One of our 1to1 Customer Champions, Pete Winemiller, has this great thing his does to motivate his staff to improve their performance for each ensuing basketball season. Winemiller is the vice president of guest relations for the NBA’s Seattle SuperSonics and the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. Here’s what Winemiller asks his staff to do:
For over a month we’ve been hearing about how retail is struggling this holiday season and sales are lower than normal. The reports are still coming out with the numbers to show whether there really was a huge drop-off from last year (I’m sure it’s something we’ll be covering extensively for the next few weeks), but I have my own theory why the outlook has seemed negative when it may not be.
It’s the most wonderful time of the year... or is it?
In an effort to help restore the shortfall in sales projected by The International Council of Shopping Centers that said holiday spending only increased 3.6 percent this season, many retailers opened doors earlier than usual today (before 9 a.m.) and all this week, and are offering deeper price cuts than last year.
But as shoppers rush in to make returns, redeem gift cards, and take advantage of stores' low prices and expanded hours, how is customer service prepared for this post-holiday rush?
Many stores boost staffing levels by hiring seasonal customer service that may not be receiving the deep customer-service training or incentives and bonusus that full-time employees receive throughout the year.
Consider this: According to a poll conducted earlier this month by America's Research Group, a consumer-behavior research firm, one in four shoppers said they walked out of a store because of poor customer service.
By bringing seasonal employees up to respectable customer service levels, retailers may avoid sending shoppers running for their doors this week.
Hopefully retailers this year are learning from holidays' past, applying that insight to the holidays' present, to bring increased profit and customers for the future.
Have any good or bad holiday customer service experiences that you'd like to share here?
Ah, the joys of the holiday season: a bevy of percent-off coupons, free shipping offers, and more sent directly to my inbox at a dizzying pace. And in case I forget about the offers at hand, there are all those handy follow-up emails reminding me that I have a limited time to take advantage of the fabulous offer I just received. Then there’s the ultimate reminder that I only have one day left—or else I’ll miss out. Until the next offer comes along, that is.
Continue reading "How Many Emails Does it Take to Make a Sale?" »
How close are we as a society to needing mobile addict anonymous programs? I’ve heard stories about “phantom vibrations” when people think their phone is ringing in their pocket when it isn’t, and statistics that say more than 1/3 of people are never more than an arm’s length away from their cell phone (even when asleep). I have to admit I fall into both groups, so when I read this story out of Korea it definitely caught my attention.
We all know that these days, friendly and accommodating in-store customer service is often hard to come by. How many times are we left combing the aisles for assistance or encountering rude clerks who can’t be bothered?
At Bed, Bath, & Beyond, though, that isn't the case. My experience there has been anything but exceptional, but lately it’s getting creepy. After getting married in October and registering for gifts there, I’ve spent some quality time in that store. That’s because Bed, Bath & Beyond is known for catering to wedding couples—the company devotes an entire area to wedding registries in its stores, provides a wedding registry consultant, and even offers customers coffee while they roam the stores scanning gift items.
Anyone else getting a lot of e-mails lately from merchants determined to lure you into their stores or onto their websites for BIG BIG HOLIDAY SAVINGS!!!! ? If you’re like me, you may find yourself confronted with an annual greeting from an obscure store you once did business with five years ago. Nobody wants to be inundated with come-ons, of course, but chances are if I haven’t bought anything from you since 2002, I’m not going to suddenly realize a pressing need for your wares.
While I now count on that experience as a bemusing bit of Yuletide tradition, however, there’s another one that I don’t particularly care for: cashing in on an offer, only to immediately be presented with an even better deal once the previous sale has been completed … and finding that I can’t apply the better deal to my just-completed purchase.
You’ve heard of Best Practices. If 1to1 ever starts a “Worst Practices” section, this has got to be near the top of the list.
It's a known fact -- Ford truck drivers hate Chevy people, and Chevy truck drivers hate Ford folks. Some people will only buy a Toyota or Honda, for example, even if other car companies have higher ratings or better prices. And in many cases, once you get a BMW or Mercedes, there's no other car for you.
Why do people love their cars so much? How can other car companies tap into that loyalty to improve their customer relationships?
Selling books is a hotly competitive business these days, with all of the major players and many of the local retailers creatively vying for customers. (Watch for an upcoming article about all the goings on in our January/February issue of 1to1 Magazine). We recently wrote an article in 1to1 Weekly on Borders' updated loyalty program, and then blogged on the topic of whether there's a reward in using reward programs.
