THE CUSTOMER CONNECTION: HOW TO LEVERAGE EXISTING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS TO DRIVE MORE REVENUE

This ITAC roundtable was held on Wednesday, April 9, 2008.

Panelists:

• Meg Sintzel, Director, Marketing and Communications, Accenture
• Darren McKinney, Director, Marketing, Amdocs
• Geoff Kereluik, Vice President, Marketing and Alliances, Hewlett-Packard (Canada) Co.
• Steve Currie, Director, Customer Marketing, Open Text Corporation
• Sue Good, VP Field Marketing, Sun Microsystems of Canada Inc.
  

The discussion was moderated by Bob Becker, Principal, SMA.

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What is your balance of marketing expenditures between customer and prospect marketing? And, how do you establish that balance?

• The first step in this process is to establish your goals and objectives.
• Improving retention, building loyalty, and growing the relationship are key motivators driving this investment. Improvements in customer satisfaction and increases in share-of-wallet are common metrics used to measure progress and justify the expenditures.
• Although the allocation of these expenditures can vary by market segment, the balance is often weighted towards existing customers.
• A market segmentation analysis is a useful tool for making these allocation decisions.
• Strategic investment decisions can shift budget to segments with limited presence to develop new business opportunity.
• Publicly-traded companies can face heavy pressure to pursue new customers.
• Within global organizations, Canadian investment decisions can compete with other international geographic market opportunities.

In an environment where it is costly to obtain new customers, how do you build the case for investing in new customer acquisition?

• The business plan for the P&L is a useful starting point for assessing the need for new customer growth and focusing your efforts.
• The customer segmentation analysis helps identify where new growth is most needed to support the achievement of the plan.
• As a result, the need for new customer growth will vary by product, service, and customer segment. This need influences the level of investment allocated to each segment.
• Regularly engage with the sales team to gather information on the customer’s experience working with your company. Sales can also help distribute relevant messages that educate and increase customer awareness.
• As key account plans take shape, marketing needs to be involved in the planning process. This involvement needs to happen at the strategic and tactical levels.

When it comes to understanding our customers, how can we build an accurate picture of their needs and interests?

• Gather as much information as possible to build a deep understanding of your customers’ needs.
• Even though it requires a strong commitment and a great deal of effort, building and maintaining a customer database that contains quality information is a “must-have”.
• Your database needs to be a tool that can be used by the company to gain insight on your customers. This resource can be augmented by a reference program or a profiling initiative that offers perspective on successful customer implementations.
• Work collaboratively with the sales team since this group is closest to the customer.
• Use external information sources like annual reports or street-level feedback to complement your internal knowledgebase.
• In the software market, access to usability labs offers customers the opportunity to engage in a dialogue and provide feedback on products.
• Executive advisory boards offer customers an opportunity to discuss company strategies. Within global organizations, a consolidated view of the strategy can be built by aggregating the feedback by subsidiary at the corporate level.
• Validate your understanding of the customer by testing account plans with senior client executives and make necessary changes based upon the feedback received.
• Communities of Practice (CoPs) are also emerging as an effective mechanism for gathering feedback and creating interaction among customers and partners. Driving traffic to these CoPs facilitates a robust level of activity.

What role does technology play when communicating with customers?

• Lead management systems are typically used to manage opportunities.
  Additional solution usage includes Omniture for web analytics, salesforce.com and Siebel for CRM, and ExactTarget for email marketing.
• The usefulness of your technology solutions are dependent upon the quality of the information being captured. It is equally important that the information is being used to enhance your relationship with the customer and is integrated within the marketing planning process.
• When collecting customer information, always use opt-in practices.
• Determine how the intelligence housed within the support organization can be integrated with CRM systems to enhance your relationships. Similarly, the intelligence with your financial reporting systems can help inform your major account planning process.
• Establish a working relationship with the IT team. Your value is linked to your ability to provide a business perspective.
• Company acquisitions often introduce new customer databases. When in this situation, a productive course of action is to consolidate on one database quickly.
• Whether you consolidate multiple customer datasets into a single tool for accessing and managing information or maintain multiple databases, it is important that you always co-ordinate your customer communication efforts.

How do you use the Internet to build loyal customers and generate incremental revenue?

• While a company website is a primary communication vehicle, microsites are often used for marketing campaigns. These sites include content that is specific to the needs and interests of the campaign.
• Customer-specific websites offer content that is relevant to the account. Marketing campaign activity can be linked to these microsites so customers benefit from a personalized experience.
• Independent campaign identifiers are a useful mechanism for tracking activity and assessing outcomes.
• Always offer a web experience that is easy-to-use and offers content that is relevant to your visitors.
• The availability of a chat function on your website offers customers an opportunity to interact with you.
• Participation in blogging, social networking and YouTube advertising helps extend your reach.
• “Lightly” branded Communities of Practice are being offered to address specific content interests.

Questions from the Audience:

What is your process for responding to Request for Proposals (RFPs)?

• Disciplined qualification of the opportunity is a critical step since responding to an RFP is a significant investment.
• Establish your level of interest and ability to win the opportunity.
• Participation in the creation of the RFP process can enhance your chances.
• Expertise centres and specialist teams are used to prepare the response to create efficiency and reduce costs.
• This approach also helps companies retain and leverage the knowledge generated during the creation of the response.

What creative programs for driving revenue can you recommend?

• Offer senior executive meetings with key accounts.
• Create personalized customer programs. Customized webinars are an example of this type of personalization.
• Use customer events to facilitate a dialogue between IT and the Line-of-Business.
• Measure your ability to drive revenue by establishing a baseline understanding of your existing return-on-marketing investment and tracking the incremental revenue gains emerging from these efforts.
• Experience reveals that direct marketing is effective within a volume business, while events are a preferred approach for promoting solutions areas.
• A customer segmentation analysis can help identify unique needs and interests.

How do you align marketing with other functional departments within the company?

• Canadian subsidiary executives are aligned and linked to their corporate counterpart to facilitate communication, collaboration, and information sharing.
• Use incentive programs targeting constituents within these departments to bring opportunities emerging from their customer interactions back to sales and marketing.

How do you monitor negative feedback within social networks and how do you counter this feedback?

• It is important to have a strategy; in-action is not a strategy.
• The strategy should identify who will blog on behalf of the company.
• In some situations, a senior executive may be selected to deliver a high-level response.
• Transparency is important.
• Monitor and respond accordingly. And, remember these environments can’t be controlled.
• The action taken in response to the feedback is a judgment call.

How do you use FaceBook for internal versus external communication?

• Used extensively for recruiting.
• Used for watching start-ups and developers.
• A useful source for identifying acquisition targets since many entrepreneurs are active within FaceBook.

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