Forget Fearing Change; Embrace it!

It’s a fairly common assumption that people do not like change but as a rather simplistic view, it fails to recognise that people will typically respond well to positive change. People make changes every day, new jobs, children, marriages, travelling and on the whole these are made voluntarily. It shows that even massive changes aren’t resisted by people – as long as it’s positive and will improve their lives.

Negative change on the other hand is naturally resisted, for instance, having to reduce the size of the workforce without changing the workload is a negative change, one that could well be caused by a crisis.

Change, regardless of whether it is positive or negative requires careful consideration for businesses, not only for the reasons such change is being initiated but also in the way it is presented and managed.

What causes change?

Market forces

Marketplaces are in a constant state of flux, and as such it is vital that businesses commit to changes to innovate, to maintain a competitive edge or to continue providing the right level of service to their customers.

Technology

In similar vein businesses must also react to technological developments, to ensure that they stay ahead of the curve and do not miss out on a potential advancement that could improve productivity and enhance services they deliver.

Customer needs

As the world evolves, customer needs change and grow, creating demand for new types of products and services. Reacting to these changes can open up opportunities for companies to meet these evolving needs.

The economy

The economy plays a huge role in organisational change. A strong economy increases demand for products and services meaning companies must expand operations to cope with this demand. A weak economy will result in a business making difficult decisions that will have an impact on employees and stakeholders.
Managing the business through good and bad times is important to maintain a strong brand and strong relationships, although this should be achieved without jeopardising the business’ ability to react to change in the future.

Why agility is essential

In order to respond to these causes in a successful and timely way, it’s important to be agile. Agility can be gained in a number of ways, including the utilisation of outsourcing where possible, which limits the financial and logistical restraints of enacting rapid change, particularly as they take the financial and operational weight of staffing and technological investment. The right outsourcer can actually be an instigator of change, and in a successful outsourcing partnership you would expect to see a two way discourse of ideas on ways to change operations, identify new markets and maximise the service delivered to customers.

Why it’s important to change

Change is important for growth within a business; it can enable the exploration of opportunities, facilitate creativity and increase security. Businesses benefit especially from change that results in new ways of looking at customer needs, new ways of delivering customer service and new ways of strengthening customer interactions.

In today’s world of disruptive, 24/7 change, responding well is critical to success. Being unprepared for change could quickly lead to becoming a victim to shifting socioeconomic conditions. Change is always a risk, but in many instances it is a necessary risk to develop new avenues for revenue generation. Outsourcing this risk is sensible, as it minimises the implications to your business whilst allowing you to diversify revenue streams and become more robust in the future.

Getting the Most from Loyalty Scheme Data

As the economic climate drives customers to hunt better and better deals, loyalty schemes have become an increasingly popular way to gain discounts and special offers. But while loyalty card schemes offer a wealth of data about customers, using this data to its greatest potential remains a challenge for many companies, as does building true loyalty and brand commitment.

 These challenges have been highlighted in recent research pieces. A Forrester report found that 40% of chief marketing officers are disappointed with the “erratic” performance of their brand loyalty schemes. Similarly, a report conducted by The Logic Group and Ipsos MORI argued that while over two thirds (68%) of consumers are members of supermarket loyalty schemes, less than half (47%) actually feel loyal to their supermarket.

Successful Loyalty Schemes

That is not to say that loyalty schemes are wholly unsuccessful, many companies aspire to replicate the two most dominant schemes today; Tesco’s Clubcard and the Nectar points system. These stand out not only because of their size and reach but because they have permanently influenced the way customers behave and built long standing brand/customer relationships. Achieving a scheme as popular as either of these is unrealistic for most businesses, but through intelligent use of data, it is possible to run a loyalty scheme that drives significant revenue and profits.

What should a loyalty scheme do?

Ultimately a loyalty scheme must offer strong financial rewards and a clear value exchange for the customer. It must also differentiate itself from the myriad schemes out there and ideally provide customers with targeted offers relevant to their behaviour and interests. Naturally the ways you manage your data are key to achieving this.

Research from LinkShare states that 41% of customers have purchased something online that they would never have bought directly because of a voucher or special offer, showing the value of communicating the right deal, at the right time. Such results can be accomplished through effective data management, which can also help to improve customer retention, increase customer engagement and brand commitment through relevant communication. (Read more about The Value of Data Management).

What it shouldn’t do?

Loyalty schemes are not an excuse to bombard customers with offers and are not an extension of your mailing database. Customers join schemes because they want to be rewarded for their purchases and repeat custom, not because they are interested in every sale or offer you are running. As such, a different approach to communication is required, motivating loyal customers to purchase more regularly by clearly stating the rewards they can expect as they collects points, interspersed with offers directly relevant to their data profile.

 

Intelligently using loyalty data

A loyalty scheme has the potential to gain detailed information about your customers and can help you to engage, build trust and loyalty. This is only possible however through effective data management and responsible, intelligent use of data.

