Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

The idea of traditional marketing works well when makets are new and there is really only one version of product. In Henry Ford's world it was when customers could have any color car they wanted, as long as it was black.
When markets begin to mature and competent products proliferate, competition jumps to the next level, roughly, the unique relationship a company can establish with the customer. We are at that point now, especially in what was once called high-tech.
In this world the customer has a great deal of power; since multiple products can undoubtedly satisfy a need and secondary considerations -- like how the customer feels about using a product and interacting with a company.
In this world it is much more important to listen than to talk and that goes especially for marketing. The relationship marketing director, IMHO, should be focused on capturing customer attitudes, ideas and opinions.
We have identified a marketing cycle, which we have called "Deep Marketing" that focuses on developing information from customer input that should drive product innovation, message creation and the like. This raw material is essential if companies are to continue to be successful at delivering right product/service at the right time and price.

Denis

As pointed out a Relationship Marketing Director can not be an expert in everything. In my view they do not need to be an expert in anything that other people can do for them. Especially technology. I take the position that they only need to exceptionally good at one thing. That is being able to represent the customer viewpoint in every activity that the business carries out. In my experience this means that they were at some time actually customers. To avoid being sucked into the Corporate engine perhaps they also could do with being independantly wealthy! Radical thought. Perhaps they could be an actual customer who does the role on assignment for 6 months before handing over to another customer.

Ginger, I have just joined a new company and am tasked with exactly what is being discussed here. Currently the organization measures customer satisfation via telephone surveying. I need to take this to measuring the customer engagement, experience and ultimatly loyalty. Any good articles on building the base strategy around taking a company from CSAT to a customer centric organization?

Peter, Customer insight is absolutely key. I think that's one of the reasons company are focusing so heavily on not just surveying customers, but on creating a strategic customer insight plan that includes gathering customer feedback from multiple touchpoints, and then ensuring that the appropriate people in the organization take action on that information.

Ginger:
"Relationship marketing" is a marriage that requires listening, understanding, empathy and the ability to access the tools to move the relationship along.
Technology, research capabilities, digital service platforms and all the rest are simply tactics to be used to make the strategy successful.
Understand the motivations, fears and what keeps them up at night and relationship marketing executives will have all the information they need to inform and persuade.

Bill, Chris,
You both emphasize a point that seems to be increaslingly gaining attention, and that is that people (employees and customers) are truly at the heart of business.

And to Andy's point, we all need to be technologists to the extent that it serves our companies, employees, and customers needs.

In the end, without both customer and employee advocacy, long-term success is, well, a long shot.

Ginger, it's all right there. The guy should know marketing, understand the product and service around it and while much relationship mgmnt is now sitting on some kind of technology, being techno-savvy is the key.

While successful Relationship Marketing directors are as much cheerleaders and coaches as they are marketing practitioners, I sense from your reader’s question that they’re looking for a list of words on a resume that an employer would use to trigger an interview. A sterile listing of responsibilities will help get you started but for me true relationship marketing is simply defined as a brand’s capacity to connect with prospects, turning them into customers and engaging customers to the point where they become advocates.

Learning where the RM director fits is different in each corporate environment. Ginger, you're right when you mention corporate environment plays a role – think about it: If I can only impact one of the 4 P’s, how does a relationship marketing director move the needle? There has to be customer centered perspective in every corner of the organization, and that’s where the real work comes in. The RM director cheerleads and advocates for customer friendly compensation plans and metrics (ones that don’t inadvertently incent employees to exhibit anti-customer behaviors like ‘how fast can I get you off the phone’), customer conscious empowerment (1-stop complaint resolution), customer insightful training and a long term view that keeps us out of the ROI game that measures success by campaign (which is all about me, not all about them) and puts us into the ROC (Return on Customer) world.

The reason why most companies are only marginally successful at this is because it takes time and requires a lot of hard work. I agree with Rob, the RM director’s job is to understand analytics, finance and IT, and in a friendly way beat the drum for the customer in a way that motivates your colleagues to remember why we’re all here in the first place.

I agree, empathy is absolutely essential. My answer to your question is closely related to empathy: genuine customer advocacy. "Customer advocacy" is a term that is thrown around a lot, perhaps to the point that it has lost some of its meaning. Obviously, it suggests that we are actually rooting for the customer. This compels us to act with integrity and fairness, unselfishly. The issue of customer retention is no longer the issue, and ironically because of that, customer loyalty grows.

Rob, Kim,
That's exactly it. Of course, with the need to team build across departments, it sounds like an expertise in hearding cats is also an important prerequisite.

In a nutshell, a strategic director of relationship marketing ensures that all outbound customer communication is consistent and unified across channel and department. Most importantly, this person needs to be able to effectively build credibility across sales, service, marketing, operations, and IT and understand what makes each department tick. The trick is in maintaining a quality "customer experience" balanced with the real goal of any business - customer profitability. Therefore, this role really does require an uncommon set of skills including marketing, analytics, finance, and a solid understanding of IT and technologies.

I agree with you Ginger. And I like your point about internal and external relationships. I wonder how many companies are willing to do the internal work (with employees) needed to get the right customer experience? The role of a customer relationship director is going to be a lot of internal effort to get the culture focused on nurturing relationships - and beginning with employees first and good collaboration and appreciation.