Customer Strategy

Developing a business strategy tailored to customer segments

February 1, 2012

Customer insight specialist GI Insight hires industry veteran Barry Smith to drive new business

GI InsightGI Insight has appointed industry veteran Barry Smith as Senior Consultant to help the customer insight and loyalty marketing firm bring in new business and develop its relationship with these clients. Smith brings a range of experience in data services, having previously worked with Experian, Jaywing and, most recently, Transactis where, as Client Development Director, he worked with clients Shop Direct Group, Damart, Nationwide Building Society and Betfair.
Smith will work on building client relationships with companies across a range of sectors, as GI Insight aims to put in place a vigorous growth programme over the next few years. He has experience working with players in the retail, financial services, gaming and utilities sectors.
Andy Wood, GI Insight’s managing director, comments: “Barry brings with him a strong track record as commercial leader who has built some very powerful business partnerships. He brings to GI Insight a wealth of experience in sales, revenue generation, and customer relationship management. He is someone who can really help the companies we work with to identify the areas in which we can really assist them in boosting their business.”
Smith notes: “GI Insight’s great record of achievement as provider of productive customer loyalty programmes and customer insight makes this a very exciting opportunity. As a results-oriented sales leader, I strive to really get inside clients’ businesses, to enable them, through data and analytics, to improve their marketing effectiveness, increase retention through loyalty and repeat purchase, reduce operational costs, and monetise their digital channels.”

For further information please contact: Victoria Smith at victoria@lindsellmarketing.com or Hugh Filman at hugh@lindsellmarketing.com; or call 020 7402 0510

About GI Insight

GI Insight specialises in database marketing and loyalty schemes, having created and managed more retail loyalty programmes than anyone else in the UK. The Leicester-based company offers a full range of database marketing services including consultancy, database design/build/host, data capture, analysis, segmentation, profiling, campaign execution and measurement, available as a whole or on a 'pick and mix' basis. The analysis and interpretation of your sales and customer data enables you to influence customer behaviour. This knowledge helps you to reliably increase profitability by:

• Getting more new customers (acquisition)
• Getting existing customers to:
o Spend more often
o Spend more per transaction
• Reducing Customer Attrition (retention)

For more information, please visit www.gi-solutionsgroup.com

Payoff for Coordinating Customer Experience Management Enterprise-wide

Posted by Lynn Hunsaker on January 24, 2012

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Connect your customer experience management efforts across the company, and enjoy exponential benefits, according to the 2011 Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study.

Companies with managers (of their top five methods to achieve CEM goals) who meet together quarterly or more often for coordination purposes, or have dotted-line reporting to a single executive or committee tend to enjoy advantages* in the following areas:

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You don’t use Twitter to tell a friend “Your fly’s undone!”: Customer service & social media feedback

Posted by Micah Solomon on January 23, 2012

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One of the realities of social media feedback from customers is that it would feel more comfortable to not receive that feedback at all—the harsher stuff at least—in an open forum.

It’s undeniably nicer to have your customers voice their complaints to you directly and discreetly rather than hit the social media ‘‘airwaves’’ with them. So, one part of dealing with social media feedback from customers is to reduce the need for it by making sure your customers know, as directly as possible, how to reach you.

Think about it this way: If your friend saw you had your fly undone, would he tweet about it? No, he’d quietly tell you. [And if nobody tells you when you’re fly is undone, you clearly have no friends!]

Use the same principle to your advantage here. Why should customers address issues to you indirectly via Twitter or their blogs when they can use email, the phone, or a feedback form on your website and know that it will be answered—immediately and with empathy?

With their round-the-clock access to the social airwaves, make sure that the first impulse of customers is to reach you—day or night:

• Have ‘‘chime in’’ forms everywhere; this is akin to building escape valves for steam into your machinery.

• Where your FAQ’s fail to answer customer questions, be sure you offer a direct, immediate way to get a personal response by chat, telephone, or email.

• Don’t send out mass emails to customers from “please do not reply” addresses—your goal is to make it easy to reply.

Don't call us if .... 10 points of clarity of the Ideal customer

Posted by Dick Wooden on January 6, 2012

0 comments | 480 reads

Successful businesses know the importance of clearly identifying their ideal customer.

Successful business owners and sales professionals know that what you focus upon is what gets accomplished. Identify the demographic and psychographic characteristics of your target market and then go a step further and drill down into those characteristics of your "Ideal" client - the ones who value the products and services you offer, the ones your employees enjoy working with and the ones that help your business remain profitable.

One way to start is to identify those businesses and contacts who are NOT in your ideal profile.