In order to get the best out of your loyalty scheme it is important to make sure your data is kept up-to-date and relevant, as this can help gain your company valuable customer insight. Insight that is crucial for understanding which customers to target, when to target them, what rewards are relevant, as well as their behaviour patterns and interests. Do this effectively and you will see an increase of customer loyalty through building a successful loyalty scheme.

If you are interested in the role data has to play in understanding your customers, why not take a look at our Why Data Management is Vital to Customer Insight blog?

Why Keeping Your Data Safe is Key to Customer Confidence

In modern business capturing data, in whatever form, is a common activity in companies large or small, in retail or hospitality, B2B or heavy industry. But whilst everyone understands and appreciates the role that captured data plays, not everyone takes data security as seriously. 

Whenever someone fills out a form and gives their data there is an expectation that it will be kept secure and used discretely, working to improve the information and service they receive. The truth is that this is not always the case. In the recent Adestra Email Marketing Industry Census 2012 it was stated that of client side companies, only 56% have policies in place to guard against data breaches, and worse still, just 47% of supply-side companies have data security processes in place. 

The report further evidenced the problem by stating that around a quarter of agencies failed to know what data security policies were in place and amazingly, some didn’t even know if policies existed in their company. The statistics reveal that in some sectors there is an utter lack of awareness of the issues surrounding data security and that many operators are woefully underprepared to respond to and proactively protect against security breaches. 

It is not simply inadequacies in preparation and negligence of the issues however. A recent article in the Sunday Times and Marketing Week highlighted the malicious misuse of data and the burgeoning black market surrounding the personal details of UK residents in Indian contact centres. This illegal sale of data is according to one police source; “out of control” although fear of negative publicity has led to many cases being covered up.  

The illegal sale of data in Indian contact centres is currently being investigated by the ICO, providing yet more impetus for UK companies to keep their contact centre operations onshore and appear more committed to protecting their customers’ data.  At EWA it has been one of our objectives for some time to make sure that we make sure we promote and protect our clients and their reputations through pursuing robust data security measures.  

To do this it’s critical that we keep client information secure. If we fail, then we compromise our clients’ integrity and their customers’ rights and even safety. If you are looking for a contact centre or outsourced contact solutions then from a security point of view, ISO27001 Accreditation should be seen as a priority in your selection process.

So how do you keep data secure?

We protect against internal threats by having a clearly defined barrier between contact centre agents and the data centres where raw data is stored. This prevents a member of staff from manipulating or downloading data directly and is achieved by not storing data locally, and insisting that remote servers are used to view data. This ensures that the employee can see the data, but will never have access to all of the customer’s details. 

We protect against external threats such as third party hackers by ensuring all access points into the IT infrastructure, whether they are agency of client side are secure. This security is ensured by installing multiple layers of firewalls and implementing infrastructures which can be segmented to enforce traffic segregation, eliminating data traffic misrouting. 

Dealing with threats is one thing; protection from the technology itself is another. With huge amounts of personal data being stored it is vital that contact centres have the ability to not only store data securely but also to return intact data on request. This requires the contact centres to not only be experts in customer contact, but also experts in the archival and retrieval of data. 

Having these security measures is vital for any agency that holds customer data, it is equally important however that there are tools, processes and procedures present that will monitor and test the ongoing performance of such security measures.  Only through this continued vigilance over the data being passed from the database to the right client or agent is it possible to instil confidence in customers that their data is being actively protected from risk.

Managing Consumer Feedback – Listen, Understand, React

Recently I filled out a consumer survey for a company that I shop with regularly. The company in question will remain nameless; suffice to say that with my consumer hat on, I found myself getting fairly frustrated with the way in which the survey was structured and delivered.

As is frequently the case, this led me to put my professional hat back on and started me thinking why, with consumer feedback and insight being more important than ever in the current climate, would a company rollout such a substandard survey? Surely collecting and analyzing consumer feelings and opinions is critical in determining how your business is doing and how you can improve services?

Having a feedback programme is an extremely valuable asset, although embracing it and using it to its largest potential is equally important. My recent experience has shown me that having a feedback programme is not enough on its own; there must be a culture within the business that embraces it. As a consumer it is easy to spot when a company is simply paying lip service to consumer feedback, it is also clear when a company cares for the data gained from their programme and understands their consumers purchasing behaviours and attitudes.

A commitment to consumer feedback should be evident in different channels, not purely with consumer surveys. For example, social media is an excellent resource of honest consumer feedback as are face to face interviews, as long as you are aware that different channels will produce different sorts of results (typically responses gained through social are far more likely to be honest than those gained in person).

Somewhere in the middle of this scale is not responding to a disgruntled person effectively, which on Twitter is in some ways worse than not responding at all. Given the immediacy of the format, any interactions deemed to below standard can quickly proliferate around the Twitterverse, particularly if the user is well connected with a large following. Embracing feedback and being committed however is wholly different from being obsessed. Listening and reacting to feedback is appreciated by consumers, whereas a contiguous barrage of surveys is likely to be a nuisance. On a practical level, survey questions should be kept relevant and the surveys generally should be kept as short as possible or your consumers will be left as frustrated as I was during my recent surveying experience.

