Last weekend, I accompanied a newly pregnant friend as she shopped for maternity clothes. We hit Target, Old Navy…but it wasn’t until we stumbled upon Destination Maternity http://www.destinationmaternity.com/ when we were truly impressed.

The 4,000 square-foot super store caters to the indulgences of mommies-to-be through a very interactive in-store, one-stop-shop approach with a wide range of products and services aimed to prep and pamper pregnant women. The mommy-mall concept store operated by the parent store Mothers Work, offers casual and special-occasion maternity apparel from its four chains: A Pea in the Pod, Destination Maternity, Mimi Maternity, and Motherhood Maternity.

The “wow” factor of Destination Maternity stems from its experiential nature. There’s a maternity yoga/meditation room, a children’s play area, and a leather seating area with a flat-screen TV for the spouses. For sale are spa services, educational materials and classes, vitamins, baby products, and of course maternity clothing from all four Mothers Work brands. That’s not all. Offered at the check-out counter, is free juice and water and the clerks peddle a loyalty program that offers $1,000 in sweepstakes, a free trial of Parenting magazine, and targeted coupons.

Needless to say, I was impressed. I’m not even pregnant and I already feel loyal to the store. Curious about this company, I conducted some research and discovered that one of the factors that contribute to the success of the chain is the employee culture. No one works in isolated compartments, but rather everyone is part of cross-departmental teams with every member free to develop the next big idea. It’s the organization’s open environment and support of a team approach that the company claims “has helped give birth to the modern maternity apparel market.”

The approach seems to be paying off. Since its initial public offering in 1993, the organization has grown from $31 million in revenue to $602 million last year. And this year, as many as 20 new stores are planned and about a dozen of them will be multi-branded Destination Maternity concept stores.

Because Mothers Work shows confidence in the abilities of its employees, and operates within principles that promote trust, collaboration, and teamwork, the outcome is an organization with a strong culture of innovation that delivers value to its customerrs and has the potential for continued growth and market share.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We as consumers have been conditioned to expect poor customer service. Just like we expect to have to haggle with car dealers over the price of a car, we don't have high expectations when it comes to contacting customer service. The IVR maze, the uninformed agent, and the lack of follow-up are things we don't enjoy, but it's so common these days. This should be great news for companies that have a commitment to customer service. With the bar set so low, it's pretty easy to impress us.

Continue reading "Good Customer Service Means Common Sense" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For me the most underplayed and underrated customer strategy is vision. Some executives have a knack for what customers will demand. That's not what the customer will need or want, mind you. It's knowing what the customer will demand. Vision is the difference between opening a new bookstore and starting Amazon.com. It's the difference between firing channel partners in favor of greater efficiency and empowering channel partners to open new kinds of product lines. I stole that last one from John Chambers at Cisco. Vision also seems to be the product of hard work. Even with his current reponsibility of running one of the biggest companies in the world, Chambers still spends more than half his time with customers.

Posted by John Gaffney at 6:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

One constant in the area of CRM -- customer relationship management -- is the ongoing discussion about a newer, more appropriate nomiker for this overarching, enterprisewide strategy. Some organizations have embraced CEM (customer experience management) or CMR (customer managed relationships); other organizations have their own unique name for customer relationship management.

To me, CRM is a good fit; the rest is mostly semantics. (Although I do admit that using something like CMR can help rally a company’s staff around the customer.) As long as an organization has an enterprisewide customer strategy that creates a win-win for company and customer, does it really matter what it’s called? Many industry experts think so.

Continue reading "(Re)Defining CRM" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Verizon is trying to shake of its image as a “stodgy old phone company” and reinvent itself as a contemporary broadband company, according to Mark Studness, director of Verizon’s online center of excellence, whom I recently saw present at the Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing Executive MindXchange.

To do so, the company is taking a multichannel approach to its marketing, especially when targeting 18- to 34-year-olds who are PC and broadband savvy. The company is using a mix of such channels as in-game “events,” multimedia content integration, sponsored online content, video- and podcasting, online communities, and online/offline integration.

