Tag Archives: business

March 18, 2013 · 10:02 am

Social Is As Social Does

Let’s start the week with a little food for thought.  I came across a great report from the Altimeter Group concerning how businesses evolve around social.  The report makes a distinction between companies implementing a social media strategy and those that are building a social business.  It’s really an eye-opener, especially the finding that just 34% say there are clear metrics used throughout the organization that associate social activities with business outcomes.  Then again, given how too many businesses are always chasing the next shiny object without considering how or if it works for their enterprise, maybe it isn’t.

Here is how they made the distinction between social strategy ad social business:

A social media strategy lays out the channels, platforms, and tactics to support publishing, listening, and engagement. A social business strategy is the integration of social technologies and processes into business values, processes, and practices to build relationships and spark conversations inside and outside the organization, creating value and optimizing impact for customers and the business alike. The most important criteria for a successful social business strategy are twofold: clear alignment with the strategic business goals of an organization AND organizational alignment and support that enables execution of that strategy. However, in a survey conducted by Altimeter of social strategists and executives, only 34% felt that their social strategy was connected to business outcomes.

Yes, I said that last point a second time – I think it’s that important!  It gets to the first of the success factors of a successful social business strategy:

The biggest cause of social strategy failure was the lack of alignment around business objectives. Businesses that uncover the gap between business objectives, social media strategies, and internal challenges and opportunities will open dialogue that both closes the gaps and creates alignment in the process.

The report goes on to list six others:  Having a Long-term vision for becoming a social business, key executive support, having a roadmap in place for all your initiatives along with a timeline, process discipline and ongoing education, staffing properly, and choosing technology only after strategy is set.  Each one of those points would make a fine topic for a longer post but it’s a pretty good checklist from which to work.

I encourage you to read the report a couple of times and let me know what you think.

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March 14, 2013 · 9:28 am

No More Megaphones

We’re discussed customer-centric marketing a lot here on the screed over the years. This morning there’s a piece of research out that reinforces many of the points we’ve brought up in those discussions. The good folks at MyBuys have released a study which is…

primary research across more than 1,100 consumers that examined how personalized marketing across channels impacts shopper attitudes and buying behavior. Survey results reveal that customer-centric marketing—the ability for retailers to engage consumers in one-to-one conversations across the customer life cycle and all touch points—increases buyer readiness, engagement and sales activity, with a record 40% of respondents now stating that they buy more from retailers who comprehensively personalize the shopping experience across channels.

What I like about this is the recognition that purchasing is a process.  People have to be ready before they’re going to ring the cash register and part of the marketing process (a big part as it turns out) is fostering that readiness.  In fact, one thing the study show is that it can detrimental (at the very least to your conversion rates) if you get people to your website in an attempt to buy before they’re ready. When people leave websites without purchasing it is most often because they were “still in the research process” (44%).  So much for the “hard sell.”  It speaks to the notion of an ongoing conversation as well as to the abandonment of a “one size fits all” marketing plan.  More complicated?  For sure.  Better payoff?  You tell me:

When customer-centric marketing is implemented across channels, retailers typically realize a full 100% increase in purchase frequency, a 50% increase in average order value and a 25% increase in conversion of cart abandoners to buyers. These and other improvements stemming from customer-centric marketing equate to delivering a 25% increase in total online sales and a 300% improvement in customer lifetime value.

So how does one go about this?  Well,  “readiness” requires finding the right product (67%) at the right price (55%). In addition, personalized promotional emails (57%) and personalized online advertising (35%) were shown to be the top vehicles to prompt consumers to purchase.  Not surprisingly, Amazon was the site to which people turned after quitting other sites while shopping.  Amazon is textbook customer-centric marketing.  My experience on the site and yours will be totally different, as will the marketing materials we receive.  Any wonder they’re the biggest?

Throw away your marketing megaphones – they might be doing more harm than good.  I suspect this behavior is going on offline as well but that’s another post.  Does that make sense?  Does the research?

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March 13, 2013 · 9:01 am

Wet Newspapers

Here are a couple of quick examples of how two companies address the same customer happiness issue with two differing degrees of success. You’ll notice I say customer happiness rather than customer service. That’s because more often than not the service defines the happiness or lack thereof.

It rains here from time to time. As I’ve mentioned previously, we have a couple of newspapers delivered here at Rancho Deluxe each day. Rain and newspapers are fundamentally incompatible – just try to read one that’s been left out in the rain unprotected.  Every once in a while, the delivery person doesn’t get the newspaper wrapped up too well and it’s wet.  Not a big deal.

We’ve had a wet week and so each of the two newspapers – The NY Times and USA Today – has shown up wet.  What happened next is the subject today.  In the case of the Times, I went on their website where the link into account service is very clear and let them know we received a wet paper.  I was given the option to get a credit or to have another paper delivered – potentially that same day.  Three clicks and all done.  The paper did show up followed by a telephone call from a human – not a robot – making sure I’d received it and the matter was resolved.  Wow.

Compare that with yesterday’s experience with USA Today.  First, they redesigned USA Today ‘s website and it is very pretty.  Unfortunately, they’ve let “pretty” get ahead of “useful” and it took several minutes to get past the pretty pictures and actually locate the link into my account.  At one point I hit the “subscribe” button (which is all the way down the page – I wonder how that link converts?) but I could do nothing on that page except subscribe.  Oh wait – there’s a “chat with us” link available.  Maybe they can help?

Nope.  I gave them my name and email and told them I was a current subscriber.  This was at 8:25 am.  The autorespond said their reps were unavailable until 8 am in the same time zone I was in.  Right – 25 minutes prior.  Fail.

I won’t bore you with the details of how I finally got to the right page but when I did I clicked on “wet paper”.  I was not given an option on how the issue would be resolved (I still don’t know).  I was told it would be resolved within “1-2 business days” which is what the follow-up email said.

Two big companies, two very different responses to the same problem.  With which company would you rather do business?  More importantly  which one is most like the way your business handles issues?

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