was not surprising. The record and video businesses have undergone such radical disruptions over the past two years that its survival as a brick-and-mortar operation was dicey at best. I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of entertainment retailing, but I do see some interesting customer strategy trends that have been put in the spotlight by the news at Tower.

The first is the disturbing lack of difference that employee expertise and customer experience played in Tower’s business. Yes, it’s true that digital distribution made any physical music store a different experience. But at Tower employees were known for knowledge. They were hired for their expertise in a certain area of music or video. The guy who worked the jazz department at Tower Records on Broadway in New York actually knew a lot about jazz. The woman who worked the classical department in Lincoln Center could recommend the best of new releases or a primer for new opera fans. Tower was far ahead of any other retailer in the entertainment business. WalMart, Circuit City and Best Buy still sell CDs. But they compete on price, not selection or employee skills. Could Tower have made it if it approached the business through smaller stores? Could it have tied its online and offline operations together? Or did it simply not see the truck called iTunes that was speeding down the street?

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Virgin Records was originally going to be called Slipped Disc Records. "Can you imagine Slipped Disc Airlines?" CEO Sir Richard Branson joked during yesterday's keynote at the DMA Conference. No one doubts that he has transformed the company into a blockbuster superbrand, but many had their doubts as he entered new and completely different markets. What was he thinking?

Continue reading "Branson Ties Employees to Virgin's Success" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 6:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Saying you’re not in favor of protecting customer data and it’s a bit like saying you don’t like mom, apple pie or ROI. Everybody loves these things, but the question as raised in our 1to1 Weekly story, is how far is a company willing to go to protect it? I think there’s more to the technology end here than most executives want to know about. Personally, I don’t get too excited about encryption and kill pills. I do look at data protection and overall enterprise security as one of those fundamental practices that a company has to learn and spread throughout its culture. In football terms, it's the blocking and tackling a team needs to master before it can score touchdowns. If you don't you end up in the headlines for the wrong reasons.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Some people who can’t get their digital camera to work solve their problem by throwing it away rather than even going back to the store or calling the 800 number, according to research firm TARP Worldwide. TARP calls this trained hopelessness.

In recent conversations with Purdue University’s Mike Trotter and NetBank’s Art Hall, both used the term business karaoke -- referring to companies that talk about being customer centric but don’t actually follow through with customer-focused actions.

I thought these were fairly cutting yet descriptive terms, and thought readers of our 1to1 Weekly e-newsletter might have their own “favorites.” So I asked. Here are a few; some serious, some with a hint of, shall we say, sarcastic humor.

Continue reading "What’s the Good Word?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's a bit of a dangerous time for marketers. Jim Schroer points that out in our debut issue of The Marketing Xfactor. Fact-based management, the science of marketing, has progressed to a point at which we can know almost anything about customers, if we want to. We can even try to predict customer reaction to a marketing campaign. But where risky business is concerned, we need some gray area. Art needs to be reintroduced into the art + science = marketing equation. Needs and values for important customer groups must be explored. But the best ideas just might come from tapping into the emotions that can't be measured. I'm not a big fan of shocking consumers with creative executions. But I am a big fan of using branding to get customers to aspire to more. And that's risky. But it can work. Coach does it without TV ads. BMW does it through the customer experience. Tesco does it through a loyalty program. These things may seem safe and obvious, but to take a risk on strategies that break from tradition is the sweet spot for marketing.

Posted by John Gaffney at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Customer-centric strategy will grow a company's bottom line, but maybe not as fast as Wall Street wants it to. I see a clear dichotomy developing in profit taking. The old school thinking says develop customer leverage, not customer centricity. Go no further than the gas station for examples. Anybody thinking about the customer as an asset at ExxonMobil? New school thinking says a company needs to develop new products and profit opportunities that grow organically. The ideas are formed with the long-term customer experience in mind. Say what you want about the facist tendencies of Google, but they grow with customers at the center. Same thing goes for Microsoft, UPS, Apple, GE and Nissan, among others. The only factor working against new school profits is the old school "seize the quarter" attitude that Wall Street analysts continue to pressure businesses with.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Taking care of customers takes care of the bottom line. That's the takeaway from this year's Gartner CRM Excellence Awards. BNSF Railway took top honors in the Excellence in Enterprise CRM category with a customer strategy that contributed to 41 percent revenue growth. Uniprise won the Excellence in Sales, Marketing or Customer Service category for its customer care initiative, which resulted in a reduction in average handle time in the range of 18 to 21 percent and an increase customer retention and satisfaction that have boosted the bottom line.

Continue reading "The Customer-Focus/Profit Connection" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

From the “technology so cool it’s scary” department comes this news: Google researchers have worked out a kind of software application that will allow the company to synchronize what a Web user is seeing on the computer screen with what he or she is watching simultaneously on television!

Continue reading "Sampling, listening, and privacy" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

It's National Customer Service Week and companies everywhere are saying "thanks" to their contact center agents for all their hard work throughout the year. But based on the findings of a online recent survey conducted by Witness Systems in celebration of National Customer Service Week, thanks may not be enough. It seems that what's also needed is giving agents the tools, training, information, and authority to resolve issues during the first call and deliver a better customer experience.

Continue reading "Saying Thanks Isn't Enough" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“The 4 Ps don’t mean anything anymore when it comes to creating a business model,” Paul Greenberg, president of The 56 Group and author of CRM at the Speed of Light, said during his keynote at the recent Gartner CRM Summit. He cited Threadless T-shirts (threadless.com) as an example: People submit T-shirt designs, site visitors vote on them, the winners go on sales on the site.

“We no longer live in the business ecosystem, we live in a customer ecosystem,” Greenberg said. “So you have to provide value and values to customers.”

Continue reading "Are the 4 Ps Still Relevant?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Workforce optimization provider Witness Systems announced yesterday that it acquired Demos Solutions Consulting and Exametric, two resource planning solutions providers to the financial services industry. I spoke on the phone to Ryan Hollenbeck, Witness Systems' vice president of corporate marketing, who said this move represents a shift to relationship banking for all banks.

Continue reading "Got silos?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A new academic field called neuroeconomics involves the study of how people make economic decisions in ways that are not always rational. It is a field that combines neuroscience, psychology, and economics. I just came across a bit of learning from this field that has important implications for how people make trade-offs between short-term and long-term benefits, and I want to share it with you. I warn you now, however, that I’m sharing this because I think it’s interesting, not because there’s much we can do about it, at least not yet. If anyone has any ideas about how this bit of learning might change your policy or your perspective on business, I’d be interested in hearing that, too.

Continue reading "Short-Term and Long-Term Decisions and Your Brain" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Lots of companies try to learn about their customers. That's a great idea, but there are many missed opportunities if companies focus on the wrong customer groups or ask the wrong kinds of questions. Taddy Hall, chief strategy officer of the Advertising Research Foundation, says many marketers are "following the herd off the cliff" by segmenting customers into worthless groups.

Continue reading "Are You Asking the Right Questions?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I find this whole intrigue about CMO tenure a bit irrelevant. Our story in 1to1 Weekly points out some reasons that the short shelf life of this relatively new C-level position is important, but I hear too much at conferences and in talking to marketing executives about the length of that tenure. CMOs will be effective and employed as long as they create customer value. That’s the bottom line.

Continue reading "CMO’s Shouldn't Measure Tenure" »

Posted by John Gaffney at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"There are three basic factors for successful innovation: demand, design, and doability," Peppers & Rogers Group cofounder Don Peppers said during his recent keynote presentation at the Gartner CRM Summit. "All of these are customer focused." Apples' iPod, for example, continues to dominate the market, even at a higher price point, because the company has woven these elements into its approach to innovation.

Continue reading "Innovation: Buzzword or Bellwether?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, Mark Selcow, president and cofounder of Merced; and Mark Gally, director of marketing at Merced, shared some findings with me about their company’s latest survey: The “Merced Systems 2006 Performance Management Best Practices Study.”