Continue reading "Shaking off “Stodgy”" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The messy delays at JetBlue last week has made the airline the center of the media spotlight, and the negative experience has put the company's customers at risk. But sometimes making good on a mistake can have greater value in the long term.

Last week’s events may have broken customer trust at JetBlue, but I believe Founder and CEO David Neeleman already put the mechanisms in place to repair the damage. Through the company’s openness, honesty, frequent communications, and confidence, JetBlue may be able to restore trust by immediately fixing its problems.

Neeleman took the pilot’s seat and responded quickly with sincere atonement. He posted a video apology on the company’s Web site and yesterday the company released a Customer Bill of Rights which promised varying amounts of vouchers for different degrees of flight delays (even though the bill still allows passengers to wait on a tarmac during ground delays for up to five hours).

Customers respect honesty. Not only has Neeleman been candid about the reason for the airline’s extremely delayed flights last week, he was clear about how the airline would follow up to make the situation right with customers. Customers were unfairly treated and as a result they feel vulnerable. As Neeleman states in his apology letter “Nothing is more important than regaining your trust....”

I think customers will come to respect JetBlue’s straightforward approach and last week's chaos will soon be a faint memory.

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

A week after New York's ice storm caused customer nightmares for JetBlue passengers, the airline is finally operating at 100%. For those who missed it, passengers remained on planes for as long as 10 hours, and hundreds of flights nationwide were canceled even days after the storm had passed. CEO David Neeleman vowed that such a debacle would never happen again, and announced that the company has created a Customer Bill of Rights. A customer bill of rights is a good idea, but without the follow-through to back it up, they may be just words to stifle its PR crisis.

Continue reading "JetBlue's Customer Bill of Rights" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 9:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

I think companies lull themselves into thinking they ask the right questions of customers when they really don't. And they think customer intelligence is informing business when it's not. As our 1to1 Weekly story points out, a company needs to ask relevant, tough questions of its customers and then have the guts to look at the results in the harsh light of reality. Customer survey results, whether via NetPromoter or anything else, should have an element of discomfort. If customers are telling a company everything's great, we're very happy, etc., then it's time to get very concerned. It's time to see customer intelligence as an opportunity for growth. Not a reassurance.

Posted by John Gaffney at 9:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBacks (0)

Recently, several speakers I’ve seen at various events have noted the impending demise of marketing’s 4 Ps -- product, price, place, and promotion. Curious to discover whether those were coincidence or a burgeoning point of view, I posed the question to several industry insiders.

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

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

You have plenty of customer data. The million-dollar question is, how can you manage it in a way that delivers a return on the investment it took to acquire it?

I attended a session on this topic at the recent Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing Mind Xchange event. Participants noted both challenges and opportunities for seeing ROI from customer data.

Continue reading "Data That Delivers" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 10:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For many executives it’s not all roses and chocolates this Valentine’s Day. That’s because for the fourth year in a row, the results of the 2006 Customer Experience Management study conducted by Strativity Group, suggest that the majority of companies’ relationships with customers are dysfunctional, lacking love and empathy.

Overall, the study, with 309 participants, indicates the companies do not deliver the love required to maximize the value of their customer relationships. Lior Arussy, founder of Strativity Group, said this study reaches new lows with only 40% of respondents claiming they deserve customers’ loyalty; 51% saying that that their company does not deliver unique and beneficial products or services; only 34% affirming that they have the tools and authority to serve their customers; and 75% admitting they don’t know the cost of a new customer.

Continue reading "Molding Your Principles of Love" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Like everything else on the Internet, e-commerce businesses see just how useful the social networking tools on Myspace and YouTube have become, and they're, well, "borrowing" them. A recent story in BusinessWeek shows how companies like Macy's, Procter & Gamble, and Petco are kicking user reviews up a notch. It makes sense. It's what customers want.

