Articles

How Voice of the Customer Got Its Groove Back

The voice of the customer was lost amid the 90's techno boom, but it is back. And it is back with a vengeance. A recent Phelon Group/MarketingProfs survey found that 80% of companies sponsor either formal or informal VOC activities.

Today, VOC is comprised of customer perception of your brand; customer satisfaction and loyalty; customer input on future needs, and customer word of mouth advocacy.  Organizations must tune in to all touch points to fully understand how customer's feel and think, how they act and what they say about your company and your competition.With ideas being exchanged at accelerated speed, a once-a-year business review or a one-time online loyalty survey will be long outdated before you see results. Promise Phelon, of Phelon Group, a customer leverage consulting firm, shares four key lessons in implementing VOC into your organization in How Voice of the Customer Got Its Groove Back.

Posted on July 23, 2006
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Marketing Challenge: When Customers Control the Message

Marketing is changing to better meet customer demands. Meryl K. Evans and Hank Stroll discuss today's marketing hot buttons in a recent article on MarketingProfs.com. Smart organizations include marketing as part of their business strategy and place marketing at the core of the company's planning and operations.

Marketers are working harder than ever before with technological advancements providing customers with the tools to get exactly what they want or need.  Consumers are demanding customized solutions. Marketers must now pull together a multitude of valuable information from various sources to understand the customer.

Read the entire article here

Posted on July 20, 2006
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How to Make the Community Your Marketing Partner

Today, customers are more empowered than ever. And they have the tools to exchange ideas, develop styles and create trends at an accelerating pace. And yes, they are talking about you.

“Consumers are more resistant to traditional forms of marketing than ever before. But if you can find new and exciting ways to reach your customers while giving value back to the community, your customers will not only listen to your message but also help you spread that message to other members of their community.”Mack Collier, in a recent Marketingprofs.com article, suggests to try something revolutionary - join your customers' communities and talk to them directly. Once you join consumers in their space, you can begin to understand their wants and needs. Most importantly, customers will begin to understand you.

Collier warns that your customers are using Web 2.0 tools to communicate and exchange ideas, so you will have to incorporate some of the tools in your marketing plan if you want to talk to them and you'll have to learn their language.
Monitor blogs to hear what bloggers are saying about your company
Start a blog to put a human face on your corporation...signal community you want to join them.
Check out MySpace, the 80-million member hot social-networking site of the moment.
Tap consumer-generated media sites. With Consumer-generated media (CGM) is gaining popularity, entire marketing campaigns are being created around CGM. A community of "advocates" can literally become marketing partners for your company.

Read the entire article here

Posted on July 16, 2006
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Discover Virtual Intimacy and Interaction

Theodora Stites is 24 years old, lives in New York and works in the market research industry. The NY Times published an adaptation from Theodora's essay “Someone to Watch Over Me (on a Google Map)" which examines how the twentysomething generation interacts with each other.

Theodora’s online network of contacts is linked to her cellphone – she is always available and is always searching for new online communities to join. Theodora states “I need to belong to all of them because each one enables me to connect to people with different levels of social intimacy.”The Internet has replaced human contact as we formerly know it. Theodora prefers "a world cloaked in virtual intimacy." By signing into instant messenger and various online communities, it allows her personal network know she is awake and she is ready to receive and send text messages.

Many of the people within Theodora's contact list live within close proximity, yet they never meet in person. "We have enough connection online for our degree of closeness and don't need to enhance our relationship by spending time together offline."

Read the entire article here

Posted on July 9, 2006
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Six Ps of Marketing?

In a recent article found on Marketingprofs.com, Stephen Drees, President of The Allegiant Group Inc. (formerly CEO of Quantum Loyalty Systems, Inc.), explains how consumers hold the reigns of the company/customer relationship as competition intensifies among an endless choice of products and providers.  Meanwhile customer loyalty declines.

Customer loyalty is long-term commitment with many companies seeking to transform customers into their “advocates”. Company’s that are successful building “advocate” relationships will achieve enormous promotional and economical benefits.Mr. Drees briefly discusses the different eras of marketing. The 20th century facilitated customer loyalty with local production and a hands-on, face-to-face approach with highly personal customer service. At the turn of the 21st century, large consumer product, service and retail companies no longer developed personal relationships with their customers. Today, technological advancement, product innovation, and sophisticated marketing and advertising have created a plethora of choice for consumers.

In the new customer-centric environment, Drees concludes companies must introduce two new "Ps" to the original four Ps of marketing: product, price, place, promotion, people and performance to create effective customer loyalty.

The fifth P, people, may be the most difficult, but it is the most important. Companies with the lowest employee turnover have the lowest customer turnover. Quality people within the organization become the reason why customers purchase your products when competitors offer similar products at a comparable price.

The sixth P is performance. Performance encompasses the total customer experience and how product, price, place, promotion and people combine in harmony is what matters most to consumers. For example, if customer service is poor, the product/service will not have met consumer expectations. "The first four Ps are critical to loyalty but individually, they are only parts of the puzzle. When the objective is loyalty and advocacy, this can only be achieved through performance as perceived and judged by the customer" says Drees.

To create a successful loyalty program, guidelines to understand the program primary mission must be clearly defined: What customer behavior is the company seeking and will the program engage and reward its best customers? A loyalty program with the best intentions will yield little long-term benefits without a clear understanding of the consumer profitability dynamics within an organization.

Consumers have become very savvy when assessing loyalty programs. Consumers will consider how little they have to do to benefit from the program and if they will receive rewards in a reasonable amount of time.

Successful loyalty programs include a balanced combination of 'hard' and 'soft' incentives by providing consumers' multiple reasons to engage your program and produce highly loyal advocates. Hard benefits such as cash prizes can be powerfully persuasive, but may be expensive to execute. Soft benefits appeal to consumers' emotions and tend to be more relational in nature. Member-only perks and levels of recognition based on longevity can foster loyalty with little or no additional cost.

Regardless of how successful a company manages the six Ps and its loyalty program, some consumers will drop out and stop buying your product. It is important to address customer defection openly and honestly. The answers are the backbone of an ongoing research and market intelligence feedback loop. Insight from defection feedback should be used to update and refine the way organizations engage customers in the future.

Without a doubt, loyalty does matter. Drees references a study that "proved conclusively that companies that can improve the retention of their best customers by as little as 5% can increase enterprise profitability by as much as 75%."

Suggested Reading:
Customer's Define Centricity on Their Terms

Posted on July 3, 2006
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