Of the 107 companies interviewed, 94 percent of respondents cited data challenges, 70 percent reported data complexity as a problem, and only 42 percent believe their data is accurate. Gally attributes these statistics to a widespread use of home-grown tools like spreadsheets to track and measure internal performances. The use of such a primitive tool impacts supervisor effectiveness, creates common data challenges, and ultimately affects the customer experience. Gally said, “This not only makes a process less efficient, but it puts into question, ‘Am I really being evaluated fairly?’”

Selcow said he was surprised because the companies were spread across a wide spectrum of industries and sizes, and many were in financial services. Therefore he assumed the majority would be operating on business intelligence systems. Not the case. “If you have operations between 1,000 to even 5,000, it’s hard to use manual tasks like spreadsheets. You can’t run your business on that and a lot of companies are trying to do it.”

Is your company’s data flexible and transparent? Tell us your challenges and solutions.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

WalMart is losing its brand mojo. As evidenced in our 1to1 Weekly story this week, the mega-retailer will now experiment with different store sizes. This comes on the heels of getting into high-definition TV, organic foods, low-priced drug prescriptions, high-end concept stores and a flirtation with banking. All of this, in a way, is based on sound customer strategy. I'm sure there are masses of customers that would be attracted to WalMart for all these new reasons. And I'm sure WalMart has done its homework with market research before launching these extensions. But at some point every brand has to maintain its sharp edge.

Continue reading "WalMart Overextends" »

Posted by John Gaffney at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (16) | TrackBacks (0)

Here are some interesting observations:
+ Agent satisfaction is one of the top concerns of contact center managers in Shanghai.
+ The growth of the outsourcing industry in the Philippines is spurring a boom of new 24-hour retail outlets.
+ The lack of toll-free telephone service in Japan has dictated the development of call centers there.

These views aren't from a voluminous research report. They're from a road trip of sorts.

Continue reading "Global View of the Contact Center" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning I was at Carlson headquarters, in Minneapolis, talking with our newly hired director of interactive marketing, Doug Rozen. We were just sharing thoughts with each other when he asked me an intriguing question: Does 1to1 work with social networks? I’ve done a lot of thinking about social networks, but I had never actually thought very deeply about where 1to1 ends and social networking begins, or even whether 1to1 marketing applies to a social networking context.

Continue reading "Social networks and 1to1" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 10:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Customers want a consistent accurate answer regardless of which channel they use to contact a company. This simple fact, according to Kana CMO Marchai Bruchey, is one of the drivers leading to the convergence of marketing and the contact center.

Continue reading "Marketing and Service Join Forces" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With Ford Motor’s announcement that it plans to cut 14,000 white collar jobs, eliminate 30,000 hourly jobs, and close 16 factories, we wonder if Ford will ever again regain a competitive edge. Even with the restructuring, Ford doesn’t expect to see a profit in the North American business until 2009.

Continue reading "Can Ford Get on the Road to Product Development Optimization?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

New research from the CMO Council reveals that marketing executives are failing to keep pace with information security in the digital world. The study “Secure the Trust of Your Brand: How Security and IT Integrity Influence Corporate Brands,” surveyed 2,000 consumers in North America and Europe and includes results of discussions with 25 leading marketing executives. The study delves into how security is impacting business performance, customer confidence, and brand reputation.

Last week I spoke with Scott Van Camp, editorial director at the CMO Council, who reinforced that security is becoming a growing concern among marketers. But in the study, even though 80 percent of marketers said they’re concerned with security as it pertains to the organization, an overwhelming 60 percent said that security hasn’t become a significant theme in their organization’s messaging and marketing. Even more surprising is that only 29 percent said they have a crisis containment plan in place.

Continue reading "Security Integrity Provides Opportunity for Brand Differentiation" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The current marketing obsession with using content to influence customers needs to find an intersection with expertise. The story in this week's 1to1 Weekly shows how direct marketing can start to define an influencer profile for a company's brand or service, which I love. Any customer strategy worth its salt has to be operationalized to be measurable and effective. But a recent observation regarding the way Bob Dylan's new song collection (album or CD just doesn't cut it anymore) has intrigued me. It has shown me that levels of expertise, when they become consistent, can be a powerful influencer tool. Let's start at the most basic level, which is me, a person who considers Dylan a songwriting deity. I can tell my circle of friends that this album has six great songs out of the 12. Do you trust that? Well, then you can go another level. The folks at Apple think its pretty good because Dylan is the focus of its TV spots. Then you can read a Rolling Stone review that sings its praises. Then you can go to The New Yorker whose normally vicious critic can't say enough good things about it. Individual recommendation when it meets expertise can be very powerful. Dylan's "Modern Times" is the number one album on iTunes, and he can't even sing anymore. Really, he can't. Trust me.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

"Customers want to be loyal," Scott Creighton told me during a conversation we had during the Gartner CRM Summit earlier this week. Creighton is vice president of business development for RightNow Technologies.

The catch, however, is that customers are also more empowered than ever because they have more choice, they are more informed, and they have higher expectations about getting a deal done. "This is what I want, this is what I'll pay, do you want to do the deal?" is the current business environment, Creighton explained. "It's a different environment than it used to be," he said, citing Progressive Insurance as an example of a company prepared to excel by being transparent to customers and, in fact, helping them to find the best deal whether it's with them or with a competitor.

Continue reading "Are You Ready for Today's Loyal Customer?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The buzz from the Gartner CRM Summit: Go multichannel or go nowhere.

“CRM is only as good as your last interaction and your weakest channel,” Scott Nelson, Gartner’s managing vice president, application strategies and governance, said during his keynote. The message from Nelson and other Gartner analysts is that organizations need to meet customers' increasing expectations for consistent multichannel experiences and access or risk irrelevance.

Continue reading "The New CRM" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The jig is up. The creators of Lonelygirl15, a home schooled 16-year-old who, since June 16, has posted vlog confessionals on Youtube.com about topics ranging from parental rebellion to romantic confusion, posted a message on the site last week stating that lonelygirl15 is actually fictionalized. Critics weren’t surprised. Many realized early on that her video diaries sounded scripted and the story arc Shakespearean.

Continue reading "Lonelygirl15: A Playful Hoax or the Future of Brand Marketing?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Last season, my husband Eric went to his first professional football game. It was the New York Giants playoff game against the Carolina Panthers. Unfortunately, the Giants got pulverized, losing 23-0. Eric was so disgusted at the team's performance (and the amount of money he paid for the ticket) that he considered switching his allegiance to another football team for this season. But in the end, his loyalty was strong enough to see him through that rough patch. He sat down this past Sunday night to root for Eli Manning and the Giants against his brother Peyton and the Colts.

Continue reading "Loyalty on the Gridiron" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently Ginger Conlon moderated a webcast with some of our Customer Champions. They discussed strategic initiatives designed to improve the customer experience. As always, when you think of the customer experience, companies like Southwest, Best Buy and Ritz Carlton come to mind. But the definition of a customer experience differs from company to company, and even from customer to customer.

Continue reading "Customer Experience Means Different Things to Different People" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The writing is on the wall for mobile operators. And how.

Mobile operators face a steady commoditization in their business, as the inexorable force of improving technology continues to drive bandwidth costs down while simultaneously allowing more players in more industries to enter their space. One example: Mobile phone manufacturers are already bringing phones to market that will connect via a wireless LAN, then dial VOIP calls for free over the Internet, without ever setting foot in anyone’s mobile network at all. One manufacturer even has plans to include a Skype client in its phone. Another example: In the UK the 3G operator Three (yes, that’s the company’s name) is now giving away MSN Messenger, so phone subscribers can “save a fortune on texts.” (See http://www.three.co.uk/lifestyle/msn.omp)

Continue reading "How can mobile operators survive?" »

Posted by Don Peppers at 12:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

You may have fabulous products, unique services, and abundant touchpoints, but if your employees are apathetic, customers are sure to depart for the competition. To build customer engagement, you must first have employee engagement. And that will only happen with...

Continue reading "The One Absolute Must for Customer Engagement" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I love good customer service as much as the next person. But, frankly, a pleasant encounter with an employee is great, but just isn't enough if the rest of the customer experience is lacking. Two examples:

Continue reading "Nice Isn't Good Enough" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By now you’ve heard about RadioShack terminating 400 employees at its Forth Worth headquarters last week by email. The employees came to work last Tuesday, opened their inboxes and read this: "The workforce reduction notification is currently in progress. Unfortunately your position is one that has been eliminated."