But where do you start? If you want to gain valuable consumer feedback and use it to improve your business, you can follow these best practises below:

1. Implement a feedback programme and commit yourself to building a culture of understanding the important of consumer feedback to the direction of your business in the future.

2. Make sure your employees are encouraging consumer feedback although they should also appreciate that their approach and manner is critical if they are to avoid annoying consumers.

3. Manage and analyze consumer feedback with systems to gain valuable insight into consumers’ needs and wants as well as buying patterns.

4. Take action with the consumer feedback information. Use your insight to correct any issues or concerns and let your consumers know when they have been corrected in order to build rapport. Never ignore your consumers’ feedback; this is will have a negative effect on your consumer loyalty.

5. Learn to share the feedback with the whole company and don’t leave valuable insight sitting in one department; the entire business should be aware of consumer service data.

6. Act promptly with all feedback however it is gained, if a consumer has a poor experience with one of your products or services and defects to a competitor there is little point in contacting that consumer 2 months later or even a month later. The opportunity has been missed and the chance of retaining that consumer has gone.

7. Decide your communication methods and the mixture of channels in order for your consumers to feedback using the medium they feel most appropriate and comfortable with i.e. Twitter, email or telephone.

The ultimate objective of consumer feedback is to create new ideas from recommendations, resolve problems and improve consumer service. The increased engagement with consumers can help form tighter purchasing relationships and build significant brand value. In turn, it will also help your business make better informed decisions based on your consumer’s behaviours, attitudes and experiences; decisions that will be more profitable in the long term.

Why Data Management is Vital to Customer Insight

With the benefits of effective customer insight studied at length and the importance of understanding the integral role played by data analysis activities presented; it is also vital to understand that how you manage your data is an important business decision.

Data management is one of the more utilitarian aspects of customer insight, concerned with actual design, development and hosting of databases. Ultimately, well managed data can be analysed as efficiently as possible and as such, data management tools form the building blocks of improved customer relationships, better business strategy and overall, enhanced performance.

Essentially, after a range of different customer insight activities have returned reams of information, a place in which to store, manage and analyse the data is needed, this is where data management tools offer a very real and extremely useful resource.

Typically data management tools will utilise relevant technologies in order to deliver the greatest amount of added benefit to the client. Functionality which grants efficient and effective access whilst allowing sets of data to be fully understood should always form the backbone of any data management service.

Data management tools may also incorporate the physical hosting and maintenance of databases. Frequently referred to as data warehousing, anyone looking to utilise such resources should note the inclusion of secure access features, efficient search and query functions and also the practical application of data management principles.

If a company is to make the most of its customer insight activities it can be worthwhile to obtain an integrated solution from a single service provider; one that offers a strategy for obtaining insight, demonstrates how data will be effectively stored and finally can provide systems to break down data so that it can be analysed.

Ultimately the foundations of effective customer insight can be found within the right data management tool set; if the choice of services is correct, a company is given the greatest opportunity to benefit from customer insight activities.

How Customer Insight Can Improve Customer Relationships

It has been established in previous blogs just how instrumental customer insight is to today’s marketers in the creation of marketing campaigns. However, it should be noted that it is only through effective and thorough database management that it is possible to take advantage of the greater customer insight and make this knowledge work for greater profits.

Customer insight is only one side of the coin, after all having and using the knowledge of customer behaviour are entirely different processes. Essentially it is the ability to make sense of the data that results from customer insight projects that leads to more effective business relationships.

One way in which this is possible is by compiling data that around customers’ order lag. The frequency of orders is a vital piece of information in understanding the patterns in which customers place orders. By studying these patterns it is possible to identify which customers are lagging in their orders and which are simply maintaining their regular ordering behaviour, subsequently indentifying the customers that could need contacting to encourage future purchasing.

It is through developing a Critical Lag formula, based upon customer ordering behaviour that it is possible to interact and communicate with customers at the right time. When this is combined with effective customer segmentation prospects can be readily identified and targeted to make the most of existing business relationships. The results of effective communication based upon a solid understanding of a customer base are less customer churn, and greater revenue generated from each customer.

Fundamentally customer insight is a highly valuable business tool. It is however only through efficient and effective database management that it is possible to make sense of the data extrapolated through customer insight activities and use this information to formulate customer relationship and retention strategies.

Does your CRM system give you everything you need?

EWA recently had a stand at the Data Marketing Show, part of Marketing Week Live and over the course of the two day exhibition, I had numerous conversations with people about all things data and CRM related.

One topic that kept cropping up was the failing of “off the shelf” CRM systems and the frustrations experienced by marketing personnel in particular.

“It doesn’t integrate with our email marketing software”, “I struggle to export the data in a usable format”, “We’ve had to change our processes to suit the way the system works” and “All I need is a system which I can use for mailings and allows me to keep my data up to date” were all common themes I heard. Now of course I’m sure some of the frustrations vented can be put down to what I like to call “user error” but not everyone I spoke to can be guilty of under-using or mis-using their CRM system. Which leads me to the question, are proprietary CRM systems right for everyone or have we all been a little sucked in by the hype?

