Customerspective

Personalization - There's At Least Two Parts

What's the experience when you get an offer that's not relevant? Not good, right?

I received my monthly United Mileage Plus email, and, while they spelled my name correctly, the offers listed didn't seem to target either my home city (Chicago) or my most frequent destinations (Hawaii and Florida). Sample destinations for award seats included:

• Denver (DEN) – Santa Barbara (SBA)
• Washington, D.C. (IAD) – San Francisco (SFO)
• San Francisco (SFO) – Kona (KOA)
• Chicago (ORD) – Amsterdam (AMS)
• Los Angeles (LAX) – Mexico City (MEX)
• Washington, D.C. (IAD) – Tokyo (NRT)

United has access to data on my previous transaction with them - where I've flown, where I've used milage awards, etc. And this monthly email comes from their loyalty rewards program - a progam who's focus should be on strengthening my relationship with them.

So why do airlines like United continue to send out offers like this? Isn't the relevancy payoff worth the effort to think through the data mining required to really personalize the offer?

There's at least two parts to the personalization. First, the most basic, Who Am I (a United Mileage Plus member who lives in the greater Chicago area). Second, and more complicated, is the Offer. How can you link what you're offering (available award travel seats) with my travel preferences (where I live, my common destinations, my previous award travel destinations). There's definitely some work involved, but if that work encourages me to fly more frequently so I can rack up more travel points to redeem for personally relevant awards, isn't it worth it?

This is a communication to which I've opted in. With the number of marketing communications I'm getting every day, United should be pleased that I've elected to receive their messages. But when the messages aren't relevant, they are squandering this opportunity. Not only do I not read their newsletter, I also come away with the clear understanding that United doesn't want to take the time to understand me. Southwest anyone?

Travel Sites: Where Does Your Loyalty Lie?

The WiseMarketer recently discussed a study about what drives loyalty to travel sites. Travel sites such as Expedia and Travelocity are finding it harder to compete with direct suppliers such as hotel and airline company sites. For myself, I am fickle about Orbitz or whoever, and use them as research to book directly and cheaper on the supplier site. But price doesn't always matter for consumers, the study shows. Amazingly, loyalty club members often paid at least 15% more than non-members.

The bottom line is that customers want their shopping experience to be easy, accurate and suited for their needs. The competition is stiff for the this $70 Billion market. It will be interesting to see how general travel sites fare as loyalty becomes a bigger issue.

So how do you book your travel? Tell us!

The downside of web's social networking services.

"Orkut, Linkedin, Friendster, Technorati, Del.icio.us, Digg…"  The list grows bigger and bigger each day.  And I am not even close to covering all the other websites and e-commerce venues that offer some kind of social networking feature to improve sales and/or increase references.

With all the buzz around them, do social networking services work? Definitely.  Do they work for everyone? Definitely NOT!

As with all things Internet, what works for some sites may not necessarily work for yours.  Without careful analysis and planning, you may end up investing time and money in features that won't add value to your product or that none of your customers will use.  Or even worse, you may find yourself basing major decisions on input from a very small percentage of customers that does not accurately represent the needs of a bigger target audience.

In his last column, 'Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute', Jakob Nielsen asserts that "In most online systems, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action".

See the column's full text here.

Still Cheesy - and ANNOYING - After All These Years

Last weekend I bought a new car... Something, like a lot of Americans, my wife and I do every five years or so.   

The difference this time around is that we had to "negotiate" with the salesman.  You see, our last two vehicle purchases we made were:

• From CarMax - As many of you know, CarMax puts the price on the vehicles that they will sell them for.  No haggling, no games, no needing to know whether or not you have a trade-in before setting the sales price.  Here it is, take it (or leave it).
• From a dealer, but only after submitting a price quote inquiry via Cars.com to local area dealers.  So we knew the exact price we were going to pay before setting foot on the dealer's lot.  We even had our financing in place, so when we picked up the vehicle we only had to sign about three documents and we were on our way.

This time around, there were three possible vehicles in the running so we needed to go test drive all of them to decide which suited us best.  After driving all three, we picked the winner - and then had to decide whether to talk purchase that day, or go home and submit a price quote inquiry as we had done previously. 

We decided we would "negotiate" with the salesman and if he was not in the same ballpark on price, we'd simply walk away.  Mind you, I had reviewed all three contending vehicles on Edmunds website and knew what the cars were selling for in my area.

So when "Larry" finally came back out to see how we were doing, I told him that we liked the vehicle we were checking out.  He graciously informed us that he would be happy "to work with us" on facilitating our purchase of this vehicle.  Thanks Larry!

Given my loathing of the car price negotiating process and my very-direct, don't-waste-my-time-beating-around-the-bush personality, at that point I told Larry, "Before we go any further, I want you to know that I know this vehicle is currently selling for about $2,000 less than your sticker price... and given that this car has been test driven for a year and now has more miles on it than a truly new car, I'll be expecting even more off this sticker price.  Is this something you can make happen?"

Well, you would have thought I just kicked Larry in the crotch, as the smile faded from his face and a sullen glare replaced it.  "Well, you can't trust everything you see on the Internet and the market is what sets the real selling price." "OK Larry, I hear you, but I think there's a good deal of truth in Edmund's vehicle data.  Your call..."

