It's just days before Halloween. And while chocoholics like myself are thinking, "Candy!" most everyone in business is thinking, "Let the holiday rush begin." This year's "rush," however, will be primarily about wallet share. National Retail Federation is predicting a moderate 2.8 percent growth in overall retail sales this year, despite also forecasting that consumers will spend about $704.18 on "holiday gifts and seasonal merchandise," down from $718.98 in 2010. Retailers, it seems, will need to focus heavily on slicing
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Even inspirational leaders have people who inspire them to succeed in business; to work hard, take on challenges, think of customers and employees first. That inspirational person may be a colleague, customer, or a family member. During interviews with the 1to1 editorial team, several of the 2011 1to1 Customer Champions shared who inspires them and why:
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If there is one acronym that marketers live and die by its KPI. Any marketer worth his or her salt knows that measuring key performance indicators is essential to show progress and improvement when it comes to shoring up the company's bottom line. Without KPIs, marketers may have a difficult time proving to their boss that they're doing something other than playing Angry Birds all day long.
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At times, getting colleagues to embrace customer centricity is no easy feat. In fact, a lack of employee buy-in is often the biggest roadblock in customer experience initiative. During interviews with the 1to1 editorial team, several of the 2011 1to1 Customer Champions shared how they overcame that roadblock and successfully encouraged colleagues to embrace customer centricity:
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Female power has been transformed from a cliché to a reality for businesses. With women believed to make a staggering 80 percent of buying decisions, females represent a very important sector for marketers and the companies they represent.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Glen Manchester, Founder and CEO of Thunderhead, about how the empowered customer is shaping the direction of customer communications management.
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Everyone in business has that hot-button issue that can keep them up at night. Whether it's adjusting to how the economy is impacting business or gaining buy-in for an important initiative or keeping momentum going for a successful strategy, these challenges can be even more complex when they involve customers. During interviews with the 1to1 editorial team, several of the 2011 1to1 Customer Champions shared their current hot-button issue:
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When Oracle announced on Monday that it entered into an agreement to acquire RightNow Technologies for approximately $1.5 billion net of RightNow's cash and debt, some analysts and experts in the service industry had some immediate misgivings.
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Trust is reciprocated by customers in referrals, word of mouth, and repeat business. Consider, as an example, Griffin Hospital. Entrusting patients with their own records grew patients' belief in the hospital and contributed to its growth.
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What's the best thing a customer's ever said to you? Whether it's a simple "thank you" or a success story or asking for advice, customers' expressions of gratitude can speak volumes. During interviews with the 1to1 editorial team, several of the 2011 1to1 Customer Champions shared the best thing a customer ever said to them:
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Many customer experience initiatives don't meet their full potential--or worse, fail completely--because companies don't have a complete picture of the dynamics that go into creating it. In order to break from their tunnel vision, companies need to understand their customer experience ecosystem: the complex set of relationships among a company's employees, partners, and customers that determine the quality of all customer interactions.
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Channel proliferation, data overload, and privacy concerns are just some of the issues that direct marketers across the globe are dealing with today. In a conversation with me after the DMA's annual conference, Australian Direct Marketing Association CEO Jodie Sangster shared her insights on the three biggest trends facing marketers in Australia and around the globe today, as well as how they can better handle customers' growing privacy concerns.
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Customer experience comes in many packages. Literally. Last night, while flying home from the CXPA's Member Insight Exchange, I was reminded how powerful packaging can be as part of the customer experience. And it happened with my eyes closed.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Ralf VonSosen, Vice President, Marketing at InsideView, about the steps that decision-makers can take to collect and act on intelligence about B2B customers.
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When something doesn't go our way the first time around, it's easy to throw in the towel and move on to something else. But according to Peter Shankman, CEO of The Geek Factory, this is the wrong approach, especially when it comes to social media. "Ninety-nine percent of time social media doesn't work and there will be people who will tell you you're wrong. But if you believe in what you're doing, don't give up," was Shankman's advice when he
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The importance of providing a multichannel customer experience in marketing and service is paramount today for companies to keep and grow their customers. But in this race to have a presence on every new channel that emerges, I feel that we often ignore the basics: phone and email.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Marketo Founder and CEO Phil Fernandez about steps that companies can take to use technology to drive revenue performance management.
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"Customer experience (CX) maturity" was the topic of Forrester's recent Chief Customer Officer (CCO) roundtable meeting. The customer experience leaders present took a self-test of key CX practices (based on a recent report by Megan Burns called "Customer Experience Maturity Defined"), discussed their own company's strengths and weaknesses, and shared successes and challenges they faced at their companies in interactive discussions throughout the day.