December 20, 2011

Predictive Analytics World Toronto 2012 Conference Announces Speaker Line-Up

Toronto, Ontario – Predictive Analytics World, the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, today announced the speaker line-up for the April 25-26, 2012 Toronto Conference (www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/2012).

Predictive Analytics World (predictiveanalyticsworld.com.com) is the business-focused event for predictive analytics professionals, managers and commercial practitioners, covering today's commercial deployment of predictive analytics, across industries and across software vendors.

PAW Toronto promises to once again break records as the biggest cross-vendor predictive analytics event ever. PAW's program is packed with the top predictive analytics experts, practitioners, authors and business thought leaders, including keynote addresses from Edward Nazarko, Client Technical Advisor, IBM and PAW Program Chair Eric Siegel, plus special session from industry heavy-weight John Elder, CEO & Founder, Elder Research, Inc.

Case Studies: How the Leading Enterprises Do It

Predictive Analytics World focuses on concrete examples of deployed predictive analytics. You can hear from the horse's mouth precisely how Fortune 500 analytics competitors and other top practitioners deploy predictive modeling, and what kind of business impact it delivers.

PAW's Toronto 2012 program is one of the richest and most diverse yet, featuring over 25 sessions across 1 track: "All Audiences,” -- so you can witness how predictive analytics is applied by Adobe, Alberta Motor Association, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Crawford & Company, Galorath, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pfizer, Topsy Labs, U.S. Federal Government and true-to-life anecdotes based on miscellaneous enterprise successes, plus insights from projects for Anheuser-Busch, Disney, HSBC, Pfizer, U.S. Govt., and others.

HOT TOPICS AND ADVANCED METHODS: PAW SF’s agenda covers ensemble models, financial services, fraud detection, healthcare analytics, human resources analytics, insurance, social data, software development cost estimation, text analytics and uplift modeling, including other innovative applications that benefit organizations in new and creative ways.

WORKSHOPS: PAW also features several full-day pre- and post-conference workshops that complement the core conference program.

Join PAW and access the premier keynotes, sessions, workshops, exposition, expert panel, live demos during "Lab session," networking coffee breaks, reception, birds-of-a-feather lunches, brand-name enterprise leaders, and industry heavyweights in the business.

Cross-Industry Applications:

Predictive Analytics World is the only conference of its kind, delivering vendor-neutral sessions across verticals such as banking, financial services, e-commerce, education, government, healthcare, high technology, insurance, non-profits, publishing, social gaming, retail and telecommunications

And PAW covers the gamut of commercial applications of predictive analytics, including response modeling, customer retention with churn modeling, product recommendations, fraud detection, online marketing optimization, human resource decision-making, law enforcement, sales forecasting, and credit scoring.

Why bring together such a wide range of endeavors? No matter how you use predictive analytics, the story is the same: Predicatively scoring customers optimizes business performance. Predictive analytics initiatives across industries leverage the same core predictive modeling technology, share similar project overhead and data requirements, and face common process challenges and analytical hurdles.

Rave Reviews:

"I came to PAW because it provides case studies relevant to my industry. It has lived up to the expectation and I think it's the best analytics conference I've ever attended!"

Shaohua Zhang, Senior Data Mining Analyst
Rogers Telecommunications

"Hands down, best applied analytics conference I have ever attended. Great exposure to cutting-edge predictive techniques and I was able to turn around and apply some of those learnings to my work immediately. I've never been able to say that after any conference I've attended before!"

Jon Francis, Senior Statistician
T-Mobile

Read more: Articles and blog entries about PAW can be found at pawcon.com/pressroom.php

VENDORS. Meet the vendors and learn about their solutions, software and service. Discover the best predictive analytics vendors available to serve your needs - learn what they do and see how they compare

COLLEAGUES. Mingle, network and hang out with your best and brightest colleagues. Exchange experiences over lunch, coffee breaks and the conference reception connecting with those professionals who face the same challenges as you.

GET STARTED. If you're new to predictive analytics, kicking off a new initiative, or exploring new ways to position it at your organization, there's no better place to get your bearings than Predictive Analytics World. See what other companies are doing, witness vendor demos, participate in discussions with the experts, network with your colleagues and weigh your options!

For more information: predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/2012

Registration: http://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/toronto/register.php -- THREE WAYS TO SAVE:

1. Super Early Bird Registration by February 10, 2012 – Save up to $400.

2. Take $150 off the Early Bird or the Advance Two Day Pass registration fee with this posting's promotional discount code: CUS150.