A little bit of Googling returned some interesting stats to help answer the point raised.

1. In 2003, a Gartner report estimated that more than $1 billion had been spent on software that wasn’t being used.
2. In a 2007 survey, four-fifths of senior executives reported that their biggest challenge is getting their staff to use the systems they’d installed
3. 43 percent of respondents said they use less than half the functionality of their existing system
4. 72 percent indicated they’d trade functionality for ease of use
5. 51 percent cited data synchronization as a major issue

Given the facts above and the anecdotal evidence gathered during the exhibition, the answer to my earlier question has to be no, proprietary CRM systems aren’t (necessarily) right for every business and on some level, we have believed the industry hype.

This leads me on to my second point and one which addresses the other main thing I heard during the show, “if only I could have a system which just does… (Insert wish list here)”

And of course the answer is yes, you can have a bespoke CRM system which exactly matches your requirements, without all of the unnecessary functionality that you’ll never need and will have to work around.

“Hmmm, not sure about bespoke” I hear you say. “Doesn’t that mean it’ll be expensive and developed in some weird programming language?” In a word - No. In the past, bespoke, has been something of a dirty word when used in conjunction with software development. However; in just about every other circumstance, bespoke conveys a message of made to measure, quality and a precise fit which is exactly what a bespoke CRM system provides.

With the web technology available today, bespoke CRM systems can be quickly developed and deployed to multiple concurrent users giving them precisely the functionality they need, often far more cost effectively than a proprietary CRM system.

So if you’re considering a new CRM system it’s a good idea to take a look at the bespoke route, you may find it fits a little better than the off the peg version.

What are the factors behind a good client/agency relationship?

What are the main elements that go to making a good, long term client/agency relationship? Tough question isn’t it? Cultural match, ROI, outstanding creativity, awards even perhaps… all have their place but sometimes it can be a little more intangible than that.

I was presenting to a prospective new client recently and was asked how long on average our clients had been with us. In our case it’s around 5 or 6 years which I think is pretty darn good for a CRM agency such as ourselves (we currently have clients that have been with us for as long as 15 years). But the question got me thinking, why do our clients remain so loyal to us and why have we been successful in developing their accounts? Well I’m not about to reveal our secrets or bore you to death with a diatribe on our approach to Account Management. What I will do though, is tell you what factors I believe make a good client/agency relationship and some of the things to look for if you are searching for a new partner.

Trust – The foundation upon which any good relationship is built and by far the most important factor in forming a long-term, mutually beneficial partnership. If there is no trust between a client and their marketing agency every project, idea, suggestion or piece of work will be second guessed or viewed with suspicion. A client has to believe and trust that their agency has their best interests (and those of their brand) at heart in order to produce the best results.

Cultural Match – Without exception, every business has a distinct identity, a culture and a work ethic. If the relationship is to be successful it’s important that the business finds an agency whose culture mirrors or complements their own. That’s not to say that there shouldn’t be differences as often the best work or campaign can be produced when ideas and the established status quo are challenged by both parties.

Personalities – Never underestimate the importance of matching account management staff with the client, if the two get on both on a professional and personal level then the relationship will undoubtedly flourish. Get it wrong and the exact opposite will happen, trust won’t be established and creativity will be stifled.

Honesty – We all get things wrong from time to time but if your agency is honest enough to own up to mistakes and they go the extra mile to put them right, then that can only be a good thing. Honesty is also important when it comes to communication and feedback which leads me to my next point…

Communication – Open and honest communication, particularly feedback is essential in the client/agency relationship. As a CRM agency, feedback whether positive or constructive (no one likes negative!) is invaluable if we are to continue to innovate and drive the client’s communication strategy forward. We do our upmost to ensure that the key stakeholders on any project are talking all the time and that any little ripples are ironed out along the way.

Value for Money – A topic that can be highly subjective to say the least! An agency and their client may well disagree on what constitutes value for money but what can’t be disputed is the more accurate measurement of Return on Investment (ROI). As an agency, ROI is all important and if we’re to retain our clients then we must be able to accurately measure and demonstrate ROI. That is why each programme we implement has metrics built in whether it’s establishing control groups to measure the impact of an eCRM campaign or KPIs for contact centre performance.

And finally…

Shared Objectives – We’re all in business to make money (well most of us are anyway). If we’re honest about this and don’t try to screw every little last piece of discount or margin from each and every deal then the trust and relationship that we worked so hard to establish won’t be affected. By all means challenge your agency to justify their charges (and hopefully they’ll be honest about them) but don’t be surprised if the quality of work begins to slide if you’ve beaten them down to a rock-bottom price. Likewise from an agency perspective, if a client gets even the slightest whiff that they’re being taken for a ride, they won’t be a client for much longer.

In Summary

So there we have it, what I believe to be seven important elements that go together in making the foundation of a solid client agency relationship. Clearly the list is not exhaustive and there are many other less fundamental factors which cumulatively can have a dramatic effect. But what do you think - are there any other major factors I have missed, would you like to challenge any of the statements I have made? All feedback (well most!) will be gratefully received.

