Role playing in Customer Management

September 6, 2008 | Filed under: Analytical CRM, Analytical Marketing, Customer Experience, Customer Management, Management, Retail Banking, Retailing, Telecommunication

In the last couple of months I had the opportunity to meet a few established players with specific customer management KRAs in financial services industry.

Though its been a couple of years of India waking up to the Customer Management and associated priorities in business management, my initial interactions with aforesaid folks, reemphasized upon the state of affairs being still nascent and yet to grow, the statement of Campaign Management as a priority item in the scheme of things its quite a good evidence on the industry’s nascent stage.

I respect their views, however it is in need to widen their horizon and look beyond the obvious as determined by basic conventional CRM wisdom.

Role Players

As the figure above suggests, to maintain and uphold the objective called “keeping the house tidy” is subjected to a few players playing their designated roles.

Its never a one man’s job and importantly claiming a slick broom would do the trick is futile claim as it is currently suggested by some myopic customer management (Campaign Management) consultants.

To give you an idea on the role players in Customer Management, the charts starts with the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Finance Officer staying on top with CEO’ business objective alignment and product managers holding the second line. In addition, the analyst, campaign managers, segment managers and business and IT operational folks follow the suit - All these personas have a defined role that they must play in order to get the desired results.

The power of technology (or software application, if you will) to excel in their scheme of things should not only have campaign management but an entire set of applications and a orchestrating scheme to meet the business objectives .

The CEO/CMO and CFO needs to have a summarized and holistic picture of what is currently happening and how well its in alignment with the business strategy, they should be able to identify any discrepancies and deploy appropriate course measure to manage it effectively.

  • IT specialist should be able to define policies on data management and securities related area and let this piece run in an auto-pilot mode, intervene and correct as appropriate.
  • Basis the data sourced, the analyst should be able to identify product associations, customer affinity quotients by creating segments, perform analysis to identify potential cross/up-sell opportunities or proactively identify signs around customer management and keep these information consumable by management and operational business folks.
  • The product management and the marketing teams should come together to ensure basis the gaps and additional revenue potential identified by analysts are acted upon.
  • The product management team also should keep track of each activity where the customer is contacted through an outbound or inbound communication, if the performance is found to be unsatisfactory, make real-time course corrections hence increase the bar
  • The Information Technology operational team should store the history of all the aforesaid activities for future references.

Now, as you can see the aspects mentioned above are to be used at various level of intensities (basis your business model) for effective customer management.

You may now agree, a one-size-does-not-fit-all and such one-sized approach may not be a very appropriate one in such scenarios involving various stakeholders.

Please exercise due caution when it comes to evaluating business software applications for customer management, ensure the solution that are being considered will (A) fit well in your environment and (B) covers the aspects mentioned above in one way or the other.

I am keen to know your views on this, please do leave a comment with your opinion or send me a message through the Contact page. Also, if you enjoyed reading this article and would like to be kept informed of any such new articles, you can subscribe below for an email notification.

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Forewarned is Forearmed

May 16, 2008 | Filed under: Analytical CRM, Analytical Marketing, Financial Services, Management, Retail Banking, Telecommunication

Day before evening read an article in one of the leading CXO internet portals on a new Business Intelligence Solutions in the market. This is one of the umpteen notes I read on new players in the market.

Business Intelligence growing at a very high pace, knowing these a host of software professional comes together and mushroom out a myriad of software solutions in the market, in the process the poor evaluators and decisions makers at various enterprises go through the turmoil of getting stuck in the cobweb of information and struggle to make the right decisions. The idea behind this post is bounce of some ideas and approaches that are software solution agonistic but totally relevant from business perceptive.

Many folks I have dealt with have this common misconception about Business Intelligence, they think/believe ability to be able to report basis historical data in various forms such as drillable OLAP cubes, KPI driven dashboards, building a Pivot in excel are all business intelligence. As a starter, it ain’t really Business Intelligence! If you insist for a term for this, I would say ‘Historical Business Reporting’

The analogy I give to folk that believe the aforesaid definition is true is the following, “Running any business basis Business Intelligence that is believed to have a comprehensive set of capabilities to report on historical data, is like driving a car with a really huge rear view mirror and no (or keyhole) size windshield to look ahead”

If you believe (request you should, we practitioners are ready to help you) in the value that a true Business Intelligence can bring to your business, please do start with sketching out what are the Business Specific Values you would want to derive out of the Solution.

