Lets assume your brand’s 200 LED panels sold today through different format stores and you don’t know half of the customers who bought it? Well, you have swalloing too may redpills and welcome to the real-world. There are quite a few ways to get the data in. Let us focus on one suggestion that, as a CE brand you should probably be able to espouse.

Lets focus on the brass tacks, one of them being demo / installation. Your business’ focus should be more intently on installation and demo aspect then the way you do business today – Incentivise more to source the right amount of customer information from the personal visit by you engineer.

Not all the buyers are encouraging you to visit them for an installation / demo? Well, like I said its the redpills. No sweat! You need to focus on some incentive (let’s call Easter eggs) for your unknown buyer as well, incentive for the engineer alone would render itself as a useless strategy after sometime of deployment.

Lets take an example, if it’s the Air conditioners that you have recently sold and want to know a few psychographic and demographic details about the customers, ensure you engineer doesn’t call and ONLY say ‘When can I come over a for Installation/Demo?’, if he/she does, mostly he will end up with an undesired response. Instead, consdider teasing the customer a bit – Something like, “having spent a bit on your appliance now and knowing there is a running cost associated with it, do you know how to optimize the energy consumption and thus the monthly / quarterly bill? I (the engineer) can comeover do a bit of your room-assessment and arrangement and could make some recommendation” – No, you are setting the ball to roll a bit, most probably your customer would (hopefully) perceive some ‘Value’ in your engineer’s visit.

People are generally creative, that includes your Demo/Installation Engineers too. Sadly, most of the times we do not get opportunities to demonstrate our abilities – So, ask your fleet of service / installation folk to give you suggestions that could be incorporated in your process – Get a poll done, deliberate the chosen ideas and get a few qualified ones incorporated as part of process to collect customer information, don’t forget to have a nice & sustaninable incentive strategy – Trust me, you will be surprised with the results.!

Though its been a couple of years of India waking up to the Customer Management and associated priorities in business management, my initial interactions with aforesaid folks, reemphasized upon the state of affairs being still nascent and yet to grow, the statement of Campaign Management as a priority item in the scheme of things its quite a good evidence on the industry’s nascent stage.

I respect their views, however it is in need to widen their horizon and look beyond the obvious as determined by basic conventional CRM wisdom.

As the figure above suggests, to maintain and uphold the objective called “keeping the house tidy” is subjected to a few players playing their designated roles.

Its never a one man’s job and importantly claiming a slick broom would do the trick is futile claim as it is currently suggested by some myopic customer management (Campaign Management) consultants.

To give you an idea on the role players in Customer Management, the charts starts with the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Finance Officer staying on top with CEO’ business objective alignment and product managers holding the second line. In addition, the analyst, campaign managers, segment managers and business and IT operational folks follow the suit – All these personas have a defined role that they must play in order to get the desired results.

The power of technology (or software application, if you will) to excel in their scheme of things should not only have campaign management but an entire set of applications and a orchestrating scheme to meet the business objectives .

The CEO/CMO and CFO needs to have a summarized and holistic picture of what is currently happening and how well its in alignment with the business strategy, they should be able to identify any discrepancies and deploy appropriate course measure to manage it effectively.

• IT specialist should be able to define policies on data management and securities related area and let this piece run in an auto-pilot mode, intervene and correct as appropriate.
• Basis the data sourced, the analyst should be able to identify product associations, customer affinity quotients by creating segments, perform analysis to identify potential cross/up-sell opportunities or proactively identify signs around customer management and keep these information consumable by management and operational business folks.
• The product management and the marketing teams should come together to ensure basis the gaps and additional revenue potential identified by analysts are acted upon.
• The product management team also should keep track of each activity where the customer is contacted through an outbound or inbound communication, if the performance is found to be unsatisfactory, make real-time course corrections hence increase the bar
• The Information Technology operational team should store the history of all the aforesaid activities for future references.

Now, as you can see the aspects mentioned above are to be used at various level of intensities (basis your business model) for effective customer management.

You may now agree, a one-size-does-not-fit-all and such one-sized approach may not be a very appropriate one in such scenarios involving various stakeholders.

Please exercise due caution when it comes to evaluating business software applications for customer management, ensure the solution that are being considered will (A) fit well in your environment and (B) covers the aspects mentioned above in one way or the other.

I am keen to know your views on this, please do leave a comment with your opinion or send me a message through the Contact page. Also, if you enjoyed reading this article and would like to be kept informed of any such new articles, you can subscribe below for an email notification.

However, the real question is, do you, as a marketer want to automate the entire process? You might ask, if it is a relevant question? Yes, it is!

Let me give an analogy in aviation industry. The role of technology in aviation space has increased so much; flying a passenger aircraft from Helsinki to Caracas is possible without having to have a Pilot on board. The engineers behind the scenes at Boeing, Air Bus, Embraer et al is well aware, the instinct of the Pilots on board is something that can, by no means be automated. And, this very instinct is one of the critical factors for sustenance of safe flights.

