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
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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,
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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,
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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