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« March 2008 | Home
| May 2008 » |
Companies are constantly looking for ways to grow their business by selling additional products to existing customers. In fact, some companies have begun using their inbound customer service call centers for this purpose by making product offers to customers when they call with a question or for service. But, are customers receptive to this approach and what are some keys to successfully selling during service calls into call centers?
In today’s show we talked about these issues and more with my guests Maddy Sheprow, Division Vice President of Strategic Solutions, and Rich Brose, Director of Research Consulting – both from Maritz.
Maritz recently conducted some research on this subject and talked with 1000 customers of financial services institutions. Of the people they talked with, 1/3 were offered a new product by the customer service rep. 75% of that one third agreed to listen to the offer. 25% were seriously interested in the offer adn 15% bought on the spot, and 40% wanted more info!
What does this mean to your company? Your customer service call center could be a gold mine for increasing revenue! And, just to prove the point, the Bank of New Zealand uses this approach and 35% of their total retail revenue comes from their customer service call center. That's inbound calls folks -- they're coming to you and you're making money off it. Sounds like a no-brainer.
Well, of course there are issues to contend with and the foremost one is to not treat this as something to be done to your customers. This has got to make sense for your company, your customers, and you have to focus on need and value, not just upselling and "adding fries to that order." In a nutshell, you have to ensure there is total alignment of the company's focus on customer experiences.
Tons more was discussed. If this sounds appealing, make sure you listen to the show.
-- David Kinard, PCM
How easy is it for people to talk about what you do as a company? Are you giving them reasons to do just this? Are you crafting customer conversations with your marketing or are you still trying to buy your way into their minds? Well, if you’re like most of today’s marketers, you're struggling to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing.
With me on today's show was Andy Sernovitz, author of the book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. He’s written what is being hailed as the most practical book on word of mouth marketing available and I have to agree.
"Traditional advertising is the price of being boring," says Sernovitz. After reading his book, and listening to his truely simple approach about how to make word of mouth (WOM) marketing really work, I think he's right.
It boils down to this -- First, WOM is about giving people a reason to talk about your product, service, company, whatever. That means you have to do something remarkable, be unique, be noticeable. People don't comment on the mundane, they talk about the unexpected and the meaningful. Second, it's about making it easy for people to have the conversation actually take place. Using the right tools to aide people in initiating that conversation (and Sernovitz lists gobs of great tools in his book) is paramount to spreading the good word.
Fantastic show and one that is only bested by his book. Listen, buy, and then go tell others. Yep, it's that simple.
-- David Kinard, PCM
Hey, I am really excited to announce that for this Wednesday's show we have Andy Sernovitz, author of the great book Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking. This is a call in show, so feel free to call in and ask Andy your own questions. You can reach us toll free at 877.474.3302.
As a reminder, the show airs live on Wednesday, April 23 at 9 a.m. PST. If you can't listen live, the archives will have the show ready for podcasting or download about 24 hours later.
Spread the word and let's see what kind of word-of-mouth we can generate for this week's show!
-- David Kinard, PCM
We all know that brands have the potential to be a powerful source of sustained competitive advantage. But we also know that changing consumer needs, emerging technologies and competition are making it more difficult than ever to create a brand that is meaningfully differentiated. In fact, when I asked a group of MBA students to describe a meaningfully different element of their brands, most could only come up with undifferentiated jargon – the same stuff you read in nearly every product brochure out there.
What is striking about the inability to differentiate is not it’s prevalence, but that we also know that undifferentiated brands are proven to underperform financially. This show addresses this issue.
With me on the show is brand differentiation guru Bob Kincaide of the Hazelton Group – they’re a strategic brand innovation company with a 20 year track record of delivering the goods. Bob is one of those scary-smart marketers who sees brands not for what they are, but for what they could be.
A few key elements from the show I think you'll appreciate:
Strategic branding focuses on positioning, unique experiences, and segmentation. It ensures that you offer a differentiated promise and have the capabilities to deliver on it. Tactical branding is the day-to-day stuff such as logos, image, colors, names, etc. According to Kincaide, marketers today spend about 5% on the strategic branding whereas he suggests we should be focusing more like 15% on it.
