Data-driven marketing: will anyone listen to you if you can bring good results?

MarkPriceOver the past two weeks, our team has been working on a campaign analysis that was the first using the new customer segmentation for one of our clients. 

It got me to thinking: Why does customer-focused marketing fail in some companies, while in others it seems to catch fire?

If you are working through your first efforts in data-driven marketing, perhaps using segmentation for the first time, you know what I mean.  Not only must the results meet  hurdles, but they must run the fine line between boastful assertions and timid results so caveated that the results are quickly disregarded. 

The impact of your results will be in the eye of the receiver, as it were, and your conclusions must come from above to have validity.

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Mark Price: do you know how much poor customer service is costing you?

Mark Price The research firm Greenfield Online and Datamonitor/Ovum released a study last week, “The Cost of Poor Customer Service,” that estimated the amount of money lost by U.S. firms due to poor customer service.  They estimated the cost to be $83 billion per year.  61% of the time, the lost money goes directly to a competitor.

71 percent of consumers interviewed said that they had ended a business relationship due to poor customer service.  In terms of industries, as would be expected, the greatest churn occurs in cable/satellite, financial services and consumer products.

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