Do Business Well

External Activity

<CROSS-CHANNEL CONTACT HISTORY (MAIL, TELEPHONE), PENDING SUPPORT ISSUE, FIRST AND LAST SUPPORT CALL AND EMAIL, SUPPORT LOG/EVENT HISTORY, PRODUCT RETURN HISTORY …>

Data generated from your direct mail, telemarketing, customer support, and product return operations can be a critical part of measuring true customer value, cost to serve, and cost of customer contact and conversion. Linking this type of external data with your email marketing system will enable you to spot—and avoid— potential problems. Imagine, for example, that a customer has sent you an email complaining about a product defect. If customer service doesn’t let marketing know about the problem, marketing might send the already-angry customer an email offering the latest add-on to the product he or she is complaining about. Continue Reading »

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Purchase History

<FIRST PURCHASE DATE, LAST PURCHASE DATE, PURCHASE FREQUENCY, PURCHASE VALUE (ACTUAL PURCHASES OR AVERAGE PURCHASE), PRODUCTS PURCHASED, PURCHASE DRIVER (WEBSITE “WALK-ON,” EMAIL RESPONSE, BANNER CLICK-THROUGH … )>

Because past purchases are among the leading predictors of future interest, you should use the information contained in the customer’s purchase history to determine the timing, offer, targeting, and personalization of your promotional communication. If, for example, you bought book from BarnesandNoble, you’ve probably been identified as someone who’s interested in high-tech business books, which means there’s a good chance you’d be interested in Geoffrey Moore’s Inside the Tornado. Continue Reading »

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As we look at the different sources of profile data, keep in mind that customer or member profiles are dynamic: they’ll evolve as your relationship with the customer deepens. Your goal is not to collect all of this information at one time. Asking a lot of questions on a first encounter can be very off-putting. Imagine walking into a store and having someone come up to you, introduce herself as an employee, and immediately ask for your phone number and how much money you make. You’d probably react quite negatively and you might even leave. Asking for personal information on your website is no different. Continue Reading »

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“Loyalty” is an overused and often loosely defined term. There have been several attempts to introduce a more precise financial definition of loyalty so that its impact on a business can be measured and quantified. In his The Loyalty Effect, Frederick F. Reichheld does a superb job of describing the economics of loyalty by demonstrating the unquestionable financial impact of increased customer retention. Still, many people wonder whether loyalty programs actually work. Futhermore, when success is no longer driven exclusively by ⁽⁽cost of contact,” we must be able to measure our “return on loyalty” related investments in order to determine the sucess of a program. Continue Reading »

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