Continue reading "Don't Let Email Resignation Happen to You" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Our Inside 1to1 lead story this week addresses an issue that has puzzled even the brightest marketers. That issue: How do I move my money where the customers are? Companies who aspire to spend their branding millions more effciently need to stop theorizing about the percentage of their total budgets they will put online, or how much they're not going to spend on TV this year. The debate needs to turn toward how money will be spent in below the line marketing activites, not how much could be spent. Companies have been given the keys to reaching customers where they research, make and execute purchase decisions. Reaching them during decision mode has opened up interactive, experiential and word-of-mouth marketing. This week's 1to1 story shows how some companies have stopped talking about this path and started walking it. Funny how success in customer acquisition and loyalty seems to be following them around.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In a high-volume service business mistakes happen. The actions that result and the speed at which they’re taken to make things right with the affected customer are critical.

Focusing recovery efforts solely on correcting the errors, while failing to address the inconvenience they have caused for the customer by not responding to their initial needs may generate potential negative word of mouth.

Recently, my friend Mike had an experience at a hotel that dealt a negative experience but promptly turned it into a positive one by responding to his requests. As a result, he’s a word-of-mouth promoter for the company.

Continue reading "Turn a Negative Into a Positive" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At today's 1to1 Webinar, "What's Next for Loyalty Programs?," presenters Luc Bondar and Will Wittkopf of Carlson Marketing talked about using loyalty data more strategically. Part of the discussion was about "enterprise loyalty," which involves taking the data generated by a program and using it to improve other areas of the business--and in some cases, extending the loyalty program across multiple product lines or lines of business.

Continue reading "Loyalty Programs: Let's Talk Tactics" »

Posted by Chris Helm at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week eBay announced it will increase the fees it charges to those who sell items through its online stores. The new prices will raise fees by an average of 6 percent for the approximately 500,000 online store owners, eBay estimated. Some sellers are angry with the news, and are considering jumping ship to Amazon, Yahoo or shopping.com. But eBay is cool with this, because some experts say the move was done to "fire" its below-zero (BZ) sellers.

Continue reading "eBay Fires Customers" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

"The biggest mistake organizations make is thinking that branding is marketing," Intellidyn president and CEO Peter Harvey told me in a recent conversation. "Companies need to tell people who they are -- branding -- or they'll waste their money on marketing."

Continue reading "Marketing Versus Branding" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Customer lifetime value. It's a metric that many of the executives I speak with long to calculate and use, but say they lack the data necessary to truly assess. One of the challenges is in how an organization defines customer value. Some base it on purchases alone. Other may include such "soft" data as customer influence (with other customers and in the broader market) in the calculations. There are myriad views of what comprises customer lifetime value (CLTV).

Continue reading "Customer Value: Do the Math" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Instead of treating IP as simply enabling cost savings, companies are really looking at how it can drive business value—IP not as a means to an end, but as a catalyst to drive change.

That mission became clear at last week’s International Contact Center Management show, where many vendors told me that they’re customers are saying “I’m willing to make fundamental changes to the customer experience and the way I manage contact centers.” They say they plan to achieve this through an IP-enabled contact center—the contact center of the future.

Continue reading "The Contact Center of the Future" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week a U.S. court ruled that cigarette makers can no longer use the words "Light," "Ultralight," "Mild" or "Natural" to describe their cigarettes. Everyone know by now that cigarettes, no matter how they're labeled, are unhealthy, but it took a court ruling to get the ads changed. It brings up to me the question of trust.

Continue reading "Will There Ever Be Truth (and Trust) in Advertising?" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to do something somewhat sacriligeous. I'm going to take issue with part of the NetPromoter concept, which is the subject of this week's Inside 1to1 story. Yes, I think the concept is full of simple brilliance. And as I write this I'm wearing my Fred Reichheld Fan Club t-shirt. But here's my problem. Reichheld, as well as the folks at Satmetrix who have cornered the consulting market on NPS, are touting the index as part of the way marketing managers and executives should be compensated.

Continue reading "My NetPromoter Problem" »

Posted by John Gaffney at 7:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In "Are You Modeling Customer-Centric Behavior" I wrote about one of the key messages I glean from my conversations with three of our 1to1 Customer Champions -- Kevin Cantwell, president of Big River Telephone; Kelly Lam, manager of marketing services for BMW Canada; and Brynn Palmer, director of the customer experience for Charter Communications -- when we met to tape our next Champions webcast (watch for it in September!). That message was the importance of executives modeling customer-centric behavior to create a customer-focused culture.

Continue reading "Employees Are Customers Too" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you want your front-line staff to be customer focused, you have to continually stress the importance of doing so. And the best way to do that is to be customer centric yourself. Creating a customer-centric culture must start at the executive suite if it is to permeate an organization.

That was one of the key messages I glean from my conversations with three of our 1to1 Customer Champions -- Kevin Cantwell, president of Big River Telephone; Kelly Lam, manager of marketing services for BMW Canada;
and Brynn Palmer, director of the customer experience for Charter Communications -- over the past two days. We met to tape our next Champions webcast (watch for it in September!), and had several opportunities to chat during meals and such.

Continue reading "Are You Modeling Customer-Centric Behavior?" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Monday's issue of INSIDE 1to1 discussed a new direction for marketing strategy to go in, where the entire organization is involved in marketing success. Now Forrester Research has expanded its advice to the B2B space, where customer relationship progress traditionlly has been very difficult to achieve.

Author Laura Ramos predicts that B2B marketers will move online, where tactical demand generation can evolve into strategic ownership of the customer relationship, experience, and intelligence. What do you think? Does success revolve around an online strategy in the B2B space?

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There’s a crackdown going on in New York. Last week the NYPD started a wave of ticketing and towing illegally parked scooters. Many scooter owners park their rides on the sidewalk to avoid getting hit by drivers who “touch” park or getting moved by drivers who are desperate for a space.

Scooter manufacturer Vespa has stepped in, pushing for a policy change for parking two-wheel vehicles in the city. The company is circulating a “Vespatition” to pressure lawmakers; about 5,000 people have signed it so far. According to Aaron Peterson, manager of Vespa’s SOHO dealership, who was quoted in the newspaper Metro, better parking options could help spur scooter sales, but the “result would be a more efficient city” because scooter riding is better for traffic and the environment than cars and SUVs are.

Oddly, some scooter riders don’t want Vespa to improve their parking situation. Some riders who park on sidewalks remove their license plates so they don’t get ticketed; many of those same riders don’t want to have to start to pay for proper parking.

Regardless, what struck me about this is that it seems to me that Vespa is working to create a win-win-win situation for its customers (at least the ones who do want a proper place to park), the city, and itself. It’s another case of a company potentially benefiting from increased loyalty and sales by looking out not only for its customers, but also for its community.

What’s your opinion of Vespa’s approach?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Although "76 percent of firms polled by a leading analyst firm indicate they have some type of CRM [technology], 80 percent of customers stop doing business with companies because of a bad experience. So there are obviously lots of companies that have deployed traditional CRM and still treat customers badly enough to lose them."

This is an excerpt from an email RightNow Technologies CEO Greg Gianforte sent me yesterday. Gianforte talked about how companies that misuse CRM technologies could "strip mine" their customers (that is, ring out every ounce of value then move on to the next customer) instead of creating long-term relationships by treating customers "like the renewable resources they actually are."

This got me thinking about customer value. One of the things we talk a lot about here at 1to1, especially when the conversation includes Return on Customer, is how every action an organization takes that impacts its customers can either increase or destroy customer value not only at that moment, but also for the long term. Whether it's a targeted marketing campaign that improves the customer connection or a blast email that turns off customers who feel it's irrelevant to them; whether it's a strategic selling approach that creates a real partnership or a hard sell that jeopardizes the trust necessary to close the deal; or whether it's a pleasant contact center experience with an agent who truly seems interested in helping solve a customer's problem or a poor experience with an agent who rushes customers off the phone to meet stringent average handle time metrics -- all those actions increase or destroy long-term customer value. And not only the value of a particular customer, but also of anyone that customer shares her experience with.