Continue reading "Business Mixes with Myspace" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

When we email friends or colleagues, we usually expect a response. We’re creating an electronic dialog. Some marketers and industry analysts think that the same should apply to email marketing. The thinking is that interaction creates opportunity – opportunity for information, sales, referrals, etc.

But not all email communications offer the ability to interact. And that’s where opportunity is lost. Or is it?

Continue reading "Putting the Interaction Into Email" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

Marketers today at many companies are trying to take the focus off price and put it on value or customer experience or uniqueness or, well, just about anything else. The problem many of those same marketers then face are dealers or retailers who only want to focus on price. They don’t care about marketers efforts to connect with end customers by differentiating themselves in a way that ultimately should grow sales and margins. These “partners” only want to boost their own sales or traffic by discounting.

What’s a marketer to do?

Continue reading "Bully Purchasers" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

In today’s issue of The Marketing Xfactor Executive Editor John Gaffney writes about the strange turn some advertising has taken lately using what some call "creepy" mascots to pitch products. What’s interesting about these off-beat ads is the buzz they create, which John discusses in “The Art and Science of Creepy.”

One question that comes to mind is whether that buzz is short lived, or whether it actually makes a long-term impact.

Continue reading "Ads With Buzz" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Ford Motor will announce this week that it will rename its Five Hundred sedan the Taurus, the company’s popular-selling car in the 1980s. I don’t know about you, but resurrecting a car associated with a bulbous design and rental car agencies is probably not what the auto retail market demands.

My memories of the Taurus are when I was 16. Every time I drove my Taurus on the highway, the car stalled and I skirted death. At the time, the company claimed this ubiquitous problem stemmed from a glitch with the car’s catalytic converter.

Continue reading "The Ford Taurus: Is the Magic Still There?" »

Posted by Mila D'Antonio at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This will be the year that the Big Three automakers (Ford, GM, Chrysler) get overtaken by imports like Toyota and Honda. Imported auto brands have already reached a record high of 49.4 percent of U.S. sales in January, CNNMoney reports. It seems inevitable at this point. And for good reason -- Toyota and Honda make cars that people want to drive. The American behemoths are just that -- too big to operate efficiently, effectively, and with the customer focus needed to sell cars.

Continue reading "The Big Three Ain't So Big No More" »

Posted by Elizabeth Glagowski at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

We live in a business and personal culture of immediate gratification. What impresses me most about the six Impact Award winners featured in our JanFeb issue of 1to1 Magazine and called out in 1to1 Weekly, is the willingness among them to forego immediate gratification. If you check them out, you'll see that each of them embarked on an initiative that seemed to be subtle at first, and long-term in its payoff. Ingram Micro, for example, opened a new line of business that served its customers, but was hardly a home run in itself. The bottom line for all six companies was huge and most importantly, all six are still working on thier customer initiatives.

Posted by John Gaffney at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

A social and technology Perfect Storm is creating a one-to-one marketing ecosystem that companies cannot ignore, says Allen Johnson, worldwide leader, consumer goods customer segment, for Hewlett-Packard. During his presentation at CASCON, CAS Americas’ customer conference, Johnson explained that the combination of broadband content capabilities, the ubiquity of digital devices, the aging of the Net generation, the emergence of location-based services, and social networks equal a digital consumer. And that consumer is often open to receiving relevant marketing messages from trusted organizations online and on handhelds and phones.

Continue reading "Marketing’s Perfect Storm" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 7:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

There is no such thing as the “average” consumer. So said John Rand, director of retail insights for Management Ventures, during his keynote yesterday at CASCON, CAS Americas’ customer conference. Rand explained that up to now the best data generally has been about the average, but that average is really about no one in particular – and that type of broad focus will no longer be useful in this world of increasing customer expectations of relevancy.

His prediction:

Continue reading "The Myth of “Average”" »

Posted by Ginger Conlon at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)