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!
Continue reading "Congratulations to Bath & Body Works’ Pati Crowley!" »
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 then executing on that knowledge. I'm not in the Dell most growable customer group right now. If you're reading this, you're probably not either. But there's a whole generation of kids that want their laptop the way they want it, and if they want purple, you make it purple.
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.
Continue reading "What's So Great About Being a "New" Customer?" »
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 mind, I sent a reply:
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, like integrated multichannel options. But, according to “Service Done Right: Why Great Online Customer Service Matters More than Ever,” a recent study conducted by IBM and Kana Software, a majority of the 72 financial services firms studied “fell into the lowest quadrant for lack of both the necessary online access channels or for having a channel that was ineffective.”
Continue reading "Study Finds Financial Service Firms Need to Invest in Service" »
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 public service which aims to treat constituents as customers.
In building up New York as a brand, he has viewed the city as a company by deploying a "customer" strategy and overhauling much of the infrastructure. He deployed an extensive 311 contact center with 24/7 customer service, established New York recruiting centers in other nations to market the city, made government offices more accessible, and implemented a feedback mechanism from “customers” to develop new products and services, among other customer-centric strategies.
While this isn’t an endorsement for Bloomberg, imagine the effect this dream cabinet would have on a turnaround mission:
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 represents two things. First and foremost, it's something that society discovers that has always been there but has escaped our attention. Second, it represents the random event. It's the plane that appears in downtown Manhattan, the stock market crash, the customer that gets on the blogosphere and makes a personal experience spread like a boulder dropped into a pond. We cannot predict all Black Swan appearances. But we can prepare against the damage caused by them. I think this represents a whole new area of customer strategy. It may be an idea that we accept as readily as "long tails" a year from now. I urge you to read it. If you've read it, I'd love to know what you thought of it.
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 to watch movies.
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.
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: Which do you think will have the greater impact on marketing five years from now and why?
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 top executives interviewed said that the CMOs lack the background, skills, and attributes needed to justify their presence in the C-suite. They said that CMOs fail to provide them with ROI data because of a lack of marketing measurement and data analysis experience. They also lack financial management acumen, strong global business intellect and insight, and a strategic mindset.
The CMO Council proclaims that the position of CMO must be occupied by an executive who can come in and help drive company growth, lead innovation, provide strategic vision, champion the customer experience, and be fluent in characteristics of the company’s product development and service delivery models.
Fortunately, not all CMOs are comatose. I’ve referenced examples of three CMOs who are making a difference at their organizations:
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 will want (and do want) more fuel options. They might not use their cars as much. And they will be more conscious about driving SUVs. My 12-year old daughter calls SUVs "seal killers" because she heard that we need to ruin the seal's habitat to get more oil from it.
I know that's an innocent point of view. But she's four years away from driving, and probably six or seven years away from purchasing a car. Customer values are formed early and often in my experience. And I don't think the auto business, regardless of its M&A activity, understands that yet.
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.
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 approach.
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 an impractical, mid-life crisis purchase. Through all the layoffs, pension issues and price wars, it's good to see that Ford is trying to live up to its "Quality is Job #1" brand promise. It's better than living up to the reputation of "Fix Or Repair Daily."
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 innovation by applying Six Sigma processes to improve the actual customer experience by listening to customers, bringing the customer insight into the measurement process, removing the root causes of problems, and applying steps to improve the customer experience.
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 that governmment provides conditions under which business can grow. The result, at best, is an increase in the GDP. Opening international markets is the best example I can think of, and both parties have certainly be interested in that. Customer orientation means that government provides conditions that will encourage its citizens to spend the most money, and that their rights will be protected in the process. No one owns that process. No party owns the customer.
"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 can be said without trust, you're not going to have a good day.
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 many people’s principal source of income is eBay? Seven hundred thousand.” He went on, “So the power of the computer has made it possible for people to gain greater control over their lives. It’s given people a greater chance to run their own business, become a sole proprietor or an entrepreneur. As a result, it has made us more market-oriented, and that equals making you more center-right in your politics.”
When did "market-oriented" equate with "center-right?" eBay has found a sustainable business model is because it has empowered customers, not computers.
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