In my opinion, the key is to have a solid customer strategy in place before implementing any CRM technologies. Doing so helps to ensure that you'll select technologies that can best support that strategy, and that you're not simply automating bad processes (thus giving a poor customer experience faster). Yes, it's certainly possibly to be customer centric without needing any technology. But today's CRM tools can help take that customer focus to the next level and beyond.

What's your best advice for harnessing the potential of CRM technologies to help build customer value?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Small businesses face tough choices. Often faced with limited resources, companies with small workforces used to trail in CRM deployments.

That doesn’t seem to be the case today. Affordable and accessible technologies have made it possible for SMBs to grow their businesses. But for SMBs to jump in the race, also requires a change of mindset.

Take Altman Lighting, for example. The 52-year-old family owned and operated commercial lighting with 140 full-time employees and 400 customer accounts worldwide had no system in place to funnel leads or integrate the customer database until recently. With the help of Exact Software, Altman employees log every customer communication—whether it is fax, email, phone—into an interface. Now communications are clear and hot prospects don’t get passed over.

I spoke to Altman’s Assistant General Manager Roger Pujol last week who explained that the corporate mindset had to first change before the company deployed any technology. “The old way things got done was by saying ‘who do I go to to get something done? What is it that I want done?’ With the use of workflows, if someone needs something done, there’s a specific task for that and they just enter the task,” he said.

Stowe Mountain Resort’s corporate mindset also changed when it embarked on a $100 million revitalization last year. The organization realized that the culture had to change along with the physical aspects. As a result, Stowe started taking the pulse of its visitors to find out what they actually wanted in a resort—essentially to create a total ski experience. Stowe has been making changes based on the new customer insight.

Stowe and Altman are just two examples of SMBs changing their cultural mindsets of how they approach customer strategies. They’re also proof that technology, together with strategy, is the key to ensuring a small businesses can operate with more efficiency and create room to grow.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

No one can deny Google's dominance in the Internet space, but what's interesting is its ability to create both short-term buzz and long-term loyalty. Cool features like moveable maps and book text searches, along with its supreme search engine make it stand out from other online services. The New York Times compares its "wow factor" strategy to Yahoo's, which is more conservative and deliberate, but is also losing search market share.

Google's experimental nature may well win in the long term as well. According to Satmetrix, Google creates the most loyal customers of any online service. It ranked highest in terms of customers who would recommend the services to others. It looks like Google's got a one-two punch of real success, for itself and its customers.

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I remember the not-to-distant past when most wireless telecoms gave all their best deals and service to new customers and didn't pay much attention to existing customers. It was all about acquisition; achieving critical mass. But as churn rates grew, so did the recognition that retention might actually be a good idea. Most of the rest of us already seemed quite aware of the adage that it costs less to retain customers than to acquire new ones, understanding that companies need to balance acquisition and retention -- emphasizing each as appropriate over time, but not sacrificing one for the other.

As a T-Mobile customer I've noticed this change over time. I remember when I wanted to purchase a Treo, but the company wanted to charge me $300 more as a long-time customer than it was charging new customers. After an email to the head of marketing for the U.S., asking if he would be willing to spend $300 simply to keep his existing phone number, I received the "new customer" price within 24 hours. However, the pricing for the non-squeaky wheels did not change. What I noticed was that a new explanation of the pricing appeared on T-Mobile's site shortly after my experience. Fortunately, T-Mobile now has significantly more customer-friendly pricing that seems to recognize the value of its existing customers, which I happily discovered when opting up to a BlackBerry.

Verizon Wireless is also taking steps to be more customer-focused. In our INSIDE 1to1 newsletter we discuss how the company is loosening its grip on customers by prorating early termination fees and is adding a new loyalty plan to reward such behaviors as paying bills online. It seems that the new approaches aim to engender trust and build long-term loyalty. Industry watchers expect competitors to follow suit.

I say that this is just the beginning for an industry that, more than most, must continually strive to offer new and better products and services to customers to engage them, grow them, and keep them out of reach of the competition. What do you think of Verizon Wireless' approach?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

As a fervent BlackBerry fan, I've been especially interested in the adoption of CRM on handheld devices. This is one of those areas that has been talked about for a long time before reaching any critical mass. Although mobile CRM almost seems like old news (nearly every CRM vendor offers a mobile component), the fact is that it's really just taking off among users.

There seem to be several reasons for this. One is that mobile professionals are starting to think more about how to get real business intelligence into their hands when they're on the road or with clients. Tony Castle, president and CEO of Castle CRM (a New York-based Sage Software partner), called this strategic access when we met earlier this week during a briefing with Sage on some news they'll be announcing in September. I had asked everyone their opinion on mobile adoption. He was making the point that mobile access to contact information and your calendar is great, but it's not enough. The real benefit is access to deeper customer and product data and historical information like purchase history. We recently covered this topic in our April magazine article "Business Intelligence in the Palm of Your Hand."

Another reason is the technology itself. Chris Reich, director, product management at Sage, pointed out that as the phone increasingly becomes integrated with handhelds, and thus those devices become more integrated with users' daily activities, demand is increasing for mobile CRM applications. "We've seen more interest in the first half of 2006 than we have in the past two years," he said. "It's on every RFP now." This doesn't surprise me, because it seems that companies are increasingly recognizing the benefits of real-time access to relevant customer information.

Sage's Larry Ritter, vice president of product management, pointed out that corporate IT support for mobile devices is more standard today than it used to be. In the past mobile users were often on their own when it came to support issues. This, of course, helps with the always challenging user-adoption issue.

What do you think? Are you a fan of mobile CRM? That is, access to real customer intelligence from anywhere, anytime? Or is it just a nice-to-have that will get more hype than true usage?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

What began as a meeting of customers with a common concern has evolved to an industry forum.

Last week I had a conversation with Talisma CEO Dan Vetras and Vice President of Marketing Jim O'Farrell about the newly launched CIM Forum. CIM is an ancronym for customer interaction management; the CIM Forum is a "business and technology consortium" created to discuss best practices primarily related to online customer service . What's interesting about this launch is its double layer of customer focus.

First, it started because Talisma executives recognized the need to learn more from its customers about their challenges and needs in gaining their customers' adoption of online chat. "It's been fairly apparent to us the past few years that not a lot people knew was chat was outside the industry," Vetras said. With a market penetration of less than 5 percent and most of the early adopters being in the tech industry, it was time to make a change. So Talisma invited such powerhouse customers as AOL, IBM, Microsoft, and Pitney Bowes to join a conversation on the topic during its customer conference. "They all have their own views of how chat should work in a global way," Vetras said. "So we brought them all together." The meeting went well enough to spark formal monthly meetings and create a working document on best practices.

The second layer of customer focus is bringing what has now become the CIM Forum to a larger audience. Talisma has opened the conversation to any company interested in joining the dialog. Yes, as "founders" of the forum Talisma benefits from getting insight into more companies' challenges and interests concerning online customer service, possibly including those of it competitors' customers. But in the interest of best serving its own customers, Talisama is also putting its customers' challenges, interests, and best practices out there for all to easily see -- including its competitors. But that's not a concern for Talisma executives; they're most interested in building a community that serves the best interests of all involved -- with the ultimate goal of better serving the end customer or consumer who uses online customer service. "Our goal is to share knowledge, " O'Farrell explains. "Whoever is interested is encouraged and invited to join the Forum."

Have you come across, in your industry, a situation where was started as what might be considered a type of customer advisory board morphing into a forum designed to serve whole the industry?

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Last night I got engaged and my new fiancé made reservations at an Italian restaurant in the city in which we live. Granted, we only had been there once before about two months ago, but when we walked in, the owner, Nino, remembered our table and had written my fiancé’s name on the table to reserve it. This is remarkable since John hadn’t told him his name when making the reservation. Nino simply remembered the sound of John’s voice because we had a conversation with him during our last visit. He also remembered our favorite wine and both of our entrées.