3. Save an additional $200 for each additional attendee from the same company registered at the same time.

View the PAW overview video:
www.pawcon.com/newyork/2011/video_about_predictive_analytics_world.php

What is predictive analytics? See the Predictive Analytics Guide:
www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/guide

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www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/signup-us.php

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www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1005097

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For inquiries e-mail regsupport@risingmedia.com or call (717) 798-3495.

ALL ANALYTICS EVENTS:
PAW San Francisco: March 4-10, 2012 – www.pawcon.com/sanfrancisco
Text Analytics World SF: March 7, 2012 – www.tawcon.com/sanfrancisco/2012
PAW Toronto: April 25-26, 2012 – www.pawcon.com/toronto/2012/
PAW Chicago: June 25-26, 2012 - www.pawcon.com/chicago/2012/
PAW Germany - Nov 6-7, 2012 - www.pawcon.com
PAW London - Nov 27-28, 2012 - www.pawcon.com
PAW Videos: Available on-demand – www.pawcon.com/video

December 19, 2011

6 Success Factors Identified for Business-to-Business Customer Experience Excellence

The 2nd Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management (CEM) Benchmarking Study has identified six best practices for strong market performance and customer experience excellence:
• Coordination among managers of CEM methods.
• CEM as a determinant of corporate strategy.
• Presentation of survey results to all employees.
• Calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Action on survey results by owners of customer experience key drivers.
• Funding of cross-organizational collaboration.

These findings may be instrumental to the future of customer experience as the majority of companies have not yet implemented the above practices. Among the firms that are implementing most or all of these best practices, CEM-related business performance is much stronger and other CEM best practices are also more abundant.

Examples of business results attributed to customer experience management efforts include:

200% growth in profit over the past 4 years. (Chemicals)
200% increase in market share over the past 4 years. (Semiconductors)
20% improvement in revenue over the past year. (Telecommunications)
Over $100M in new and existing opportunities influenced in 2011. (Software)
New sales year over near have nearly tripled over the past 2 years. (Software)
Increase in revenue 10% year over year. (Medical Devices/Pharmaceuticals)
Double digit growth over the past 4 years. (Machinery)
15% reduction in churn over the past year. (Transportation/Logistics)

The most common methods in use to reach customer experience management goals are, respectively, customer touch-point improvements, customer surveys, first contact resolution of customer concerns, customer intelligence, and improvements to existing products.

Two-thirds of business-to-business (B2B) companies have realized a strong or moderate impact on the success of CEM efforts through employee engagement and employee empowerment to act in the best interest of customers. Employee engagement funding has increased over the past year for CEM efforts among at least a quarter of B2B firms in the areas of internal staffing, cross-organizational collaboration, training and conferences, process improvement, customer touch-points (including customer journey maps and customer life cycle management), and internal communications.

Similarly, a strong or moderate impact on the success of CEM is reported by two-thirds of study participants through the use of quality tools (such as six sigma, Pareto, etc.), executive sponsorship, and systems thinking (such as explicit recognition of connections and consequences across actions, processes, organizations, etc.). Customer engagement funding has increased over the past year for CEM efforts among at least a third of B2B firms in the areas of branding and campaigns, customer relationship management (CRM), customer data analysis, and customer surveys.

This annual study is the only global analysis of customer experience among business-to-business companies across all industries. It monitors the journey to world-class performance in how business-to-business firms (1) listen to customers, (2) view customers, (3) center employees on customers, and (4) center business on customers. It explores the motivations behind CEM and its linkages to corporate goals, strategy, culture, processes, and business success. Recommendations for stronger customer experience strategy, cross-organizational cooperation, and business results are provided in the study.

This study was sponsored by ClearAction and The Insight Advantage. The third annual B2B CEM study is scheduled for publication in mid-2012.

The Insight Advantage is a full-service research firm, providing a wide range of services (web surveys, focus groups, telephone interviews) to help companies implement customer research for ongoing insight into their customers' evolving needs and expectations. Jennifer Berkley Jackson, head of The Insight Advantage, is an extension faculty member of University of California - Santa Cruz.

ClearAction: is a customer experience consulting firm that helps organizations build enterprise-wide customer-focus and customer experience innovation. ClearAction's skills and pragmatic experience in customer satisfaction, quality, marketing, and organizational development catalyze value from customer feedback by applying it to daily decisions and processes company-wide. Lynn Hunsaker, head of ClearAction, is author of three ebooks: Innovating Superior Customer Experience, Metrics You Can Manage for Success, and Customer Experience Improvement Momentum.

