Jerry Tarasofsky

You’re a click away from losing a customer

We are having a BBQ next weekend and my wife and I went lawn furniture shopping the other evening to replace our 15 year old set. We went directly to Canadian Tire, a major Canadian auto and home accessory center that friends told us had a big selection. There were 7 different models on display. We browsed around and identified 2 models that we liked. Unfortunately, the exact set components were not clearly marked, nor were the individual prices. We looked around for a sales person and couldn’t find one. I went to the service desk and asked to get someone to assist us. They called someone on the phone and told me that someone would be there in a few minutes. After 20 minutes we left, and went over to a Home Depot Store a block away. Although their selection was more limited, we were able to find one set that we liked. Again, the signage was unclear on the set components although each item was clearly tagged. We spotted a salesperson walking in the next isle and I asked him if he could help us. He took out his phone and called to get someone to assist us. Within a minute another salesperson came over. He gave us all the details, including that they were putting that set on sale later in the week, and if we bought it now, he would give us the sale price. We bought it.

Customer centricity is a competitive advantage. The difference in approach to customer service between both those organizations was clearly on display. Canadian Tire went to a lot of trouble to provide a reasonably extensive selection, but was not oriented to providing the service response required to make the sale. Home Depot supported its more limited selection with quick, friendly, and well trained sales support.

So instead of a click away it was a block away.

The Philosophy of SOME

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) ushered in a new era of customer interaction - that of customizing marketing to each person to suit some aspects of their individuality. It has been instrumental, when successfully implemented in increasing conversion and increasing customer loyalty and overall satisfaction.

Implementing CRM however, has not been an easy task and only a relatively few organizations have risen to the challenge. Part of the reason for this failure has been technical - relating to the ongoing gathering of massive volumes of data and the ability, or inability to make that data available to the right persons in the organization.

The task of organizing, understanding, and being able to react to the information in an effective way has also been a major challenge. As a result the overall organizational landscape is strewn with many examples of CRM failures.

Although I'm an advocate of the ultimate CRM objectives, I believe that the majority of organizations can attain impressive conversion gains through what I call the philosophy of SOME.

The concept of MANY is extremely well articulated in James Surowiecki's book Wisdom of Crowds. His horse race example is a perfect case. If you place a bet just before a race begins on the horse most favored to win as voted by the bets placed by the crowd, your chances of winning are the highest. His argument being that the wisdom of those who are the very knowledgeable professionals mixed with those who have some knowledge, mixed with those who bet on instinct, etc., in summary will select the horse most likely to win most of the time. He quotes success rates exceeding 90%.

But how do we apply this thinking in a marketing environment within a business? It works quite effectively if we apply standard marketing segmentation rules to the totality of the crowd. How women react versus men; how single women react versus married ones; how single women between 18 and 25 react as compared to those between 25 and 40. Understanding the differences within these segments and building strategies to address segment differences is the challenge.

In the Hospitality sector for example, the issues that drive customer satisfaction are very different by segment ie. Business Travellers vs. Leisure Travellers. Also significant is the differences in factors driving satisfaction for male and female business travelers. By being able to listen to a statistically valid number (the SOME) within each of the various customer segments, hotel executives customize services and marketing strategies to increase that particular segment’s satisfaction and increase loyalty.

It is my contention that the technical and human effort, the ability to react, the ability to monitor and track marketing successes is easier and faster to obtain and analyze by targeting a segment rather than by targeting individuals within the segment.

For those organizations that have effectively implemented CRM - ONE to ONE systems, the added value of the knowledge of the SOME could enhance their conversion capabilities. And for those that don't have a CRM system and either cannot or do not want to, or have tried and failed - think SOME instead of ONE.

What It Really Takes To Deliver Excellent Customer Satisfaction

No one argues that one of the primary drivers of business success is customer satisfaction. And most businesses recognize that achieving customer satisfaction requires a multi pronged strategy, going all the way from understanding the customer and their needs through delivering good products and services.

A recent article from Peppers & Rogers on checking customer vital signs revealed yet another key component to the customer satisfaction mix. The article’s premise is basic to every business- “customer satisfaction is directly related to the capabilities and competencies of the organization and its human resources”.

Many years ago, the late Dr. Max Garfinkle, an organizational psychologist addressed this same issue. In a White Paper, Dr. Garfinkle, a graduate of Columbia University detailed the capabilities and linkages of three essential elements that companies must master to meet a challenge ie. Building Customer Loyalty - those being the linkage of the strategy to the company practices and the ability to operationalize these capabilities down to the level of competency development of the people involved in their execution.

It takes organizational commitment, strategy and planning to implement customer satisfaction, something that unfortunately many companies don’t understand, and even if they do they don’t know how to go about it.

Welcome

Welcome to "Turn up the silence". Here you'll find the personal thoughts and opinions of people at iPerceptions who are interested in listening to "the voice of the customer". To do so we are pushing the boundaries of online research and confronting limiting beliefs. We invite you to join us and share in this challenging and rewarding exploration. Help us turn up the volume of a voice that has been silent far too long.