In today’s world, customer centricity is well emphasized. This is what one used to see in the world’s oldest profession from time immemorial. Nothing new. They allowed customers to decide what they want. When they want and where they want. They were symbols of true marketing. They offered the best platform for networking and sharing. Allowed customers to drive policies, drive pricing, drive product and of course, experiences. They allowed customers to give, take and share. An ultimate flexibility that was just a norm of doing business. Frankly, it was really all about personalized interactions. And technology did not enable it. Yes, am still talking of the oldest profession.
Today corporate marketers try to use the same principles in varied degrees of success. They use the latest widgets in Web 2.0 to increase interaction with customers. Interestingly, Web 2.0 rules on the same premise as the oldest known business. As a consumer/customer, it allows you to share your opinions, beliefs, feedback, dreams, needs, apprehensions, joys, emotions, fears, anger …the list can go on. Believe me, there is someone at the other end who is listening. Web 2.0 actually allows you a path to customer centricity.
What happens to that listening is critical. Often, corporate houses have annual initiatives and customer interaction becomes one of them. This resides with a person or a group who take the command from management and drive it to the best possible way – within their limitations and vision. They provide reports to management on a monthly basis talking of how many people registered, how many participated and how many were good remarks and how many were bad. How many have given a positive recommendation and how many were neutral. These are numbers – and we are so comfortable with numbers. After the novelty goes, two quarters down the line (or for a larger company a year down the line), this becomes a liability that enters the expense side of the balance sheet. The management is no longer interested, as they have proudly tried a new initiative and the finance department asks for a cost cutting there. Most unfortunate are the companies where these initiatives continue for years and years to come – what results from these are web statistics that frankly has little meaning here.
These are not stray cases. Think about Web 2.0 initiatives in your organization, you will possibly have to justify it or argue for it. And if you have envisioned it or implemented it, take a harder look. One of the large IT companies started to show their supremacy in Web 2.0 and hence build a customer experience site that was supposed to be monitored by the account executives of the firm. There was a fancy opening. It was launched online through a webcast. The webcast participation was only by invitation. Key senior management was on board. All program managers and project managers from the client side were on board. So were the IT company’s staff – delivery heads, sales & marketing and talent heads, and other support staff. Friends of employees and clients. And this was an ‘only by invitation’ webcast.
Three months after this fanfare, a client called the COO of the company and inquired about the action taken on a certain dissatisfaction that he had posted on the site a couple of months back. Any guesses as to where the message was lost? The initiative team did not understand the issue and hence did not know who to send it to. And teh account manager did not bother checking her client responses, nor did the COO. This happens more often that you would like it to be.
Good tools, technologies and ideas. Bad implementation – a function of commitment to customers was the issue. What was missing was customer centricity – it was certainly better done by the oldest profession without these tools and technologies. They were simple – customer centric.
Hence, next time you decide to tread upon one of the new buzzes in the industry, remember the old paradigm. Customer Centricity. You would do any of these only if you are committed to your customers and to serving them better.
I will try to pen down my thoughts on how to use Web 2.0 in certain industries and what can be realistically achieved in my next articles. In the mean time, do send me your comments, views and perceptions on this article.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Ramblings of a Marketer
“Marketing is rear-end gas”, said one of the leaders of a large country recently. Let me not write down his name here and get my life jeopardized.
Actually he is right. His perception and experiences of marketing are real. He sells what he has. Markets what he has, exactly the way he believes is right to sell. He is a producer marketer.
Marketing has evolved from the older days. My old grocery store who knows what soap I use will always have two pieces of the same – I don’t get to see this brand in very many places. Your granny’s corner jeweler. She keeps going there and every time she is treated as the only customer of the store (or should I call it outlet?).
These two examples are where customers were limited. Every person in these outlets behaved as if there were owners – not by holding control, not by taking decisions on business, not by leading a team and of course not by looking down upon other co-workers. They behaved similar to customers by being sensitive to them. By understanding their needs. By giving personal attention to them. By moving customer loyalty to a whole new level – customer engagement (guess this is a new term of the 90s but it existed way before that).