Nino knows that without customers, he doesn’t have a business. By listening to his customers, anticipating their needs, and then creating value with each visitor, he’s not only building trust with his customers, he’s increasing the worth of his business.

I can think of a few corporations that could benefit by walking a mile in Nino’s shoes.

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Last week Wal-Mart announced that it was giving up on the German market, and sold its 85 stores in Germany to Metro Group. This comes on the heels of its exit from the South Korean market as well. In Germany, many mistakes were cultural -- employees offered to bag groceries for customers (Germans prefer to bag their own groceries) and clerks were instructed to smile at customers, who are used to brusque service. Many Germans were put off by this approach.

The July/August issue of 1to1 Magazine talks about the strategic challenges multinational companies face when the enter new markets. The bottom line is that there needs to be an overarching strategy that also takes into account each individual country's unique needs, values and cultures. It looks like Wal-Mart found this out the hard way.

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week in this spot I railed on about the lack of creativity and risk that too much process brings to a company. But I'm taking the other side when it comes to B2B relationships. When it comes to B2B, as you can see in our current Inside 1to1 story on the Tri-Arc Manufacturing Company's customer-centric effort, I think process is progress. I've worked for enough companies that sealed big sales with a wink, handshake, and promise of co-op dollars. Data never entered into it. When I was in the entertainment marketing world, I used to work for a guy who always loaded up one of our weakest retailers with outrageous amounts of ad dollars. I questioned the practice. "Listen," he said, "those guys are the bell cow. They may not sell much, but when they take our product in, the other retailers notice." Good riddance to that thinking. B2B relationships are customer relationships. They should be served with a mix of personality backed up by a heavy dose of data and customization.

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"Word of mouth is an outcome and a philosophy, not a marketing tactic. There's no 'marketer' in consumer-to-consumer. But word of mouth can be treated like traditional media in many ways, like tracking its impact."

This quote is from BuzzMetrics CEO Jonathan Carson. He was presenting at the WOMMA conference. This comment struck me because some marketers do talk a lot about word of mouth as a marketing tactic. I would venture to say that although most word of mouth -- good or bad -- happens simply because people are in conversation, it is quite possible to create a buzz that gets people talking. The trick is to create something sustainable, instead of just a one-off that vanishes with the next company's new, cool thing.

It's also possible to create a community that encourages customers to interact, with each other and with prospects -- giving them yet another reason and venue to talk about your products/services. Cymfony CMO Jim Nails says "giving customers a voice empowers them to share their opinions with others." It also shows that you're willing to listen, which, Nails says, will help to build a community of evangelists.

The caveat, of course, is that word of mouth is "an uncontrolled, unprompted 'media' that sometimes behaves wildly," as Carson so aptly puts it. So when you do encourage word of mouth, keep in mind these age-old warnings: Be careful what you ask for; and, Expected the unexpected.

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I received a press release a few days ago announcing a new pay-per-lead service. Consumers sign up to receive information on product types, provide contact information, and, if they choose to, give other details to help match their specific needs. Companies interested in reaching those individuals bid for the leads. The four highest-bidding companies are given each lead, so prospects can do some comparison shopping.

My first thought was, companies that contact a prospect are simply the highest bidders, not necessarily the most appropriate for that consumer. Perhaps company five is really the best for a particular individual, but simply doesn't have as big a budget. Although the site does offer consumers a choice, it many not be the right choice. It reminds me of those listings in local area publications of the "best" whatever (party venues, restaurants, etc.), but only the places that pay get a listing, so it's not a true representation of what's actually the best.

According to the press release, the service provides companies with better ROI on leads because the bidding creates "market-based pricing of leads." Perhaps. But does it deliver high ROI for customer-centric companies, organizations that aim to create a lasting, value-driven relationship with their customers from day one? Does outbidding for a lead actually make it a better quality lead -- or just make it cost more?

What do you think?

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Hasbro this week released a British version of the classic Monopoly game that substitutes a Visa-imprinted debit card for the colorful play money. Now instead of exchanging paper money, children will swipe their cards into a palm-sized scanner. Hasbro spokesperson Chris Weatherhead said that the company responded to the fact that consumers now use more debit cards and carry less cash, so the game, he said, should reflect current trends.

Hasbro is delivering on customer expectations, but are marketers ready to do the same? Are advertisers and marketers prepared to treat the New Silent Generation according to the sophisticated technology experiences they're getting in their formative years? As this generation grows into primary purchase decision makers, marketers must start personally and creatively engaging them through vehicles like mobile marketing, social networking, and at the point of sale. If not, they’re going to miss out on capturing this valuable customer group in their prime.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our Inside 1to1 story this week shows how successful CRM providers have been in emerging markets. That's all well and good because customer management and customer insight is being enabled by technology. Without customer insight any global initiative is bound to fail. But I think that too many companies have been lulled into thinking a global initiative and a Chinese initiative are the same thing. The complete saturation of the academic business press by thought leaders who say China is the future of any growth might lead a company to believe it's the only global opportunity. It's not. China is the fastest growing market in the world and represents a huge business opportunity for many companies. Let's not forget however, that India, Pakistan, Serbia, Russia, Korea and many former Soviet republics are teeming with potentially high-growth customer groups. A global initiative requires a mindset, culture and strategy that is expansive and knowledge-based. It cannot afford to guess. So before you think that opening China is all the emerging market expansion you need, check your facts.

Posted by John Gaffney at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Have you seen the Jet Blue stories page yet? It's very cool. There's a collection of brief video stories of customers sharing their positive Jet Blue experiences. Not only does the site show customers' enthusiasm for the airline, but many of the stories illustrate Jet Blue's commitment to the customer experience -- and not just commitment designed by the marketing department that never permeates the rest of the company, but commitment from all parts of the airline's operations. Consider the story of the family who went to check in at their hotel after midnight ony to discover that there was no room available for them. A Jet Blue-uniformed gentleman who had arrived shortly after them gave up his room so they would have a place to stay. Wow.

What do you think is the most important aspect of creating a corporate culture that consistently delivers a surprisingly delightful customer experience? Is it hiring? Training? Compensation? Executive commitment? Or is there not one most important thing, but a perfect blend of elements that come together like a delicious recipe to sate even the toughest of customers?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

With the countless number of blogs available to information consumers, is it really worth it to start or run one? According to a new survey, it seems the answer is yes -- with the caveat that it may take some time and effort to build the level of awareness that creates significant interaction.

A survey conducted by analytics firm Cymfony and public relations firm Porter Novelli found that 76 percent of respondents' companies noticed an increase in media attention and website traffic as a result of their blogs, and 42 percent said that specific blog posts have affected the company or a brand--in the vast majority of cases the effect has been positive. Additionally, three quarters of respondents feel their blogs' have met their initial goals.

Not surprisingly, however, considering the vastness of the blogosphere, despite their overall satisfaction with the general success of their blogs, 71 percent of respondents are not satisfied with the level of interaction on their blogs.

Does your company have a blog? What is its purpose, and do you feel it's meeting is goals for both branding and interaction?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The idea of electronic passports is getting closer to fruition, and it's got security and privacy advocates in an uproar. The new passports will include a radio frequency identification (RFID) tag that will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name, date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo.

The State Department said last week that it is confident the right security and encryption measures will be in place. Critics argue that high-tech identity thieves will have easy access to the data because they won't have to physically touch the cards to steal information. But there's a bigger question becomes, "is it worth it to move to an electronic format?" Do citizens need to have their information stored electronically? Will it increase efficiency and make the customs process easier, or are we using technology for technology's sake?

Sometimes momentum builds internally for an initiative that looks good on paper, but as it goes along the customer focus gets lost and the long-term benefits decline. Yet companies are too deep in to be brave enough to stop. We've seen this happen over the last few years with major CRM implementations, as an example. Now it looks like the government may be following this path, with US citizen information on the line. Have you ever been faced with re-working (or abandoning) an initiative to stay the customer course? What internal challenges did you face? What pitfalls should be taken into account?