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One issue companies have when it comes to social media investment is that it's hard to measure the return on that investment. It may be inexpensive to set up a Facebook or Twitter account, but it takes a lot of time, effort, and sweat equity to keep it active and build a community around it. Many companies ask the question, "is it worth it?" Some companies like KFC and others are able to measure, at least to an extent, the
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A common theme in many sales organizations these days is rethinking the sales process to make it easier for customers to buy. That evolution, of course, includes providing the training and support salespeople need to improve their customer interactions. One company focused on how sales impacts the customer experience is Arrow Electronics. During a panel discussion at AchieveGlobal's The Future of Sales Effectiveness briefing earlier this week, Joe Cataldo, senior director of talent management and development at Arrow Electronics, shared
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Huntington National Bank Executive Vice President and CIO Zahid Afzal discusses the customer and business benefits of merging multiple CRM systems onto a single platform.
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We live in an age when every nanosecond matters. Everything can change in the blink of an eye, keeping marketers on their toes, trying to catch up with the rapidly evolving trends. When I caught up with Alan Moss, Google's vice president of online sales for the Americas, at the DMA conference, he insisted that speed beats perfection when it comes to marketing. He explains that in the "old days" marketers built their marketing plan for the year and executed
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Apple's release today of its iCloud service will not only set the company apart from its competition yet again, but it will also help to foster a loyal customer base.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Brian Kardon, Chief Marketing Officer at Eloqua, about the need for companies to move beyond monitoring customers' social comments to integrating social into your organization's marketing strategy.
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For decades companies have been promising to delight customers, while simultaneously disappointing them in nearly every channel. That tactic won't cut it anymore. Why not? We've entered a new era that Forrester calls the age of the customer--a time when focus on the customer matters more than any other strategic imperative. In the age of the customer, companies find that:
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How's this for personalized service? Renaming a restaurant in customers' honor. This is the approach the iconic steakhouse Smith & Wollensky is taking during the month of October. From the 3rd to the 31st, the restaurant is changing half of the name of its 49th Street and Lexington Avenue location in New York each day in honor of one customer who takes a "pledge" online "to make Smith & Wollensky their exclusive steakhouse."
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During his presentation on management innovation at the World Business Forum in New York, London Business School Professor Gary Hamel mentioned that one of the biggest problems plaguing many companies nowadays is the sheer number of organizations that are "emotionally uninspired."
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Customers may not always be right, but they always deserve a timely response to their queries. Companies that today ignore their customers will find it's a practice fewer and fewer consumers will tolerate--especially in the age of social customer, where consumers will not only share information with scores of other consumers, but they can also more and more easily find who to contact to get their issues resolved.
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There are multiple factors that influence the success--or failure--of work teams, including the chemistry between people and a group's commitment to achieving shared goals. But one of the most important attributes of great teams is vulnerability, says author and consultant Patrick Lencioni.
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Anyone who has ever wasted precious minutes trying to contact a call center knows how frustrating the experience can be. It is even worse when, once you get through, you're faced with an agent who either can't communicate effectively or is unable to help you for a number of other reasons.
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Ben Zander, the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, is more than just a musician; he has the ability to inspire. Co-author of the book The Art of Possibility, Zander claims that art and music can energize our personal connections and lead to innovation and adoption to new practices. Today, he spoke at the World Business Forum in New York City. Below are some of the inspirational quotes from his speech.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with TeleTech CMO Mark Grindeland about the business benefits of providing customers with unique support experiences.
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In 2007, Howard Shultz wrote a memo to then Starbucks CEO Jim Donald about how the company needed to get back to its core values and mission and make the changes necessary to evoke the heritage, the tradition, and the passion for which Starbucks was known.
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In a down economy, delivering exceptional customer service is the difference between profiting and shuttering your doors.
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Customer service is one area where being a small organization has its advantages. For some reason, the smaller establishments tend to treat their customers better.
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I just added up the time that I spent last week having frustrating interactions with companies as a customer: 1 hour and 10 minutes (roughly). I owe most of that to my wireless carrier, but a few other companies also made generous contributions. In each case, I ended the interaction feeling worse than when I'd started--edgier, tenser, more negative in general. It's not as if I could turn those emotions off, either. Petty though they were, they lasted a while.
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1to1 Media's Tom Hoffman speaks with Ken Osborn, Vice President of Marketing at Five9, about how telephone-based customer support is fusing with social media.
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