More channels than ever, but have we forgotten how to talk to our customers?

I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that technology is taking over my life.

Until recently I was just another happy go lucky guy, ignorant to the likes of Twitter, iPhones, Kindle’s, streaming media, HD TV and all the other multitude of “must have” gadgets (a phrase which I despise by the way… the “must have” part somehow insinuates that our lives are not complete without these things!).

Then I turned the corner and life hasn’t been the same since.

I’ve had a Facebook account for sometime but I decided to see what all the fuss was about with Twitter. All of a sudden I’m immersed in a world of tweets, access to a whole new universe of exciting information, a new way of communicating with like minded people – people I’ve never met with interesting ideas and comments on the industry I work in as well as life in general.

Next came the iPhone. And oh my God the apps… the wonderful, life enhancing, “must have” apps (they really are in this case). This opened up a new way to stay up to date with my email, my Twitter account, Facebook, text messages, world news, sporting events, to measure my exercise, to find my way, etc. etc. etc…

This then led to streaming media and content to my TV. Normal TV is boring. Sky+ has allowed me to watch the programmes I like when I want to watch them but that’s not enough; I want online content as well. A spot of online shopping and a few pounds later (don’t tell the girlfriend) and now I can get my favourite extreme sports’ videos streamed to my TV, not just on my PC.

There are of course a number of consequences to all of this media buzzing around my life. I suddenly have accounts all over the place, things I need to check just in case I’ve been sent a message or someone has posted a life changing piece of information, a tweet that I need to share with the rest of my followers, an event being organised on Facebook by an old acquaintance. And this takes time, but time well spent I reassure myself. After all, the direct message sent to me on Twitter could be from a prospect I’ve been following with a question about our services.

And that’s what I mean by technology taking over my life. Back in the good old days, if you wanted to talk to someone or share an idea, you called them or sent an email. Now we have a plethora of channels through which to share our ideas, suggestions, offers and to promote our services. An ever-growing cornucopia of ways in which to connect to the world and absorb information.

This presents a challenge for marketeers like me and businesses in general. Through which medium and what channel do you communicate with your customers and prospects? An integrated campaign now needs to be truly integrated and that goes for the response channels as well.

There are ways to identify the channel preference of your customers – simply asking them is always a good place to start. But your data will tell a story too, different customer profiles will interact with your business in different ways, they’ll respond to different campaigns and calls to action and if you can analyse this, you’ll begin to build a picture of what your customers’ preferences are.

We use one word to describe this concept: Relevance. Put simply, every campaign should take into consideration relevance of channel, relevance of timing and relevance of content to the recipient. You know so much about your customers from the data you hold; when they buy, what they buy (and have bought previously) how they pay for it, and to what communications they respond - so why not use it?

Bringing this information and the three ‘relevancies’ into a communication programme, whether it’s an outbound campaign or an inbound response channel will have a dramatic effect and improve relationships with your customers.

So what are you waiting for… stop Tweeting, step away from the iPhone and discover how your customers really want to talk to you.

Can your data and Customer Insight help you avoid the credit crunch?

There’s no doubt about it, it’s tough for most UK businesses at the moment, we’re in the middle of an economic downturn and consumers are becoming increasingly cautious with their money. But do businesses already have the means to help them avoid the worst of what may become a full blown recession without knowing it?

So what am I referring to? (And no it’s not Mervyn King’s mobile number!) Well in a word… data, and more specifically, consumer and transactional data.

Most businesses have a huge amount of information at their finger tips. Every time a customer buys your products or services you collect information on them, whether it is their contact information, details of the products or services they have bought, when they bought them or the communications they have responded to. All this information can be collated into a marketing database and through the use of Customer Insight, really help you to understand your customer’s behaviour.

“So what” I hear you say, “how is knowing what my customers buy going to help me avoid tough times ahead?” Well it all comes down to relevance, by using Customer Insight to help you market relevant products through relevant communication channels to people who are statistically likely to buy them, you can seriously increase the level of responses to your marketing campaigns and remove the reliance on above the line marketing. All this equals less expense and more return from your marketing budget.

So before you begin to worry about your customers spending less and going to the competition look at the one thing already in your possession and make your data work for you.

I’d like to hear you thoughts on the topic I’ve discussed. Is Customer Insight helping you during the credit crunch?

Exhibitions and making your data work for you

The aim of this blog is to try to give some advice and help people avoid one of the biggest errors made while taking part in events or exhibitions. Based on my previous experiences, I hope to give you some pointers which will enable you to make the most of any future events.

Exhibitors spend a huge amount of money on stands for exhibitions to make sure they look state of the art; they make sure they have their best sales personnel present to establish and build new customer relationships, and finally they make sure they gather as much data as possible on prospects. However, all of this time and money can be wasted if you do not act on a few key points!

The key objective for exhibitors when venturing in to any event should be to gain a deeper customer insight, generate leads that can be turned into monetary value, and increase their company’s profit.