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Ginger Conlon asked the question in Inside 1to1 this week: Is there a seat at your table for the customer? There better be. The customer is definitely coming to dinner. And so are your biggest shareholders. I think the balance between how a company plays the politesse between the two guests is one of the hottest issues in business today. No better example than GM. I would argue that the company's current dinner party with Kirk Kerkorian and Carlos Ghosn is a microcosm of the issues faced by almost every company. At every meal we have customers, shareholders, competitors and partners. I believe the party that is served first is the customer. But there's no reason to think that the shareholders, even if they're as contentious as Kerkorian, can't be served as well. Serve the customer well and the shareholder should be happy. However, in GM's case, the service has tilted too far in the direction of the Wall Street experience. If GM had taken care of its customers needs and values at the same level as Ghosn and his company Nissan, it would be calling its own shots right now. But that's not the case. Because the customer has not been served well, the other dinner guests are clamoring for service, and getting all the attention.

Posted by John Gaffney at 6:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

No may be the favorite word of toddlers and parents everywhere -- heck, even most sales professional see it as an opportunity to learn about customers' real motivations -- but many marketers tend to shun it whenever possible.

Think about it. How often do marketing communications offer a "no thanks" option? Some do, but it's rare and most often found in direct mail for such offers as a subscription to a specific magazine. Personally, I don't think I've ever seen a "no thanks" option in an email offer.

But no can be as informative for marketers as it is for salespeople. "A no is as good as a yes," Ron Swift, vice president of cross-industry solutions marketing for Teradata, explained during his keynote earlier this week at Frost & Sullivan's Sales & Marketing Executive MindXchange event. "It tells you not to market that product or service to that person anymore."

Think about the many benefits of this: you save money, time, and effort; you boost customer satisfaction by not repeatedly sending offers on something the customer is clearly not interested in; you might even improve your results over time by communicating with those customers who have clearly noted their interest in receiving information and offers on specific products/services.

One of the ideas behind Return on Customer is that marketers are potentially destroying customer value by overcommunicating with customers, especially when those customers feel the communications aren't relevant to them. When you send a mailing and get a 10 percent response rate, in a way, 90 percent of the recipients have said no by not responding. The trick is to find out which meant "no, not ever" and which meant "no, not this time." The only way to find out -- and to show that you're actually interested in customers' needs -- is to ask.

So go ahead, take Ron's advice: Ask the question.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Salespeople have a reputation for bringing in new customers then letting someone else in the company worry about keeping them around for repeat business. That may be true in some cases, but savvy sales professionals are also great relationship builders -- they know firsthand that it's easier to keep and sell to an existing client than to acquire a new one. Their efforts may not be enough.

Companies that pay more than lip service to being customer centric should have as formal a process for retaining customers as they do for acquiring them. And it should be enterprisewide, not just left to sales or marketing alone.

Earlier this week I attended Frost & Sullivan's Sales & Marketing Executive MindXchange, during which Purdue’s Mike Trotter posed this question: If you don't have a retention strategy that's budgeted and documented, are you really customer centric? Trotter, the executive director of the university’s Center for Customer-Driven Quality, emphasized the importance of having set processes and a dedicated budget, as well as metrics to show results.

He also noted that "customer centricity is a convergence of all company resources on the customer" and the customer experience. In other words, your retention strategy must extend beyond the contact center and sales and marketing departments into such areas as HR, finance, and IT. Consequently, there should also be metrics that show customer focus in each of those areas. It sounds difficult to do, but consider this question as one form of measurement: When was the last time you changed a process or policy based on customer input? Or this: Do you ask customers why they leave? (Perhaps it was a billing issue or a problem with your Web site, not a bad experience in the call center or with the product.)

Being customer centric -- and having a documented retention strategy -- Trotter explained, also means having a proactive approach to engaging, listening to, and responding to customers. Do you have a formalized, proactive retention strategy that extends throughout your organization? Why or why not?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Excuse me for twisting the Al Franken book title here. But one of the hot topics around the office lately has been the sincerity of bloggers. Business Week's media columnist John Fine has done a great job of documenting some of the more outrageous uses that PR pros have made of the blogosphere. Fine has also reported on the new practice of paying "normal people" to get out and blog away on their "favorite" products. Now, first of all I believe the blogosphere will contract under its own weight in two to three years. We're at eight million blogs and counting. My six year old son wants to start one for goodness sake. But nothing will cause it to buckle faster than the current shill jobs that are happening at legit blogs as well as the rant and rave fringes. If I get on to Paste magazine's blog to rant about the incredible oversight of ranking Neil Young as number two among its top 100 living songwriter list, it's just me expressing myself. I mean, Neil Young has written the same song 200 times, hasn't he? And he checks in seven spots higher than Joni Mitchell? But how do I know that the person who is outraged that Freedy Johnston wasn't listed at all isn't working for Johnston's record company? The unfortunate upshot of all this bloglying is that blogs are an effective customer strategy barometer and customer intelligence machine. It would be a noble quest to keep it honest. Really.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

It's hard to get anyone to talk about it on the record, but it seems to me that a lot of executives whisper a lot lately about Six Sigma and Balanced Scorecard. The whispers say these processes lack flexibility, agility, employee innovation and a true customer focus. I agree. That's why I love the point that our Inside 1to1 story makes today. The point: A business can be all about process, but the people involved need to be humanists. Too much process can take the heart out of a company. If a company is to maintain a spirit and intent of serving customers for short-term profit and long-term value, it needs to have heart. Customers, at one level, are numbers on a spreadhseet. They are unique visitors to the website. But they're also bundles of unique history, biology and experiences. So call it "human sigma" or whatever you want. Just make sure your company has a process that accounts for and honors humanity with all of its angels and demons.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

In my recent entry "Getting to Yes" I discussed selling top management on the idea of treating different customers differently. The gist was to ensure that management understands that low-value customers will not be treated badly, but that higher-value customers would be treated accordingly. At the Gartner CRM Summit, principal research analyst Adam Sarner made another interesting point about the importance of creating a baseline for your customer experience that treats low-value customers well.

According to Sarner, if you treat low-value customers poorly, they will stay low value because they have no motivation to become high-value customers. Sarner makes the point that companies need to create a value proposition between themselves and their customers. In other words, create a balance between company needs and customers needs.

Having a customer strategy means thinking win-win, no matter what the customer value. Because even low-value customers can benefit an organization -- whether through referrals or growth opportunity or by spurring a company to create more efficient, cost-effective service channels. The trick is to find that benefit and use it to both your and your customers' advantange.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

It didn't take the World Cup for me to see my global ignorance. But it sure helped. I always knew it was there, mind you. I never really got the obsession with royal families, regardless of what country they were from. Never understood why the French love Jerry Lewis or why the Irish or English drink so much tea, even though my heritage is Irish. So when I saw David Beckham in tears over losing in the World Cup I said to no one in particular: "Dude, you're 31, you're making trillions of dollars, you're great looking and you're set for life. Why are you crying? It's only a soccer game." See? I don't get it. The good thing is, I admit it. Different strokes for different folks, right? Despite all the "flatteners" we have to understand global values, I don't think we really know what customers need and want unless they live in our own culture. Globalization is opening more global access. It does not guarantee global knowledge. It's much more than just sports, I know. I'm just using my personal ignorance for effect. Customer strategy tools have come a long way to enable the understanding of global customers. Don't ignore them, even if it's only a soccer game at stake. .

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If you read 1to1 magazine and INSIDE: 1to1 articles it's likely that you're a proponent of treating different customers differently. However, that may not be the case among other executives in your organization. Even if you're the marketing chief, you likely need buy-in from other top executives to get the support you need from across the organization to make one-to-one strategies a reality.

I attended a Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange recently during which one of the speakers provided insight into how to get executive commitment for treating different customers differently. His approach was actually quite simple (not surprising, given his title):

According to Steve Rooks, vice president, simplification and enterprise center, Bell Canada, you have to get executives "past thinking that treating low-value customers differently means treat them [badly]. It's setting a baseline and treating higher value customers more effectively."

