The following is from a webinar I attended entitled, “Omni-Channel Personalization — Opportunities and Challenges” presented by Infosys.
Is it the one who makes the most purchases in a year? Is this frequency or dollars. I know we look at revenue generated.
Is it the one who is most profitable? This is something banks have been grappling with for decades. Who’s more profitable — the wealthy who keeps a lot on deposit or the less affluent who bounces checks and pays a lot of fees?
Is it the one who has the maximum influence on others and refers business to you? I eat at Chipotle every day, but my greater value to them is the more than 100 people I have introduced them to over the past five years.
Do you deliver the same offer to each of these customers?
The customer decision hierarchy has changed to a decision network.
We have moved from: awareness, interest, decision and action driven by paid media exposures to a flat network whereby the customer may be influenced to by at any stage of the life cycle by owned/earned media .
Customer decisions are highly influenced by the carry-over effects from prior experiences where some of the prior experiences are unknown. Unknown prior experiences make modeling and predicting behavior very difficult.
Marketers can no longer control the entire customer experience, they must consider:
- Who controls the consumer profile — at the retail level with a sound CRM system, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, on Google+
- Who manages the content — at the retail level, in the consumer’s mind, on blogs, on customer evaluation/comment sites
- Who processes the payment — credit card companies, PayPal, telecom provider
- Where does the consumer convert intent to purchase — Facebook, Foursquare, Groupon, Blogs, Deals2Buy, Froogle, stores
- Which channel do they use — POS, kiosks, online via computer, table or smart phone, mobile, contact center
Today we must ensure an integrated and coordinated customer experience across devices, channels, interactions and partners.
You must also be prepared to acknowledge and address any positive or negative mentions of your brands in any of these channels.
Personalization of the interaction will engender trust. However, it must be done sincerely and seamlessly.
So, who is your best customer and how will you communicate with them moving forward?