Interestingly, the article prompted a note from reader Bob Lang on another one of Borders’ retention strategies: Borders TV.
If you’re in the market for a new computer, are you excited that you’ll get to try out Windows’ Vista operating system? If not, don’t worry you’re hardly alone. Lately those Mac/PC ads that Apple runs on television have focused on the fact that many people who did upgrade to Vista ran into big problems, and that the ones who didn’t upgrade are now scrambling to figure out how they can avoid doing so.
Two of the longest-running, family owned amusement parks in the country announced today that they will be bought by a European hedge fund.
Madrid-based Parques Reunidos, which owns 65 amusement, animal, and water parks in the U.S. and Europe, announced that it intends in March to complete its purchase of Kennywood Entertainment in Pittsburgh, PA, which operates 129-year-old Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh; and 161-year-old Lake Compounce in Bristol, CT.
Although the current owners insist that the sale shouldn’t spur cutbacks or corporate changes, long-time customers worry that the move doesn’t serve customers’ best interests. Companies like the British private equity firm Candover, which operates Parques Reunidos, are notorious for buying up investments, cutting the costs that may affect customers, and then selling at a higher profit.
What is God? Not the kind of question that one usually finds himself addressing in the office, and certainly not with coworkers, but with Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa all in the air at this time of year, thoughts about God are perhaps natural.
Is God an actual entity, or more of an abstraction of varying degrees of hypothetical reality? Is God, as John Lennon once put it, a concept by which we measure our pain? Is God dead, as Friedrich Nietzsche put it? (Nietzsche, of course, is dead. As is Lennon. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.)
According to the title of a forthcoming book by marketing CEO Mark Stevens, God is a Salesman (Center Street). By this, Stevens doesn’t mean God’s shuffling door to door with a samples case, or wearing a Santa Claus hat at the local Try-n-Save attempting to cajole you into buying a new refrigerator.
If your stylist left the salon to go into private practice, would you follow her? If your financial planner called and said he was moving to another company, would you stick with him? If that Ann Taylor employee who always helps you find the right outfit moved to Banana Republic, would you start shopping there? Chances are the answer is yes, and it's a scary proposition for companies who want to build loyalty, but don't want to take it too far.
A little customer acquisition never hurt anybody. Yet, you would think from the recent plethora of warnings (this blog included) about the importance of customer retention and the prohibitive costs of buying customers that acquisition is toxic. It's not.
Every month I get dozens of emails from companies offering sales, exclusive deals, and rewards. At least 90 percent of them I delete immediately, and judging from some of the campaign numbers I’ve seen writing about marketing, the fact that I open even 10 percent of them is high. Why do I ignore so many marketers’ messages? I think the bigger question is, Why do they keep sending me irrelevant information that I’m likely to ignore, rather than communicating to me based on my needs? I tried to address the latter question with “Will the Real Customer Please Stand Up?” in the most recent issue of 1to1 Magazine. To demonstrate how companies should look at customers, I provided a few facts about myself in the story:
Continue reading "Purchase Decisions Don’t Happen in a Vacuum" »
At SAP’s 5th annual Influencer Summit in Boston yesterday, the business software provider announced the launch of its next evolution CRM solution. With new capabilities, such as trade promotions management, business communications management, and pipeline performance management, SAP says the new release will give users easier access to information and the speed to go to market faster.
The release is significant in that the product was co-developed with the company’s customers and partners with a focus to solve real business problems. “It’s been a journey,” said Bill Wohl, vice president of global CRM at SAP.
That’s because, as Bob Stutz, senior vice president CRM global strategy and development, at SAP, explained, until a couple years ago, “Buying SAP CRM was like buying a dump truck full of Legos, dumping it into your front yard, and then needing an army of consultants to put it together.”
Stutz, who came to SAP in 2005 from Siebel, said he was disappointed when he first went through the company’s CRM product. And the customer feedback was brutal. Many told him, “It’s hard to use—it has a lot of good deep functionality—but very difficult to use.” That’s when he set out on a journey to work with the company and its customers to create a dynamic and easy-to-use solution.
Continue reading "SAP is on Track to Elevate CRM. But are Customers Ready?" »
Did you brave the stores this weekend in search of the perfect holiday gift? Did you go online? Chances are you did both. I did. Personally, I've noticed more of an integration between the offline and online experience this year compared to last. For example, Sears will have any online order ready in the store for pick-up within five minutes of placing the order. The customer experience is improving this holiday season, but have retailers gone far enough?
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