I spent the past two days at the Call Center Week conference, which you’ll hear more about over my next few blog posts. One highlight was IQPC’s 2007 Call Center Excellence Awards. The best part: Bath & Body Works’ Pati Crowley was honored with the award for Call Center Leader of the Year. Woo hoo!
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I like Dell's latest customer-centric approach, which looks to be balanced on design, quality improvements and retail expansion. Today it announced that it will customize its designs to include more colors and design tweaks to play to the WalMart audience (its newest account). In some ways it represents Dell's decision to bail on the direct sales market. In other, more important ways, it reflects what got the company to this point in time, which is listening to its customers and
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I constantly see commercials for mobile phones or cable service that entice new customers with great discounts and special offers. If I'm already a customer, it makes me mad that only the "new" customers get the good deals. Why should I be treated worse because I'm already a customer? The acquisition frenzy in many of these industries can turn off current customers and make them switch to a competitor.
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One of our 1to1 magazine readers recently emailed me this question: “What are the skill sets of successful relationship marketing directors? I have already checked out the job sites but a majority of the descriptions display the immediate need rather than the responsibilities that will make a company a truly 1to1 organization.” It’s a great question, and the first thing that came to mind was our 1to1 Customer Champions, who are all highly skilled relationship managers. With those folks in
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I don’t know about you, but I love online banking. I pay bills online, of course, but I’ve also opened accounts online; set up, changed, and cancelled recurring payments; researched account and mortgage options. The works. And in most cases it’s a better experience than the ones I’ve had in the branch. Not because the people aren’t friendly or helpful. It just significantly easier, more convenient, and less time consuming to self-serve. That said, I, like many other banking customers,
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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced yesterday that he was dropping his Republican affiliation—a step which pundits believe will position him for the 2008 independent bid for the presidential campaign. Bloomberg for president may be the most logical idea I’ve heard yet to fix the mire in which the current tycoon president has embroiled us. Ross Perot tried it in 1992 and 1996 but this billionaire businessman has something over on Perot. Bloomberg has applied a new model for
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This is what blogs are for right? I should be able to throw some ideas around that might not be fully-baked. So here goes in the best spirit of Web 2.0, 3.0.....whatever. I read The Black Swan recenlty, a book that is as disturbing as any business book I've ever read. And beleive me, I've read too many. The book has many radical ideas. Basically, it relates the concept of Black Swans to life and business. A "Black Swan" actually
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My local video store (Tommy K's) recently closed the branch near my house. After a few attempts to rent at the Blockbuster down the street, I decided that I would rather drive 15 minutes into the next town and rent from the Tommy K's there. The foregin/indie film selection is much better, they have new releases when Blockbuster runs out, and the staff is very knowledgeable and friendly. For me, loyalty isn't just about price or convenience when I want
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Yesterday I had a terrific lunch with one of our Editorial Advisory Board members. We talked about how organizations are still challenged with data silos and fiefdoms, often maintained because C-level executives talk about change and reorganizing around the customer but don’t put the compensation, organizational structure, and commitment in place that’s necessary to actually make such a heady change stick.
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Among all the customer touchpoints, social media and mobile seem to be leading in cool factor – and marketing potential. Social media encourages consumers to engage with their favorite brands more often and for more time. It can spur and support word of mouth like no other medium. Mobile has an always-on ubiquity and presence/location capabilities that can give marketing more immediacy than ever. Both have unique benefits and challenges. And both have huge potential. What I wonder is this:
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This week the CMO Council released a report that uncovers that chief marketing officers may be asleep in the C-suite. The report, assembled from five different surveys of marketers, executives, and CMOs aimed to find ways to define and align the position of CMO. What the report lay bare is a poorly articulated definition of the role of the CMO, unsuccessful alignment of the position within the organization, and continued high turnover rate for those who fill the position. Many
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It amazes me to see so much action in the financial news regarding car companies. Now Ford wants to offload Jaguar and Land Rover in the interest of generating the revenue that will find more solid financial footing. That's all good, but I don't hear much out of domestic automotive companies about reality. To be more exact, customer-centric reality. If you're going to play in the auto business for the long-term, you need to cop to the reality that customers
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It's very rare to call a company and get an actual person. As customers, we've become accustomed to the automated messaging system. So for companies that look at it strategically, a human voice can actually become a competitive differentiator. In today's lead 1to1 Weekly article, that's what discount brokerage Scottrade did as part of its overall customer strategy.
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Chocolate and cash aside, often less truly is more – especially when it comes to quality versus quantity in marketing. We’ve said it many times at 1to1 regarding such messaging as direct mail and email: Don’t blast out every communication to every customer. Sometimes the blast is appropriate, but in most cases, targeted relevancy should prevail. It turns out that the rush for more in marketing is prevalent in another area that could perhaps be better served by a less-is-more
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The American car industry has taken a beating over the past few years. Expectations for U.S. cars have been set pretty low, so it's big news that Ford yesterday led the pack in the latest initial quality study from J.D. Power. Five vehicles from Ford Motor Co. placed at the top of their categories in initial quality. Mustang fans can now tell their spouses that the red Cobra convertible is a good investment as a "mid-size sporty car," and not
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This week BusinessWeek.com posted a story that spotlighted Six Sigma and how some companies like Home Depot and 3M are scaling back their Six Sigma and Lean efforts because their constant data measurement and paperwork can potentially drain quality time spent with customers and ultimately constrict innovation. Tom Davenport, Babson College management professor, who was quoted in the article, said “process management must be leavened with a focus on innovation and customer relationships.” Davenport is correct. Some companies have promoted
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Hey, it's business. Nothing personal, right? So I won't take the comment about my Hillary-loving lack of intelligence from last week's blog posting to heart. But I will return to last week's topic, which was about market orientation and who owns it. My point is this: No political party owns the concept of market orientation. In fact, I would go as far as to say that market orientation is irrelevant. It's customer orientation that counts. Market orientation, to me, means
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"I don't trust him any farther than I can throw him," says Principal Ed Rooney about protagonist Ferris Bueller in the famous John Hughes movie. "With your back, Ed, you shouldn't throw anybody," Rooney's secretary Grace replies. And as the film ends, Rooney gets attacked by dogs, beat up by Jennifer Grey, his car gets towed, and he must ride the school bus home next to Joan Cusack, who offers him a warm gummy bear from her pocket. So it
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Let me start by saying I'm not a big Karl Rove fan. But the following quote in the most recent issue of The New Yorker completely floored me, and I'd love to get our reader's take on it. In the story titled "Party Unfaithful" Rove is quoted as saying: “There are two or three societal trends that are driving us in an increasingly deep center-right posture. One of them is the power of the computer chip. Do you know how
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