How to Introduce Customer Centric Thinking into Your Organization

THE SITUATION: When discussing customer centricity, I often hear questions like: “Why in this tough economy, should we invest time or resources chasing some elusive new customer centricity initiatives, when we have so many other priorities? What's the payoff?" Marketers and executives at all levels face this kind of skepticism and resistance. Making the Bottom-Line Case for Change: Recently, the senior vice president of a client company delivered an eloquent, and instructive, response to this challenge. Based on recent Voice of Customer (VOC) research, management had learned that their customer service reps were perceived as technically competent, but not very easy or pleasant to work with. This was alienating a critical segment of their customer base. The senior vice president not only made the decision to invest in creating a new VOC-based Customer Centric Training, but he also employed three critical best practices for helping the customer service reps embrace the new, customer-centric way of doing business. Best Practice #1: Focus on the Metrics. The attendees at the first Customer Centric Training probably thought they were in for another (boring) round of "soft skills" training, with no direct connection to anything anyone would actually hold them accountable for after the training. How wrong they were! The SVP informed them that the company had an obligation to deliver the highest possible return on investment per customer, by increasing lifetime value. He then explained that a critical factor in achieving these goals was to improve the team's phone-based relationship skills, and then use those skills to achieve far deeper engagement with customers, as determined by the VOC research findings. With the full support of the CEO and President, he focused the Customer-Centric Training around customer lifetime value goals and introduced ROI performance goals for the reps to achieve after they completed the training. The message was clear; Customer-Centricity goes straight to the bottom line. Performance indicators include: customer satisfaction, increased purchases, increased lifetime value, and reduced attrition. The SVP stated that this was a message he personally wanted to deliver to the customer service reps. And, he explained, he would be personally monitoring these results indicators and expected to see a dramatic increase! Best Practice #2: Emphasize Personal Responsibility. The SVP concluded his remarks by assuring the team members that the training was vitally important, not only to their own careers, but to the future of the company. He instructed them to bear in mind that everyone in the company had a fiscal responsibility to ensure that the training was successful ... and that it would be fiscally irresponsible to do otherwise. The team got the message! Best Practice #3: Executive Leadership and Visibility is Essential. The visible participation of senior execs was critical in communicating management’s commitment to the Customer-Centric change process. The SVP and President attended the opening session and delivered passionate remarks in support of the Customer-Centricity culture change process. The fact that they made time to attend the opening of the training made an impact on the reps. The SVP was visible for the remainder of the 2-day training. TRY THIS: Communicate to all levels of your organization that Customer-Centricity is an essential culture change process, especially in these tough times, and that results go straight to the bottom-line. Empower employees to demonstrate customer-centric behaviors and to provide their own recommendations for how to improve the customer experience. Emphasize that the impact of customer-centricity is measurable, and that all members of the organization will be measured on their individual contributions to customer satisfaction, increased purchases, increased lifetime value, and reduced attrition.