I agree. Companies need to treat all their customers well -- even those they prefer would instead buy from competitors -- if for no other reason that the power of positive (and negative) word of mouth. Then create what Harrah's CEO Gary Loveman calls a meritocracy, in which higher-value customers get higher levels of interaction and service.

Now who wouldn't buy in to that...

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I just read a terrific Business Week article on innovation. There's a lot to it, but the gist is that it's difficult to be innovative if your corporate culture has been process-perfected and short-term oriented to the point of being completely risk averse. One reason this article caught my attention is that we've been discussing this issue a great deal internally (as subject matter for articles), and have written about it as well. In the March issue, for example, the Face to Face column discusses the importance of innovation as part of a customer-centric culture. Executive Editor John Gaffney has spent a great deal of time researching this conundrum recently, so expect to see more coverage. In the meantime, what I wonder is this: Is your corporate culture supportive of innovation? Does it accept failures that you can learn from as a way to move forward? Does it innovate with the customer in mind?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

On one hand, I’ve found it interesting and a bit surprising that PRM (partner relationship management) never gained the same popularity as CRM. Of the approximately 14 million salespeople in the United States, only 30 percent are direct sellers for their firms. The other 70 percent are agents, brokers, dealers, and the like. Basically, channel partners.

On the other hand, it’s not surprising at all. If you consider the challenges of user adoption among staff salespeople, then add the complexity of a partner relationship, it’s no wonder that the uptake of PRM has been slow in comparison to CRM. Yet organizations that do convince partners to use PRM tools often see tremendous benefits for both themselves and those partners. Blue Roads customer Nortel, for example, doubled its channel sales revenue, on average, for six consecutive quarters, and is expecting that success to continue.

Suite CRM and PRM vendors still see the huge growth potential for the PRM market. As PRM companies like Blue Roads are evangelizing its benefits and experiencing uptake, CRM vendors are taking notice. Salesforce.com, for example, is releasing its own PRM solution in July, complete with deal registration, dealer lifecycle management, incentive management, workflow rules, and more.

The question now is, Will renewed interest in the PRM market spark additional growth? The answer lies not in the technology, but in the strategy behind it. As with CRM, strategy must come first. Companies must have a compelling answer when channel partners ask, What’s in it for me? If they do, if they use PRM to improve business results and customer insight for themselves and their partners, it will most certainly create a win-win-win situation for company-partner-customers.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I recently attended a Frost & Sullivan Executive MindXchange during which Purdue's Mike Trotter talked about customers' expectations for reaching the companies that serve them. Trotter is the executive director of the university's Center for Customer-Driven Quality. According to Trotter, a recent Purdue study found that 68 percent of customers will not do business with companies that don't offer multiple channel choices for interaction. That's up from 61 percent last year. These customers want access to companies via the Web, via phone, and in person (either at retail or with a salesperson). Easy enough for most firms. The catch is offering consistent service delivery across those channels. "If you don't, you give customers the right to shop [competitors] for answers," Trotter said.

Continue reading "Consistency Across Channels " »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

When I hear people talk about loyalty these days, they always mention how it's all about the customer experience. What I don't hear these same people talk about is customer value. After all, what's an experience without value to the customer? Loyalty programs are great ways to learn more about your customers, and then act on that information to increase their value. These programs must have a long-term goal that involves deep customer connections.

That means rewarding value with value. A loyalty program is most effective when its incentives, rewards, and other communications meet the needs of customers who are high-value today and those customers with the potential to be high-value tomorrow. Then you will truly create an experience with impact.

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

One of the facts that was not highlighted in this week's story about consumer goods and their advanced customer strategy was the amount of cash these companies have on hand. According to Columbia Universoty professor Larry Selden, consumer goods companies have an embarrasing amount of cash in the bank. Instead of using this cash to reinvest in customers, they are buying back stocks and buying other companies. The most recent example is Johnson & Johnson's plan to pay $18 billion for Pfizer's consumer goods business. This is not a sustainable strategy. At some point the M&A opportunties dry up. At some point, companies have to realize that their customers are not Wall Street analysts. Yes, Wall Street analysts are important people. But their judgments are fickle. Customer judgments are rarely fickle. Invest in customers and they will repay with a larger share of wallet and their long-term loyalty. Grow customer value. It's predictable.

Posted by John Gaffney at 8:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week I had the great pleasure of meeting with several of our Atlanta-based readers. We had a lively discussion on various customer strategy topics, and were joined via teleconference by Don Peppers. During our conversation, several comments particularly caught my attention. One was from Delta's Carole Ashworth (who Mila D'Antonio recently interviewed for our feature on the airline's customer strategy overhaul). Carole noted that one challenge Delta faces in building customer relationships is that some customers won't give the airline the information it needs to better serve them (for example, preferred airports), yet they complain when they receive communications that aren't relevant -- communications that could easily be made more relevant if those customers would provide a bit of information on their preferences. It's a tough Catch-22.

Don commented that Delta's conundrum is quite common, but that as trust is built over time by company's using information in customers' best interest, customers will share more informatoin. The result is that over time that trust builds the bottom line. "If customers trust a company, they will go for optimal value creation for themselves and for the company," Don said. So I say, welcome those tough customers, find ways to build a trusted partnerships, and you'll create win-win relationships every time.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

If Enron had to report the lifetime value of its cusomer base on a quarterly basis, could it have misled so many people for so long? I don't think so. The kind of detailed measurement discussed in our Return On Customer newsletter this month is not only effective as a measurement and accounting tool, it's necessary as a backstop against corporate greed and corruption. A company that can measure the result of its short-term and long-term customer strategy is worthy of investor interest. A company that expresses a strategic interest in how customer value is being measured along with standard quarterly revenue and profit is a company aligned with customer advocacy. The more tricky and complex accounting and measurement methods become, the more suspicious I get about whether the company behind them is in this for the customer, or in it for the stock options.

Posted by John Gaffney at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Vincent Ferrari, blogger at insignificantthoughts.com and dissatisfied AOL customer, made headlines this week when he publicized a recording of his discussion with an AOL customer service rep on his blog. Ferrari, who through numerous attempts during the conversation, pleaded with the agent to cancel the account. The abrasive rep, in a desperate attempt to retain the customer, told him that keeping the service was for his own good, implied that Vincent had a problem, and even at one point asked the 30-year-old to put his dad on the phone. Toward the end of the call, the rep reduced Vincent to begging.

While this piece raised the eyebrows of Matt Lauer, we at 1to1 Magazine often hear similar customer service violations. Don Peppers and Martha Rogers even cited AOL’s poor customer service in their book Return on Customer. I realize that every good customer service rep must try to retain the customer upon exiting, but there comes a point where the rep must thank the customer for his or her business and offer up services in the future. Such gracious actions will build trust and create a positive word-of-mouth effect in the long-term.

In Ferrari’s case, Nicholas Graham, executive vice president of AOL’s Corporate Communications, apologized personally and fired the customer service rep immediately. Graham’s response was swift and appropriate, but may be too little too late. As Don and Martha note, treating customers as you would yourself builds trust, which ultimately breeds an ethical organization. In achieving this trust, companies like AOL must continuously examine their customer relations policies and require reps to undergo a certain number of ongoing training hours. Most importantly, companies must work vigilantly to ensure their customer strategy is clear to their reps and that they understand the value of customers—whether they’re staying or going.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Marketing's evolution will revolve around the customer, if John Fleming has his way. At last week's CCSF retreat in Las Vegas, Fleming, chief scientist for customer engagement at Gallup, discussed the movement toward "Human Marketing." The concept, developed by Donald Cooper, is all about viewing both internal and external marketing holistically. Why not bring all customer-facing activities into one group? HR, marketing, finance, and the contact center almost never talk, but if they worked together as a "human marketing" department, the messages would be clearer. But more importantly, internal and external customers would have one place to go for information and get their problems solved more easily. What do you think of the concept? Is it plausible in the business reality?