Like all car salesman, Larry wanted this sale.  So he begrudgingly took us inside into his office while he went to run the numbers with his manager.  15 minutes later, about 12 minutes too long in my book, Larry resurfaced with THE price... I must say I was pleasantly surprised that THE price was exactly where it needed to be for my wife and I to sign on the dotted line.

Now that started the joy of discussing our financing options, which I won't bore you with here other than to say the dealer could not come close to the rates my bank was offering (which I had researched earlier as well).  Hearing this information also seemed to result in a second kick to Larry's crotch.  Ouch! So much pain from making the easiest sales he had all day.

Ultimately, our buying experience wasn't horrible, but it wasn't great either - Will we ever recommend Larry or this particular dealer to a friend?  Probably not.  Do I think that clueless folks who come onto the dealer's lot without having done a good amount of research beforehand will be taken advantage of? You bet.  Oh well, buyer beware I guess...

 

CRM Excellence Affects Retention

Gartner announced the finalists in their 8th annual CRM Excellence Awards.

Interestingly, Netbank was recognized as one of the six finalists. Netbank was founded in 1997 as an internet only bank. Taking a page from USAA's playbook, Netbank positions itself as a customer advocate, helping customers to understand the financial service options which best fit their needs.

Netbank states that it has decreased customer attrition to less than 8%. It also notes that it's customer care center generates roughly 3% of revenue for new products and services sold.

Netbank has shifted their metrics from a strictly operation efficiency mode to a sales effectiveness mode (calls completed per hour vs. revenue generated per call). What's wrong with this picture?

Ultimately, to drive long term retention, it's not enough to just focus on using a service channel for revenue generation. To claim customer centricity as a key organizational value, you've got to be willing to (potentially) forego some short term revenue gains for stronger, more profitable, long term relationships.

Netbank's taken the first steps, by finding a niche where they can compete, internet banking, and showcasing how it can be more useful for a certain class of customer. Now they need to start thinking about how the customer's needs might not always be met by their offers, and be willing to measure their call center (and other operations) on their effect on customer loyalty rather than their effect on immediate profitability.

Moving from measuring call center operations on revenue generation to something like Fred Reichheld's Net Promoter Score should be Netbank's next move. Going from 92% retention to, say, 95% retention should generate the revenues and profits to make this a hugely effective strategy.

The Great Outsourcing Debate - Does it affect the Customer's Experience?

As Dell plans to expand their fourth call center in India many are still wondering if this is at the cost of the Customer's Experience.

The growing debate, pits supporters of a global outsourcing industry against those that believe that Dell is risking the Customer's experience with another off-shore call center.

As a Dell customer, I would like to think that above all else Dell will continue to think about my best interests and build my trust as customer. When I call as a customer, it's important for the whoever is chosen to help me, to be knowledgeable about the product I've purchased and that they can resolve whatever problem I have in a friendly manner and make me feel valuable. This, in essence, will determine my experience as a Customer.

Bad, BAD Customer... No soup for you!!!

Some customers can really be a nuisance, but is it right to penalize them for that?  See our take on this subject in Vox latest article: "Bad Customer... No soup for you!"

Naming Convention

Men don’t usually have this problem. They don’t change their name when they get married or divorced, as a general rule. Women, on the other hand, have probably changed their name at some point in their lives due to marriage and possibly again if she divorces.

My difficulty is that I don't understand why the customer experience on each end of changing your name is so different. On the front end, a name change because you got married is relatively simple. Everywhere I had to change my name, except for the DMV and Social Security--of course, simply took my word for it that I was now married with a new name. No one asked for proof of any kind, even my credit card company.

When I got divorced, it was a very different story. Every company wanted a certified copy (yes, certified) of my divorce decree. The whole thing. Is that for entertainment value? Why should I mail my private information all around the country for (what should be) a routine customer service task?

The credit card companies were easy, actually. Easier than I actually wanted them to be, in fact. The worst were, much to my surprise, the ones that I didn't expect any trouble from: my Jewel grocery store card and my AAdvantage mileage card. In fact, they were so obnoxious about their name change rules that I have yet to change my name -–five years later!

I know that there are now laws in place that require a higher level of security for airlines, but there must be an easier and less intrusive way to prove that my name has changed. And if does need to be complicated, then it should be complicated every time. Consistency is one of the core aspects of a positive Customer Experience, and I would much rather know that every company is going to require the same paperwork every time so I can be prepared for it, rather than go through the hodge-podge of rules that seem to change at every opportunity.

18 Things that make Customers Happy - or Not

While customer satisfaction does not necessarily equal customer loyalty, it's certainly a necessity, according to the UK-based Institute of Customer Service (ICS), which has published its latest research detailing the most important factors that keep customers satisfied. They are the following:

1. Overall quality of the product or service supplied
2. Friendliness of staff
3. Handling of problems and complaints
4. Speed of service
5. Helpfulness of staff
6. Handling of inquiries
7. Being treated as a valued customer
8. Competence of staff
9. Ease of doing business
10. Being kept informed
11. On time delivery/solution
12. Reputation of the organization
13. Range of products or services supplied
14. Telephone service
15. The statements or billing
16. Staff appearance
17. Continuity of staff/dealing with the same person every time
18. The physical organization, such as premises or vehicles

The Globalization of Customer Experience

If you think the idea of Customer Experience is just a US business flavor of the day, think again. Companies in Nigeria, India and the UK all know that it is key to increased business and profitability.

As our world continues to "flatten", we (US business) better keep the fundamentals of CE close to our core business values.