Considering Cultural Differences in Customer Experience: Lessons from Indonesia

Posted by Zhecho Dobrev on December 17, 2011

0 comments | 1388 reads

Beyond Philosophy, a global customer experience consultancy, and Hachiko, an Indonesia-based customer loyalty consultancy, partnered to conduct a Net Promoter Score study among more than 2,700 respondents in Indonesia.

Respondents were first asked how likely they are to recommend each of the main competitors in a range of sectors. Next they were asked to rank the extent to which they feel certain emotions toward each of these companies. The results were then benchmarked against Beyond Philosophy's database of more than 25,000 interviews.

The results were interesting from both a local market and an international perspective. The most intriguing result came from our analysis of emotional profiles by industry sector. When broken out by sector, we saw far better numbers when comparing them to our Overall Business Index (an index of more than 25,000 interviews across a variety of sectors and countries).

For example, Figure 1 illustrates that if we compare Net Promoter Scores in the banking sector in Indonesia with our overall financial industry index, the positive emotions (the greens) are at the 7-8 point range for Indonesia vs 4-6 point range for the financial services index (the black line), while at the same time the negative emotions (the reds) are felt to a much lesser extent in the Indonesia banking sector compared to the financial services index (the black line).

Figure 1

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Four Innovation Insights Customers Provide

Posted by Hutch Carpenter on December 16, 2011

0 comments | 755 reads

Customers, properly, have been having a renaissance of sorts in terms of business thinking. Peter Drucker famously espoused a very customer-centric business philosophy. Nowadays, social CRM represents the return of a customer-first orientation. Last year, Altimeter published the 18 use cases of social CRM. Included in those use cases were several that relate to innovation.

Customers are a rich source of innovation insight, and the ultimate authority on what innovation is useful. So it’d be good to understand what types of insights they provide. OK, not just good. Vital. While the incorporation of customers in the innovation process is…honestly….still nascent, it will ultimately be the primary basis of innovation insight. It just will take some time.

It turns out, there is a structure to customer insight. Customers’ innovation insight takes several different forms:

Bank of America Nearly Destroys Their Business Model

Posted by Jim Muehlhausen on December 14, 2011

0 comments | 670 reads

Bank of America may have committed the #1 business model blunder of 2011 for their $5 debit card fee.

First, let’s get some background. Spoiled U.S. banks have become so addicted to high-profit fees that they seem to have forgotten the customer. The average bank earns over forty percent of its profit from fees. These include, swipe fees, account fees, loan fees, statement fees, overdraft fees, balance fees, and more. Prior to Wall Street reform, banks averaged $0.44 per debit card swipe. Banks are now capped at $0.24 per swipe. According to The Nilson Report, banks took in $48 billion from these fees before the reform. Assuming the banks did not get tricky and add peripheral fees, this still translates to $26 billion in swipe fees.

In the old days, the banks’ business model required them to:

Title	Date	Company	Type
Taming The Government Beast: ServiceOntario	2011-12-04	Bill Hogg & Associates	Case Study
The J. M. Smucker Company and Foreign Market Penetration	2011-11-23	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
Business Transformation: Porter’s Five Force Model or Telescopic Observations?	2011-11-14	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
The 99%ers/Occupiers are also Customers	2011-10-17	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
Relationship Marketing Theories Taxonomy: Marketing and Managing the Customer Relationship	2011-10-05	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Research Report
B2B email marketing workshop - best practices	2011-09-15	SalesFUSION	On-Demand Webcast
Four Basic Business Ethical Theories; Are You and Your Team Members Living Them and Should You?	2011-09-08	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
Leadership Operational Plan for Difficult Times	2011-08-10	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
Consumers Can Measure and Manage Energy Consumption:	2011-07-25	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study
Kraft Foods Inc. - Marketing and Managing the Customer Relationship	2011-06-20	Dr. Johnny D. Magwood	Case Study

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MarketPlace

Drive customer loyalty, empower support teams, and reduce costs. Get social.

[Feb 22] Guest speakers from Forrester Research, Allscripts, and CustomerThink will discuss market trends and research on social customer service strategies, as well as proven tactics from the trenches. Join the live webcast on Feb 22 at 10am Pacific (1pm EST).

Global Customer Experience Management (CEM) Certification Program

[March 13-14, Paris] An internationally recognized program with proven track record of success - being run for 33 times in 13 cities with attendees from 50 countries, the program is developed based on the U.S. patent-pending Branded CEM Method which aims to drive customer loyalty and brand differentiation with quantifiable business results. Limited offer: USD300 early bird discount.

10 Steps to a Single Customer View

Linking customer data across department databases and business units improves business intelligence, customer profiling, and customer management. This paper outlines 10 steps to improve the quality of customer contact data, including physical mail, email, and telephone information.