Exhibitors normally gauge how successful a show has been by the amount of data and leads they collect. All this is extremely valuable, but unless this data is used quickly and accurately, it could be a waste of time collecting it in the first place.

Making better use of the data you worked so keenly to collect can be the hardest part about taking part in a show. It’s sometimes difficult to find the time or resources within your company to do simple things such as data capture the information from an exhibition into your sales and marketing database when you get back to the office. However, what people often do not realise is within that data can be the key to your future success.

Information that can be extracted from data and information captured can offer customer insight that will open your client base in so many ways. Handled by the right people, it can be of significant benefit to your company, placing you leagues ahead of any competitors.

By enhancing this data you can build relevant propositions, it can affect future decision making, you can cross sell, track the behaviour of your clients and know when they are more likely to place orders with you.

What you do at the show does not have to change, you know what you are selling, you are the expert in that, what needs to change is what you do after, so let an expert get the most out of the hard work you put in.

At the show make sure you are asking for the correct information from your prospects so you can make the most of your data. If in doubt ask an expert for some advice on the data to be captured and how to go about it, it can make the process a lot less painful in the long run and remove the need for manual data capture.

You have spent a lot of money on the show so you need to get the best return on your investment; by allocating a small amount of your budget to outsource your data management really will bring you the return you deserve.

If you have any event advice or tips please post them for us all to learn from.

Project Management – The Language Barrier

Would you go to a foreign country without learning a bit of the language or understanding the culture? No probably not, or if you did, then you would be at risk from looking slightly ignorant or embarrassed every time you tried to order a drink! Project Management can work in the same way and it’s essential to understand the language that’s spoken by those that you’re working with both within your own organisation and perhaps more importantly, with the client.

This doesn’t of course mean that for a Project Manager to speak to a Customer Insight colleague they need to have detailed knowledge of how to build a propensity model, understand neural networks or determine the most appropriate regression model. But, it does help if they can have dialogue which the ‘analysts’ are comfortable with and translates well to the client. If language and terminology is used that the Project Manager doesn’t understand, they shouldn’t dismiss it as a foreign language, they should attempt to talk ‘pigeon analytics’ until a common ground is found. I’m sure you’ve all been on holiday trying to order that dish from the menu that you have no idea what it is, but with a bit of patience from you and the native waiter, you work it out together.

Once the language is established and understood, the Project Manager can then be clear when detailing the clients’ requirements. It is essential that these are understood and consensus is reached to be confident that project efficiency is maximised. When managing a Print and Fulfilment campaign, it’s essential that the correct inserts go with the correct personalised letter – it matters to that individual what is received. Or another analogy would be to go back to the international dish, if you don’t understand what that foreign ingredient is – then on your taste buds be it!

Should any problems arise through the course of a project, the Project Manager is responsible for working the challenge through with the person who will essentially resolve it whether that is the client or internal colleagues. This will have a positive impact as the solution will support the overall project objectives and also enhance understanding. When managing a Database Marketing project, decisions and choices can be vast and the wrong one made through miscommunication could have a big impact of the overall deliverables.

As our core business is Customer Relationship Management, the skills required to work efficiently and effectively with clients and colleagues alike are ingrained in all our Project Management staff. A Project Manager needs to have skills to perform a range of duties from sales, to accountancy, to business analysis and even diplomacy as well as a firm understanding of the importance of when in a service department, do as that service department does!

How much do you REALLY know about your customers?

How much do you REALLY know about your customers?

I recently met a new client who told me that he knows very little about his customers or the reasons they buy one product in preference to another. As shocking as this might sound, I’m almost certain he’s not alone. A great number of businesses we speak to can tell you all about their sales figures, about their average order values or about the number of new customers they have acquired. But when it comes to actually knowing what a customer thinks of them or perhaps more importantly, the business’ perception of themselves compared to that of their customers, then very few have a clear understanding of what makes their customers tick.

Perception mapping

In our experience, a simple solution to this problem can be to conduct a questionnaire to both internal stakeholders and a business’ customers and then analysing the results using perception mapping. Perception mapping uses survey data to provide a visual representation of the perceptions of diverse segments, in particular, highlighting key differences. It is particularly useful when analysing the differences in perceptions from a company and customer point of view in areas such as service levels and product quality. Perception mapping can help prove or disprove the perceptions or assumptions of a business and identify gaps in the service or product offering.

Are customer survey’s a little “old hat”?

People may argue however, that customer surveys are a little “old hat” or that they struggle to get significant enough responses to allow accurate analysis. Again in our experience, if the right questions are asked in a non-intrusive way, using the most appropriate medium and to the right customers (and by that I mean ones who have an existing relationship with the business), then response rates can be surprising. We have seen response rates from online customer surveys as high as 75% and that’s without offering an incentive to respond. Clearly it helps to have a very receptive and loyal customer base in order to see response rates that high but other surveys we have run on behalf of clients regularly get response rates in excess of 25% which gives more than enough accurate data to perform detailed analysis… providing enough questionnaires were sent in the first place obviously!

