Tag Archives: Reality checks

June 16, 2015 · 10:27 am

Are We Getting Dumber?

Every day there are more articles written about the vast treasure trove of data marketers, publishers, and others gather from their interactions with customers.  Every mouse click, every social interaction, every store visit is another source of information that a business can use to make the

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customer experience more enjoyable and, hopefully, more profitable.  Nice ideal, but the reality is far from it, since most of the time the data is not collected, analyzed, and organized by capable people.  In fact, I’m willing to bet that the folks who could benefit most from all of this information know the least about it.

Here is something from eMarketer:

In a March 2015 study by Signal, 51% of marketers worldwide reported that they did not have a single view of customers/prospects across devices and touchpoints. In comparison, just 6% said their current solution provided an adequate single view of their customers. And Econsultancy polling in association with ResponseTap in March 2015 found that only 5% of client-side marketers worldwide had a seamless integration of customer touchpoints across channels that allowed for exploitation of opportunities. Just under a quarter had integrated channels but were channel-focused, not customer-focused.

That was about marketers’ understanding of mobile but there is much evidence that the same sort of low integration applies in other channels as well.  I mean think about your own experiences on-line and off.  I know my supermarket knows everything I buy because I’m diligent about using my card to get gas rewards – cents off gasoline purchases. That is a great value received – along with some good store discounts –  in return for me giving up my data.  That said, when I check in the scanner doesn’t acknowledge me by name nor are the coupons I sometimes receive at checkout very well targeted.  The mailings I get from the store – not the circulars – that’s asking a bit much – the coupon packs and email offers don’t seem very well targeted at all.  They have the data – they should be getting smarter and I should never want to go shop anywhere else – but nether of those things are true.

Every customer interaction counts.  We are getting a lot better about collecting them but we’ve got a long way to go to create a better experiences for our customers.  Media need to understand how to create that same better, efficient experience for their advertisers.  Heaping 15 minutes of ads into a 60 minute window isn’t it and the data can show us that.

So are we getting dumber?

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June 10, 2015 · 12:11 pm

I Can Hear You, I’m Just Ignoring You

This social media stuff isn’t exactly new anymore, right? I mean businesses have been immersed in it for at least 5 years and many for longer than that. So why do we keep screwing it up?

This crossed my screen earlier:

Thirty-three percent of consumers who contact brands on social media with a customer service question never get a response, according to a new study released today by management consulting firm The Northridge Group. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 respondents, the study finds that 26 percent of consumers choose social media for customer service when they can’t reach a representative through another channel. When companies do respond, more than 30 percent of their responses do not meet the customers’ expectations. In fact, social media has the lowest percentage of issue resolution and follow up of all the channels.

Seriously?  Well, maybe the data isn’t as disappointing as the headline:

The survey also found that just 3 percent of consumers cite social media as the fastest channel for issue resolution, and only 2 percent cite it as their preferred channel. Additional findings from the survey include:

  • Sixty-three percent of consumers have to engage with a brand two or more times on social media before a customer service inquiry or issue is resolved.
  • Forty-two percent of consumers expect resolution within one hour when using social media for customer service inquiry or issue.
  • Thirty-nine percent of consumers say that companies resolve their customer service issues or inquiries on social media within a week or longer.

Oh.  I know from lots of experience that businesses are spending precious marketing resources listening to what’s going on out there in an attempt to understand their customers’ needs.  Bravo!  But as with any activity, if we’re just going to ignore what our customers are telling us – especially when they’re telling it to us proactively – we might just as well spend the money elsewhere.

You can get the report here but don’t bother if you’re not going to use it to improve how you’re providing service via social media.  No one likes to be ignored, especially customers with a problem.  Maybe you should be digging into how many contacts have been initiated by customers?  Maybe you should keep score on how many have been addressed and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction?  Actually, this is one instance where if you ignore something – your customers – it will go away.  Is that the result you’re after?

 

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June 9, 2015 · 10:16 am

Welcome To The Machine

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It’s alright we know where you’ve been.

You might think from Roger Waters‘ lyrics he was thinking about privacy. His take was on the recording industry but the song came to mind as I was thinking about robots. I’m hoping today to get you to ask yourself about them as well. Specifically, are you better than one, or at least the one that can replace you in the business world.

Before you laugh that off, consider a few things. We have cars that are driven by robots and they will absolutely do a better job than a human driver most of the time. Sure, there will be times when a road is temporarily closed and the mapping software will be lost. The car will need some immediate human input but that’s probably the exception. Most trips will be safer and less stressful.  Bots don’t get tired or distracted.  Can you say the same?

Bots can write and do so in a way that is pretty indistinguishable from humans writing the same stuff. Around 10% of Wikipedia articles were written BY ONE BOT. How many people do you know that are that prolific? You’ve read sports stories both on the web and in newspapers that were written by bots interpreting statistics to produce a game narrative.  Financial reporting is being done by bots too.  They do an excellent job of sticking to the facts, uninfluenced by some PR flack’s spin.  I’ll admit that I get weekly reports on Google Analytics that are written by a robot.  They’re not great but they do a good job of calling my attention to things that require further investigation.  I imagine they’ll continue to improve.  Much media selling is now done by robots and programmatic ad buying is forecast to have robust growth as more publishers, advertisers and agencies embrace programmatic technologies. As a result, Magna Global projected that the volume of transactions will grow to $17B by 2017 in the US, of which $10.5B will be RTB-based.  Those are lots of sales, sales support, and media buying jobs going away.

Am I bringing this up to depress you? Not at all.  We need to think about how we can do many things – still – that can’t be replace by a machine.  Nested phone menus for customer service are a form of automated response – do you know anyone who prefers that over talking to a human for service?  Bots are only as good as the algorithm that drives them.  While we’re heading to a world of artificial intelligence and algorithms that will self-improve, I suspect that we’re a long way off.  That said, we need to emphasize the human parts of every interaction.  A bot could present the facts of this post but I don’t think it can provide tone and nuance (or ramble quite as much).

So that’s the question for each of us, isn’t it?  Can we be replaced by a bot or are we adding things that are uniquely human to our business – and non-business – lives? What’s your answer?

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