Yes, marketing has evolved. Across industries, consumers and geographies. Some for good and some not so good. In every technology company, marketing is evolving. Slowly but surely.
I remember someone asking me as to what is the size of the marketing team today and I replied, “3500”! Yes, at that point I believed it was 3500 as that was what I knew was the size of the company. I was wrong. But yes there are companies in technology, manufacturing, services, entertainment and various other industries that are truly marketing companies. Take Microsoft for example, what do you think their core business is? I would say marketing. Marketing and only marketing. Yes, they do not have all satisfied customers. They have enemies as well. But who cares, they rule.
The point is, marketing is not a set of activities that is done by a set of people. It is a culture. What is it that they do that distinguishes them from other companies? What distinguishes Microsoft from other large B2C and B2B technology companies?
One, they are customer focused and two, they were forward looking. The traditional four Ps of marketing are clearly driven by their customers rather than them. They allow their customers to determine what should be their next release. How often have all of felt the need for a cable to connect our iPods or mobiles to our laptops? How often we hate our gadgets as they do not interact with one another? How often does one feel the need of a touch pad or joy stick that never malfunctions? Microsoft has taken this to the next level – with Microsoft Surface. This article is not to promote MS but to show an example of how consumers wants/needs are converted into solutions for them.
At the top of this is just one question in each employees mind – ‘How do I give the best experience to my customer?’ Believing this delivering this is the true form of marketing.
Customer is the King (or Queen in many cases). The truly marketing companies should believe in this more than talking about it.
A question at the end. How many of you believe that you are marketing magnets and why? Drop in your responses here at this blog. I will keep adding more blogs to this section and in a month’s time take a deep dive into technology marketing.
Actually he is right. His perception and experiences of marketing are real. He sells what he has. Markets what he has, exactly the way he believes is right to sell. He is a producer marketer.
Marketing has evolved from the older days. My old grocery store who knows what soap I use will always have two pieces of the same – I don’t get to see this brand in very many places. Your granny’s corner jeweler. She keeps going there and every time she is treated as the only customer of the store (or should I call it outlet?).
These two examples are where customers were limited. Every person in these outlets behaved as if there were owners – not by holding control, not by taking decisions on business, not by leading a team and of course not by looking down upon other co-workers. They behaved similar to customers by being sensitive to them. By understanding their needs. By giving personal attention to them. By moving customer loyalty to a whole new level – customer engagement (guess this is a new term of the 90s but it existed way before that).
Yes, marketing has evolved. Across industries, consumers and geographies. Some for good and some not so good. In every technology company, marketing is evolving. Slowly but surely.
I remember someone asking me as to what is the size of the marketing team today and I replied, “3500”! Yes, at that point I believed it was 3500 as that was what I knew was the size of the company. I was wrong. But yes there are companies in technology, manufacturing, services, entertainment and various other industries that are truly marketing companies. Take Microsoft for example, what do you think their core business is? I would say marketing. Marketing and only marketing. Yes, they do not have all satisfied customers. They have enemies as well. But who cares, they rule.
The point is, marketing is not a set of activities that is done by a set of people. It is a culture. What is it that they do that distinguishes them from other companies? What distinguishes Microsoft from other large B2C and B2B technology companies?
One, they are customer focused and two, they were forward looking. The traditional four Ps of marketing are clearly driven by their customers rather than them. They allow their customers to determine what should be their next release. How often have all of felt the need for a cable to connect our iPods or mobiles to our laptops? How often we hate our gadgets as they do not interact with one another? How often does one feel the need of a touch pad or joy stick that never malfunctions? Microsoft has taken this to the next level – with Microsoft Surface. This article is not to promote MS but to show an example of how consumers wants/needs are converted into solutions for them.
At the top of this is just one question in each employees mind – ‘How do I give the best experience to my customer?’ Believing this delivering this is the true form of marketing.
Customer is the King (or Queen in many cases). The truly marketing companies should believe in this more than talking about it.
A question at the end. How many of you believe that you are marketing magnets and why? Drop in your responses here at this blog. I will keep adding more blogs to this section and in a month’s time take a deep dive into technology marketing.
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