Questionnaires…a great way of getting customer insight

Questionnaires are also a great tool for cleansing or filling gaps in your customer profile information… without customers feeling as though they are being interrogated by the Spanish Inquisition. Any analyst will tell you that having information like date of birth, occupation or postcode in customer data is invaluable when it comes to accurate profiling and segmentation or building customer insight initiatives such as propensity models. By clearly stating the purpose of the questionnaire (i.e. to improve customer service or help with product development) and asking carefully planned, relevant questions, detailed information on customers can be built-up and incorporated into database profiles.

…And to conclude

So in summary, here are a few points to remember and some advice about the successful use of customer questionnaires and surveys:

• Planning – think about why you want to perform a survey in the first place. Is it to address a specific business objective, to prove or disprove a theory or to gather valuable profiling data?

• Relevance – Make sure the questions reflect the information you want to gather and that they are relevant to the customers purchase behaviour… there is no point in asking a question if no action can result from its answer!

• Objectivity – Try and make your surveys and questionnaire as objective as possible, after all you want your customers to be honest in their responses even if the results make for difficult reading.

• Channel – If all your customer interactions are conducted online or via email, then it’s a good idea (if not an obvious one!) to conduct a survey via the same channels. Online surveys give the added benefit of direction integration into marketing database systems without the need to data capture the results.

• Format – Complicated questions in a poorly designed format will only serve to dissuade customers from responding. Equally, complicated questionnaires with lots of free text will make data

• Analysis – Most companies would say that they analyse the results of the surveys they have conducted but in our experience, very few actually get the most from the data they capture. Using a specialist data analyst or customer insight company can really help unlock intelligence in data and help you get the most from a customer survey.

But what do you think? What response rates have you seen and how successful have your surveys been?

Database Marketing – Five Top Tips

Most marketing professionals understand the reasons for collecting good customer and prospect data and most also understand (in theory at least) what to do with that data.

However, one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the number of businesses that don’t get the best from their data. So for that reason, below are some basic tips for using and getting a return from what has the potential to be a huge asset – your database.

Keep it clean – There’s no point in collecting huge quantities of customer and prospect data if it isn’t regularly cleansed and updated. With customers moving around frequently and more and more people subscribing to TPS and MPS, you need to give your campaigns a fighting chance of success by starting with a clean and up-to-date database.

Unlock the intelligence – Most customer databases have a story to tell and can offer so much more than just a mailing list. Modern customer insight and data mining techniques can add real value and help drastically improve the success of marketing campaigns by targeting customers that are statistically more likely to buy your products.

Make it relevant – How many people have received marketing messages from a company that they have an existing relationship with but which are completely irrelevant to them? If you have transaction and sales information in your database (or you can prise it from your Accounts Dept.) then you’ll know what your customers buy, when they buy it and how likely they are to buy related products… Why not use this information to make your campaigns 100% relevant to your audience?

One size doesn’t fit all – If your message is relevant and timely then your campaign should succeed - right? Wrong! Make sure you give consideration to the communication medium, not all of your customers and prospects will respond (or welcome) traditional DM no matter how relevant the message. Today’s marketing professionals have a wide range of channels available to them from email, SMS and DRTV or even good, old fashioned, telemarketing. Trial and measure your campaigns across different mediums before rolling them out completely - different customer/prospect profiles will respond to different channels.

Learn from experience – So your data is clean, your message is relevant and the communication channels have been chosen, the campaign goes live and the results are encouraging, happy days! Well of course that’s good but the results of even the most successful campaign can tell a valuable story and inform your next campaign. One thing we always advocate is analysing the results of a campaign to understand factors such as which channel brought back the best response rate, what the profile(s) of the responders were and the time lag from message delivery to response. These factors (and more) will all help your next campaign to become even more focussed and help target the customers/prospects most likely to respond.

If you pay attention to this advice and ensure that your database continues to evolve and grow, then your marketing campaigns will have every chance of success. But we’re keen to hear your feedback and experience, what database marketing techniques have proved most successful for you?

Customer Churn – Not just Your loss, but Your Competitor’s Gain

Very few businesses can claim to achieve 100% customer satisfaction and 100% customer retention despite the fact that these - theoretically – would be the goals for any self respecting business. Given that you lose customers, the issue is how easily you can identify the real value of a lost customer. In these days where word of mouth marketing and social networking become more and more prevalent – does losing one customer result in a knock on effect? Could your ‘accepted’ customer attrition be hurting you more than ever before?

These questions may be difficult, if not impossible to answer. They’re the classic Economist’s Opportunity Costs. They are challenging marketing personnel the world over. However, there is a simple solution – real customer insight can enable you to pre-empt customer churn. If you had a means to identify that customers were about to defect, then you would take appropriate action to retain them. As we are always told – it is less expensive to keep a customer than it is to find a new one. So who has this magical crystal ball?

Many analysts assess customer profitability and make assumptions and calculations on ‘life time value’ – however, these become worthless if you lose the customer! You can’t implement your customer relationship management if you haven’t the customer to relate to anymore!