What can we understand from this analogy? Though, it is possible to automate the marketing, particularly campaign management function much as you want to, it is essential to keep the human touch intact in whatever way you can. Sooner or Later you will realize, this decision has paid-off handsomely in managing customers effectively, i.e. either in managing marketing costs or increasing the returns you get from various marketing programs.

Please do not fall prey to sales-talks from vendors who make automation process look like result of a magic wand swing, do exercise adequate caution before registering what is being told to you.

Three years ago I shared with readers a list of 50 ways to be more customer-focused and deliver a better experience.  I’ve decided to update the list and publish it again.  It’s a bit long so you might want to print it out and read it later.  Even better, check off those actions you and your team take on a regular basis.

Here are 50 Ways to Improve Your Customer’s Experience:

1. Open the door for your customer whenever possible.  This is especially important if her hands are full.

2. Don’t just hand your customer his product, “present” it to him.

3. Keep the store temperature at a setting that is comfortable for customers.  Most retailers set the thermostat at what’s comfortable for the employees.

4. Acknowledge your customer’s children.

5. Offer to gift-wrap purchases if you already know it is a gift.  Don’t wait for your customer to ask.

Read More..

However, when it comes to solutions that are designed to address marketing requirements, it’s essential to look at them through a high-caliber magnifying glass. Why? Technology is relatively a new entrant to the marketing world and thus the solutions that are available in the market are not really matured, except for a couple of them.

In the last decade or so, a whole lot of software players mushroomed creating software solution for marketing management area. Needless to say, a few of these players have indeed good point-solutions, but the limitation is, most of them are a bit myopic in their offering.

To illustrate this in an example, one of the Campaign Management vendors in the world, got rather a decent solution for Campaign Management function, however, it does not have anything around Campaign Management Function to make it effective – A plain vanilla campaign management solution is nothing but a glorified SQL black-box that abstracts the raw code to the user, nevertheless, does nothing more than what an SQL query is expected to deliver. Any enterprise that is considering to invest in a technology solution would want to know the ROI it can bring to the table over a period of time, a plain vanilla solution would sooner or later fail the ROI litmus test.

As an enterprise when it comes to investing in a Marketing Management Solution, please do exercise some caution. Data Management, Customer Analytics, Channel Integration and Marketing Reporting are a few of the core ingredients of marketing function. You might want to consider investing in point-solution if you have existing investments in these areas.

But… Even if you do have existing investments, ensure you do not have any licensing and hardware sizing limitations to use the existing Data Management and Reporting area for marketing management function. In my experience, in most of the cases there is always a challenge to address around these areas. So, I would think its wiser for enterprises that are considering investing into a Marketing Management solution to evaluate the solution basis its width and depth of offering and not get awed by a few screens that resembles the wand of Ron Weasley.

Some enterprises consider going for a full-fledged best-of-breed approach to address marketing management requirements. Sure. But do note the following few words when you consider offerings from multiple vendors – Integration, Security, Metadata Management, User Management, Upgrades, Updates, Scalability… These factors will spring up when you look at multiple solution integration and will make you grow old, real fast.

If you liked this article and want to know on how to look at a marketing management solution, I urge you to visit Transcentis to know more. I would really appreciate if you can either send your comment for this article or contact to let me know your views/feedback.

Yet another case to add 55% of failed CRM cases. As a result of the failure, he is prone not to recommend anything pertaining to Customer Management to his official and social peers in an open way. Well, what is the idea behind this post?

The gentleman in the aforesaid story must have been one of those who must have fallen prey for one of the Campaign Management vendors that would impressed him and his team on user friendliness and ease-of-use of their software application. As a result to their sales discussion, they have forced him to get convinced on their offering as the end-of-all solution all challenges pertaining to customer management – Result? Substantial failure and another company helped the soaring CRM failures.

It is important to hold back for a moment and think….. Think what?

Please! Please! Please! Do not see Customer Management as an area in isolation, but as a part of the overall organization’ fabric and importantly part of the enterprise’ culture.

And, it is essential to look at Customer Management in totality NOT as one omnipotent software application. Please ensure the data that are to be managed from Customer Management perspective can be handled by the solution you are evaluating, it includes cleansing (if applicable) as well. Ensure, the constraint/limitation you have on storage does not have impact the Customer Management initiative. Ensure, in addition to accessibility to data, you have statistical analytical capabilities to be able to derive meaning out of all possible you may have. Ensure a campaign management application that is functionally rich and truly usable. Ensure, anything pertaining to Customer Management can be thoroughly report to various individual as various levels in the enterprise.

If you are one of those thinking of Customer Management, please do drop in a line-here with your thoughts.

In a nutshell, the aforesaid Article unearths some interesting facts around IT and Business Strategy alignment basis a research done Bain & Co. As you must have read, Organizations that have gone ahead with an accelerated IT focus have been proven to be performing better than those who are waiting for the D-Day for IT and Business Alignment – These are the folks who keep thinking its a perfect world, I really hope the statistics shown in the article rings the alarm.