Double Dip Recession? Not If You Listen to Customers

THE SITUATION: The US government avoided default by the skin of its teeth ... but instead of stability, we have a first-in-history downgrade of the nation's credit rating and world-wide financial turmoil. THE OPPORTUNITY FOR MARKETERS: Is it possible that good margins, robust market share, and growth are possible, even in the current market environment? Industry leaders I work with think the answer is "YES”. They have learned lessons about today's markets ... from direct interviews with their own customers. Three Essential Marketing Takeaways: The consumer landscape has changed in some important and, I believe, permanent ways since the first of our two recessions kicked in in 2008. Although specifics vary by company, three principles of Customer-Centricity can apply broadly to all major industry sectors. Permanent Market Change #1: Attrition matters. The pre-2008 complacency about whether customers defect to the competition, or stop buying altogether, is no longer acceptable. "Plenty of fish in the sea" may be a good maxim for dating, but not for marketing. Indifference is not a viable starting point for today's relationships between seller and buyer. Respect is mandatory; it starts with truly caring whether the customer sticks around, and today's economy-savvy, Internet-savvy, social-media savvy consumer knows that. What's more, market leaders have developed a new respect for the high cost of replacing a disaffected customer, and as a result, they do not stop asking themselves, "What can we do to improve the customer experience ... and reduce attrition?" See this blog post for some insights on how the legendary merchandiser QVC did this. Permanent Market Change #2: Consumers expect to be listened to via their own preferred channels and media. They are far more outspoken and explicit about their preferences, and they want to share specific preferences such as: how they define a value added relationship, how they wish to be communicated with, and what mix of media they wish to use to engage with companies. As a result, today's market leaders are building their relationship marketing strategies around the rich feedback about multichannel preferences they receive directly from consumers. See this article for an overview of how Customer-Centric market leaders have achieved double-digit revenue increases by following this approach. Permanent Market Change #3: Consumers expect true personalization in exchange for providing personal preference information. They want to be able to determine the content, messages and offers they receive, based on their unique personal preferences, and they want to have a clear sense of what custom-tailored value they will receive in exchange for sharing this information. If you establish a powerful value proposition that justifies what I call a Reciprocity of Value Equation, consumers will provide you with invaluable opt-in information regarding their message, offer, and media preferences. This information becomes the core of a uniquely powerful preference-driven database ... which will drive double-digit increases in response and revenue. This case study shows exactly how Microsoft did this. TRY THIS: Learn how your customers define a compelling Reciprocal Value Exchange with your company. Understand how they want to deepen their relationships and what type of information they would provide in exchange for specific value added information and offers. Do not attempt to launch this type of high engagement program without guidance from the voice of your customers!

Four Lessons About the Power of Twitter from the Debt Ceiling Drama

THE SITUATION: Twitter played an important role in helping move Congress to finally pass the debt ceiling legislation. THE MARKETING TAKEAWAYS: At several points over the past few weeks, the President called a press conference to repeat points that he had already made many times before. Why did he bother? Because each of these press conferences included a direct appeal to voters to email, call, and tweet the members of Congress who represented them. Obama repeated those appeals on his Twitter account, which boasts nine million followers. And each time he did that, Congressional offices were swamped with constituent communications in support of the President. Marketers should be curious about how the President pulled this off. Whether we agree with his handling of the debt ceiling standoff or not, we have to admit that Obama and his team know how to use Twitter. Multiple mainstream media sources (1: Federal Computer Week) (2: The Register) have acknowledged the effectiveness of the White House's use of this powerful medium, and a few (3: Media Matters For America) even seem to suggest that it might have been one of the turning points in resolving the crisis. Obama used Twitter to mobilize his base of contacts and issue calls to action that people quickly obeyed. Here are four best practices, straight from the Oval Office.

Ernan Roman inducted into the DMA Hall of Fame. To learn more, please click here.

BEST PRACTICE #1: ACT LIKE THE RELATIONSHIP MATTERS; KEEP PEOPLE IN THE LOOP The difference between treating people like a record on a database and treating them like valued customers or supporters, lies in keeping them updated on the issues that affect them. Obama's team did this, regularly keeping millions of followers up to date about the latest developments in the crisis, and explaining what needed to happen to resolve it. BEST PRACTICE #2: ENGAGE, WITH RELEVANT CONTENT The bigger the story got, the more interested Obama's core base of Twitter followers became in updates and other messages from the White House. Obama's team saw this need, and positioned the White House as an alternate news stream on the story. Keep this in mind as you consider the power of relevant communications. BEST PRACTICE #3: ENGAGE FREQUENTLY Twitter is all about speed and immediacy. If you are going to be effective in this space, you need to post new material regularly. Obama's team certainly did this, offering dozens of posts a day. Is it wise for your organization to try to hit that level, no matter what? Probably not. But you should get Voice of Customer feedback regarding the frequency and content of the messages customers and followers want to receive from your organization. BEST PRACTICE #4: SAY THANK YOU This is a huge part of good Twitter etiquette. In fact, it's almost an end in itself. It was impossible not to notice how often the President used Twitter to thank his followers over the past few weeks. Here, he thanks them personally at the end of the crisis, via a special video link embedded in a tweet. Thank people for following you on Twitter. Thank them for mentioning you. Thank them for anything you can credibly thank them for. BIG LESSON: To support your brand and build an engaged base of motivated followers, do these four things on Twitter ... whatever your politics happen to be.