Remember, if your customer stops buying from you that’s bad enough, but what makes it worse is they are probably buying from your competitor. That’s lose-lose for you in anybody’s eyes.

Cutting Edge – Phone Rage (Channel Four, 6th March 2008)

So Channel Four has uncovered deep customer dissatisfaction with call or contact centres; with outsourcing overseas; on-hold music; voice managers – press one for; and the like…

How did the programme inform – is it representative of the call centre industry or just of EVERY company that has a telephone help desk, enquiry line, complaints’ department, etc., etc.?

What the programme failed to address is why many of these ‘departments’ have to exist in the first place. If companies took advantage of the vast amount of information being provided by their customers, when they bother to call, they could easily overcome many of the issues raised. A highly experienced colleague once continuously asserted in training, "that a complaint is a positive buying signal" – and whilst at the time it always seemed bizarre – over the years it is clear she was absolutely right.

Why do companies fail to engage with their customer facing staff – whether in-house or outsourced - and use the information that is provided daily to enhance and improve their product and service offering?

What became clear is that people are principally calling because of a process failure – they were less concerned with where the call was answered but more with how quickly their problem was resolved. Was it resolved without multiple call transfers, did they have to re-explain the issue, were staff empowered to make decisions?

For many businesses the focuses of their call centre – in-house or outsourced – are call length and cost; they are still rarely about customer and service insight; about relationship development and sales opportunities (even when things go wrong!) and that, for me, is where the programme missed its Cutting Edge opportunity.

Customer Service is king in the land of increasing product choice

What’s the definition of good customer service? We can all give examples of where we’ve experienced that warm, fuzzy feeling from being treated as a valued customer and perhaps even more examples of where we’ve been left feeling decidedly turned off after yet another interaction with an obnoxious customer services agent. But have you ever stopped to think about the quality of the product or service in each case… Good service relating to a mediocre product or worse, dreadful service relating to a supposedly excellent product?

Customer service; the good and the bad

Case in point – I recently went for a meal at my favourite local restaurant which is usually excellent for both food and service but on this particular occasion something wasn’t quite as normal. From the moment we stepped into the restaurant things got off on the wrong foot, we couldn’t have our usual favourite table and instead were stuck in the middle with waiting staff brushing past every thirty seconds. “Fair enough” I thought, “they’re busy and I can’t always have my own way” but then we had to wait ages for them to take our order after being seated which is never a good start!

When the food did arrive, the waitress seemed more interested in what was going on behind the bar than serving us and the meal didn’t seem to be quite as tasty as usual. Now whether that was because it genuinely wasn’t up to the chef’s usual high standards or because my taste buds had somehow been affected by the below average customer service, I’m not too sure, either way, that warm, fuzzy feeling was strangely absent. Again, when it came to paying the bill, what I would normally think is quite a reasonable amount for dinner and wine at what is after all, a supposedly upmarket restaurant seemed rather on the expensive side.

Fast forward to the weekend and my partner and I decide on the spur of the minute to visit the new Indian restaurant close to where we live. I was a little sceptical about being able to reserve a table at such short notice but was pleasantly surprised when the Restaurant Manager said it wouldn’t be a problem, (box number one firmly ticked in the “excellent customer service” category).

We duly arrived on-time for our meal and we were greeted by the warmest welcome I’ve ever had whilst being ushered to a discrete table that’s perfect for people watching (my partner’s favourite pastime!). After a bit of friendly banter with our waiter, we ordered our food which then arrived a short while later and I tucked into my favourite King Prawn Bhuna which definitely tasted better than I was expecting. More smiles and chatting with the waiter, an offer of complimentary drinks and it’s time to pay the bill. “Very reasonable” I thought this time (to be honest, it was perhaps a little towards the top end of the scale for an Indian meal for two) but I gladly paid and left a generous tip too… “We’ll definitely be going back there again”, my partner and I both agree.

….And the point being?

Now you might be wondering what I’m ranting on about (or thinking this person eats out too much) but what these experiences highlight for me is how a few small things can make a massive difference to how a customer perceives your product. It’s not a difficult correlation to make; excellent customer service can seriously enhance your product’s positioning in the marketplace and increase your brand value too. Likewise, poor customer service can do a huge amount of damage to your brand, costing you customer loyalty and affecting your market share (not to mention the bill your PR agency will charge for fixing the problem).

So my advice is this, you may have the best product in the world or you may be competing with fifty other suppliers in a highly competitive market place but in order to gain the competitive edge and increase customer loyalty, you need to get your customer service function spot on. This can be done by either:

a) Outsourcing your customer services to an industry expert such as an experienced contact centre, therefore allowing you to concentrate solely on what you do best, producing exceptional products, or by:

b) Employing experienced staff, maintaining high standards through continual training and immediately dealing with any issues that arise.

Whichever route you decide on, treating your customers as valued individuals will always ensure they have that warm, fuzzy feeling and stop you losing them to the competition.

We’d really like to hear your thoughts, should customer service be king?