Though the facts presented are interesting and rings a wake-up call for Enterprises that are hell-bent on alignment, it is important NOT to forget about the flexibility of the IT organization.

The industry that I work on i.e., Enterprise Marketing Management, solutions that are less than a decade old in age pose a huge threat on the Flexibility - To cite an example, there are a few Solutions available in the market that addresses ONLY the Campaign Management aspect of Marketing Automation. Campaign Management Solution in real-sense should be able to take Customer/Marketing Related data by means of accessing disparate systems and via through Web Services(to ensure its future ready) and be able to provide the output to relevant Communication Channels for engaging in dialogues with Customers and pull each communication’ response back for Analysis and Business Intelligence.

What I have presented above is just a Plain-Vanilla Campaign Management Solution, not the one you want to consider if you are ROI/Top-Line and Bottom-Line focused. If you are, give the deserved Importance to the Analytics aspect of Campaign Management.

Though this equation looks quite Commonsensical, a few enterprises have gone ahead and invested in such Plain-Vanilla solution as the Look ‘N Feel of the solution blown the Naïve Business Users away – Investments that are essentially made around the “WOW” factor of the User Interface alone, these investments are neither fruitful on a Long-term basis nor Flexible to accommodate future requirements/other Organizational needs.

Acknowledge the fact too-much-of-analysis-will-lead-to-paralysis and wisely accelerate your IT organization by keeping flexibility aspect intact and the solutions that you are investing in ready for future requirements.

“Customers who shop multiple channels are worth seven times as much as customers who shop just one channel”.

“Customers who research items online and buy in-store spend $72 more during their in-store visit than other customers spend”.

“Customers who conduct a live chat session are three times as likely to convert to a purchase as customers who don’t conduct a live chat session”.

I am sure the marketing team has found camera sales is virtually nothing in the shop and has shut down the section, the remaining merchandises are going to find the new neighbours, hopefully by the direction they got from some business analytics.

Yes. As per one of the research outcomes, it’s not only the basket size, but also the shape that is going to change. I am sure you all remember the old line ‘Customers who buy hammer also pick up nails”. This line has rather got its well deserved importance and retailers are toying with an idea of ‘not-necessarily’ reorganizing the shelves but creating a honey-comb out of it.

Let me give you an example - In Scotland, the country that is known with its whiskeys – shopping analysis reveals, customers who buy premium whiskeys also buy chocolates with it. Basis this analysis, moving the chocolate counter from where it belongs to ale section is rather meaningless. But, instead why not create small pockets close to whiskey shelves where it can be kept?. Well, it was done and found to be quite effective.

Likewise, imagine a scenario where you find a book (casually) lying next to the diapers section on parenting. You guessed it right; it will raise the interest level and customer’s purchase propensity would increase. Remember, the book section/shelf has not moved but just a pocket was created in baby-care section.

Indian market is yet to pick up in organized retailing, the players have however started pulling up their socks and getting ready for the race. Particularly, Bharti’s recent partnership with the retail giant Wal*Mart is going to bring a sea change in how things are done in Indian Sub Continent. I hope ingenious retailers will hoist and keep the flag flying high by Aug-14, 2007.

As per the last interaction I had with the retailer, I am expecting a upgraded loyalty card as I have crossed the limit of the current one. Also, I might be receiving a co-branded credit card from one the large foreign banks in India. But both these items would fit in a normal envelope cover or may be a little bigger one and definitely not something that will fall under “Large” category.

Decided not to think too much about the delivery and waste my good evening with friends. Reached back home a bit late that usual and find a courier delivery to my amusement. A multicolor high-qulaity paper booklet full of irrelvant offers with discounts ranging from 0 to 60 per cent. Not even one merchandize made any sense to me.

Took the cover and dumped it straight into my trashcan and saved my reading table from carrying excess baggage.

Per unit cost of this marketing activity would cost in excess of 50 Rupees (including logistics) and was spent in such a useless fashion. Remember I am not the only one to receive it, a host of audience in 1000s would have received. And, even if you possible guess without your wildest imagination, the returns from activity will not even cover the cost for the campaign, I am saying this basis the way how various merchanidize were randomply plugged into the booklet.

I personally would not mind receiving a laser printout with a list of offers or best an E-Mail, provided they are relevant to me.

The monies that are wasted on sending wrong communication can be saved and effectively used in choosing what customers are looking for from their historical purchase patterns. Basis this information some amount of association analysis with other mechanize can be performed and offers can be made relevant to the customer receiving it.

Most of the marketing managers I have met have one question in common – How do we calculate the ROI on such automation investments. These managers should sit back and calculate how much monies that are being spent today are giving sufficient returns and realize the saved funds are part of the ROI as well.

Let me know if this post is worth a heed. If not, next time please send a disposable trashcan along with your mailer for me to dump all the offers.