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I'll say what Forrester Research didn't quite say in the research report we quoted in this week's Inside 1to1 piece on alternative marketing strategies. What it didn't quite say was: Marketers are cowards when it comes to putting their money where their customers are. If you went by the media that attracts the most money, you would think that customers were researching purchases and making them on network TV and print ads. Nothing could be further from the truth. Customers are researching and buying online. Yet, we still hear and read about the paltry marketing budget percentages allocated to online, email, mobile and even in-game advertising. Percent of marketing budgets is not the solution here. I'm not suggesting that. If I was in charge of a consumer marketing budget I'd put my money where my customers are making decisions and engaging with my products. I wouldn't decide to increase my online budget by 10 percent, for example. Companies need to roll the dice a little. Percentages are for statisticians, not marketers.

Posted by John Gaffney at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

The W Hotel uses the funky catchphrase "Whatever Whenever," which means that the staff willl go out of their way to provide you with whatever you need whenever to need it to make your stay more enjoyable. This is great, and quite a few of the staff members at the W Atlanta (where I stayed last night) have clearly embraced this strategy. The concierge, bell manager, and front desk staff all gave a warm welcome when I entered, as did the hostess at the hotel's restaurant, Savu. But that's where the consistent experience ended.

A bellman failed to hold an elevator door for me when I was clearly in a rush to get there before it closed. I guess he was in a bigger rush. Later, when I and my six guests showed up at Savu for dinner, our table was yet to be set up. "So?" you ask. I had called twice to ensure everything would be ready when we arrived. Our waiter, though fully courteous, was not nearly as upbeat as the rest of the staff. This stood out so much simply because it was so different. Finally, I returned to my room to find I'd received one of "those" messages: thanks for staying here, hope everything is to your satisfaction. Great! Except that the person who left the message obviously had had quite enough of repeating it to everyone who had checked in.

My point is this: Don't promise Whatever Whenever if you can't deliver it. It's hugely challenging to deliver a consistent customer experience across touchpoints (in this case, staff who work steps away from each other). And although I give W kudos for trying, if you're going to step out and make a big promise like that, you had better plan to have whatever it takes to deliver on it, whenever customers expect it -- not just when it suits the individual employee.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday I gave a presentation at a conference on how to increase customer profitability. The audience was a mix of CPAs and their IT executives. About 50 people attended my session. I started by asking a question: Who here feels that customers are their firm's most valuable asset? Surprisingly -- to me, anyway -- only four or five people raised their hands. After sharing with them Don Peppers and Martha Rogers' quote from Return on Customer, "Without customers, you don't have a business, you have a hobby," most of the people in the room started nodding in agreement. No customers, no revenue, no business.

I went on to explain that the next most valuable asset companies have is employees: not just their quality and skill, but also their customer knowledge. That knowledge can be as powerful an influence on the customer experience and on sales as a recommendation from another customer.

Would you agree? What do you think is an organization's most valuable asset?

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

It's great that there are technology solutions to help companies measure marketing initiatives and other formerly intangible programs. But the fact that you can now measure short-term impact doesn't mean that you should react quickly to the short-term results. Last week I spoke to Firefox's community coordinator Asa Dotzler, who emphasized that any customer interaction program needs time to develop. "Looking at a three-month ROI on a customer interaction program is missing the point," he said. If you can be engaged with your customers on an ongoing basis, go for it. You may learn a lot more than what fits into a project plan.

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Let me amplify one of the points made in our lead story in Inside 1to1 this week. Customer satisfaction is not only a lame measurement of customer strategy, it is simply not enough to achieve. I am a satisfied ExxonMobil customer. And as soon as a competitor comes up with one of those cool little Speedpass keys that keeps me tied to ExxonMobil it will take a hot minute to switch. Why? Because at eight billion dollars of profit for the second quarter running you can “scuse my dust when I step on the gas” as the old song says. I am a satisfied T-Mobile customer. But when my contract is up, I’m shopping. I am a satisfied Nike customer, but I think those Asics running shoes the sales clerk recommended last month feel pretty good.

Customer satisfaction is simply not enough to produce loyalty. It is a temporary measurement that gets blown away easily because customers like change. They like to be treated fairly. And they want as much transparency as they can get into what they pay for (like eight billion profits at $3.15 a clip). I would argue that customer satisfaction needs some kind of “futures index.” Some kind of measurement that predicts whether current satisfaction will lead to future satisfaction and ultimately more deeply rooted loyalty.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Business travel is often filled with tales of woe: flight delays; lame snack boxes; multitasking at security to get laptops, shoes, belts, and more in bins. So let me share my recent positive experience at DFW Airport. With 90 minutes until my flight and an empty stomach, I was looking for a place to eat. As I walked by Champps Americana (Terminal D), the hostess, DJ, beamed at me, said hello, and invited me in. So, in I went. There were plenty of tables, but DJ offered me the choice of a seat at the bar, promising that Michael, the bartender, would take great care of me. So off I went to the bar, where Michael did in fact take great care of me. He introduced himself and asked my name. “I love to use people’s names, it’s the sweetest music to their ears,” he told me later when I asked about my name being printed on the check. Indeed, he used my name every time he came by to check on me. He also made welcoming, yet unintrusive conversation as he passed to serve other customers: “What are you reading?” “Can I get you anything to make you meal more enjoyable?” He treated all his customers this way, and was contagiously upbeat.

“I love my job,” he told me when I asked about his approach. “I try to make it an art form; to take it to the next level.” Michael’s goal is to make his customers feel more like they’re a regular at Cheers than just passing through the airport eatery. And he does. So next time you’re at DFW and need a burger and a smile, stop in and see DJ and Michael. My guess it that they’ll make sure you feel at home on the road.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Is marketing child’s play? Of course not, but thinking of marketing as an ongoing, evolving process (think: Slinky) instead of a closed-loop can improve your outcomes. So says Andy Wright, EVP of sales and marketing services for Carlson Marketing Worldwide, who recently met with our editorial team. Andy made the point that marketers shouldn’t think in terms of a closed-loop cycle, but should think of marketing as more like a continuous wind of a Slinky: You test a program or product, you gather feedback and other results, you take that information back to the organization and act on it -- which, if done correctly, will bring you up to the next level (i.e., better results the next time and the next and the next).

What caught my attention was how well this goes hand-in-hand with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers’ idea of the learning relationship, in which you take what you’ve learned about the customer and use it to improve the customer experience, as well as to learn more about the customer -- creating a continuous, evolving loop that entangles customer and company.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The buzz at the Thought Leadership Summit (TLS) telecom conference was learning about customer retention. Not just churn, but loyalty drivers and other retention strategies like communication triggers and interaction with customers even if their contracts aren’t up yet. Offering unique services also came up as a topic of interest. According to Lee Khatchadourian-Reese, national director of customer service for Comcast, the company is about to do a big deal with Sprint to provide wireless services with Comcast cable content. Khatchadourian-Reese said it’s hard to innovate because customers aren’t asking for all these new things, so it’s a big challenge to get them to want it.

Posted by John Gaffney at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Pitching seems to be one way some editorial folks are going after readers these days. No, not as in making sales calls (or throwing a baseball). According to Lance Ulanoff, PC magazine’s Reviews editor, “pitching” is to post stuff about what’s new on your site on other sites (kind of like blogging on other sites’ blogs) to attract people to click over to your site. PC mag’s approach sounds a bit promotional, but Ulanoff says the strategy works quite well for his pub.

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The buzz at THE Conference on Marketing Everyone was all about the need to go beyond traditional marketing tactics to focus on the customer experience. The speakers – from such companies as Mercedes Benz, eBay, Mandalay Entertainment, Starbucks, Pitney Bowes, Wachovia, Wal-Mart, and PepsiCo -- all talked about 1to1, but never CRM. One said, "You don't have 100 million customers. You have one customer, 100 million times." (Sounds familiar…) Everyone in every business mentioned something about experience, engagement, and building long-term loyalty.

One odd thing was that while everyone talked about how it's a new age and you need to look at non-traditional marketing tactics like word of mouth, ring tones, and Web games, they still mostly showed commercials, print ads, and other traditional means as their examples. So they are talking about new marketing approaches, but not actually doing that much of it. It comes down to fear of risk and also a fight for marketing dollars. "We'd rather hold on to the pain that we have instead of facing the future," said Peter Guber, chairman of Mandalay Entertainment.

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)