Segmentation is at the core of strategic branding. But rather than focusing on the typical elements of demographics, geographics, and even lifestyle variables, Kincaide suggests that needs-based segmentation works better. What is the attitude of the people toward your brand? They have a need for what? Their identity is based or wrapped up in what? Answer these questions and you're on your way to creating that experience that brands are supposed to deliver.
Bob also goes into the practical stuff -- even outlining a process you can start today. He refers to it as a mini audit...but you'll have to listent to the show to get that part.
Last thoughts...don't let strategic branding solely rest in the marketing department. This is a business issue and must be addressed by the owners of the unit, product, et. We're talking about the health and wealth of your business.
-- David Kinard, PCM
Any time this topic comes up, I get excited. Any chance to talk about the important work non profit marketers are doing adds fuel to that fire that burns in my belly. Not just about doing good, but learning to do it well --- ah the beautiful world of non profit marketing.
And we are going to talk about it from two perspectives: that of the AMA Foundation and even some insight from one of today’s leading nonprofit marketing gurus.
With me today is Tom Abrahamson. He is the Chairperson of the AMA Foundation, and in his day job he is the managing director and principal at Lipman Hearne, a national firm that focuses exclusively on the nonprofit sector. They’ve worked with international foundations, research universities, and cultural and medical institutions to small colleges, advocacy organizations, and community-based organizations.
"Nonprofits swim in the culture," says Tom in today's show. What an amazing metaphor for the work they do. But that work must be informed and skilled. The AMA Foundation is working hard to build those skills and have a number of initiatives underway to meet this goal.
1. Nonprofit marketing boot camps.
2. The national Nonprofit Marketing Conference -- July 14-16 in Washington DC
3. The national study on the state-of-nonprofits.
4. And about a gazillion educational resources available in online and offline channels.
What is clear from today's show is that nonprofits are facing the same challenges their for-profit counterparts are, and then a myriad of extras just becuase they're nonprofits. According to Tom, approximately 60,000 brand new 501c3 organizations start up each year. Passion and dedication are not going to be enough to make them effective and keep them running for the long haul. That's the job of the AMA Foundation -- to equip those leaders AND MARKETERS to step up to the challenges of today to capture the opportunities of tomorrow.
-- David Kinard, PCM
I am sure you’ve heard the marketing adage that says it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one. I’ve done some experimenting with the numbers, and from what I can see it’s true – anywhere from 5-15% cheaper. But although we may all agree with the statement, most of us don’t know the first thing on how to affect customer loyalty or even begin a conversation about it.
Today’s show fixes that. Today we’re going to focus on loyalty and not only why it is important to your competitive position in the marketplace, but also how you can measure it and use it to your advantage. Because, examining the loyalty structure of the market is a key competitive tool and becoming increasingly more important.
With me today to talk loyalty is a returning guest – one of my favorites – and the only one I know that can make loyalty research exciting and sexy. Aldy Keene is the president and CEO of The Loyalty Research Center. He’s consulted, taught at the university level, and worked with companies in nearly every industry helping them to transform customer loyalty into increased profits.
What is customer loyalty? Simply defined by my guest it is the strength of the relationship between two parties. Don't misunderstand this definition and mistake loyalty for specific outcomes of loyalty -- it is the sum of the parts.
Aldy used this example. Often people use tenure of a customer to indicate loyalty. However, how many people have been married for 25 years and they can't stand each other, but they stay together. High tenure is an outcome of loyalty, but by itself it doesn't indicate the "strength of relationship."
When creating a loyalty structure, we need to think in terms of how our business model is set up to provide high value and high uniqueness of that value to our customers. AND THEN find metrics that are easily communicated and highly discrimiate of key behaviors. These could be segmenting by loyal, neutral, and vulnerable, and then reporting margin, share of wallet, referrals, and even purchase probability. From what my guest reports, you'll find that your most profitable customers, and highest margins, are likely to be found in the loyal group.
What I find astounding is that we as companies continue benevolently ignore our loyal customers -- those with the highest margins -- and spend fortunes trying to buy the transaction of loyalty vulnerable customers. You can't buy love and strength of relationship -- you have to earn it.
This is a great show filled with powerful insights that will inspire and encourage your efforts.
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