  • In almost all the solutions’ case what goes in determines what gets out. So, if your data is not good enough, don’t expect anything good in return. This means, you might want to ensure the BI solution you are considering has the capability to manage Data Quality effectively.
  • In addition to the cleansed data, we need to have access to behavioral analysis of underlying data and predicted future as well, for this we need the power of statistics – In absence of this approach, you will be driving the car (business) like the man in the illustration
  • Basis the above two points, we are ready to represent the Information derived (from the cleansed and statistically analyzed data).
  • Now, we must be able to present this data to aid various stakeholders make timely informed decisions. Basis their persona/profile, we need to decide how summarized or detailed the data should be.
  • In the process of the presenting the data to end-users, we must ensure they are equipped with a through WHAT-IF capability to perform right kind of analysis in addition to accessing reports.

Business Intelligence solutions that has the aforesaid flow would assist you in not only meeting your short-term goals but the long-term objectives as well. Do talk to us, we are waiting to hear your perspectives..

Pilot’s Instincts

May 11, 2008 | Filed under: Analytical CRM, Analytical Marketing, Analytics, Customer Management, Management, Retail Banking, Retailing, Telecommunication

Many marketers in the Asia Pacific region I have talked to in various occasions have asked if the entire marketing (campaign management, specifically) process can be automated. The response to this question is technically YES, it can be automated.

However, the real question is, do you, as a marketer want to automate the entire process? You might ask, if it is a relevant question? Yes, it is!

Let me give an analogy in aviation industry. The role of technology in aviation space has increased so much; flying a passenger aircraft from Helsinki to Caracas is possible without having to have a Pilot on board. The engineers behind the scenes at Boeing, Air Bus, Embraer et al is well aware, the instinct of the Pilots on board is something that can, by no means be automated. And, this very instinct is one of the critical factors for sustenance of safe flights.

What can we understand from this analogy? Though, it is possible to automate the marketing, particularly campaign management function much as you want to, it is essential to keep the human touch intact in whatever way you can. Sooner or Later you will realize, this decision has paid-off handsomely in managing customers effectively, i.e. either in managing marketing costs or increasing the returns you get from various marketing programs.

Please do not fall prey to sales-talks from vendors who make automation process look like result of a magic wand swing, do exercise adequate caution before registering what is being told to you.

Cluetrain Manifesto for Retailing

May 5, 2008 | Filed under: Analytical CRM, Analytical Marketing, Customer Experience, Customer Management, Retailing, Traditional Marketing

50 Ways to Improve Your Customer’s Experience

Three years ago I shared with readers a list of 50 ways to be more customer-focused and deliver a better experience.  I’ve decided to update the list and publish it again.  It’s a bit long so you might want to print it out and read it later.  Even better, check off those actions you and your team take on a regular basis.

Here are 50 Ways to Improve Your Customer’s Experience:

1. Open the door for your customer whenever possible.  This is especially important if her hands are full.

2. Don’t just hand your customer his product, “present” it to him.

3. Keep the store temperature at a setting that is comfortable for customers.  Most retailers set the thermostat at what’s comfortable for the employees.

4. Acknowledge your customer’s children.

5. Offer to gift-wrap purchases if you already know it is a gift.  Don’t wait for your customer to ask.

Read More..

Talking in the Air

April 1, 2008 | Filed under: Customer Management, Mishmash

Before the takeoff and till the flight doors are open after landing, Cabin crew virtually sits on passengers head to keep the mobile phone in switched-off mode as it technically can interrupt with the navigation communication systems.

Mobile on an AirPlaneThe long wait has finally come to an end to passengers who miss their phone calls and text message in mid air. United Kingdom based AeroMobile in association with Airnic and Telenor has developed a system that can help you to keep your phone on at cruising attitude, however, the in-flight system installed in each plane has complete control over keep the network available to its passengers, technically the crew can turn the accessibility off during nights.

The AeroMobile system automatically activates once the aircraft reaches 20,000ft. A video then informs passengers they can turn their mobile phones on. Passengers then receive a free text from AeroMobile telling them to switch their mobiles to ’silent’ mode out of courtesy to their fellow passengers. Calls can be made and received while the plane is at cruising altitude. The service also allows text messages to be sent and received. The system allows for a maximum of five or six calls to be made at once. Passengers using AeroMobile will be charged a premium roaming rate.

As the solution stands currently, the network provided by AeroMobile system on-board offers basic text messaging and voice call server, however, expected to provide data services such as Blackberry etc in sometime.

A couple of Airlines have started using the service, the first-ever call from AeroMobile network was made from an Emirates flight heading to Casablanca. Emirates have seemingly invested to close to USD 27Million on this infrastructure. And, I am quite sure leading airlines would follow the suit – Sooner or later, “talking in the air” could be used a true statement, so get ready to read it correct as it may not stay as a metaphor alone for a longtime.