The huge growth of Smartphones feeding the empowerment of proud, app wielding bargain shoppers. For those retailers who focused on how to make location based marketing work for them, the Holiday season was a wondrous experiment of what is possible in the present and the future of how the physical world meshes with the connected customer experience. Shoppers using location based apps like Foursquare, Facebook Places, GeoQpon, Coupon Sherpa and Yowza browsed location based deals and discounts, and in some cases instantly shared their smart deals by broadcasting it across their social networks. (true story: a competitive shopper I know saved several hundred dollars this Holiday Season just because she downloaded GeoQpon, and it happened to work in nearly every store she walked into).

For those that relied on beefing up holiday staff and churning out marketing campaigns as usual, the Holidays were more like getting called out and ganged up on during recess. Shoppers armed with Google Shopper, TheFind, RedLaser and Price Check by Amazon demand price transparency.  They instantly compare prices and complete purchases by scanning a barcode and clicking purchase, rendering an unsuspecting retail clerk speechless with the flash of a screen.  You could practically hear “Gotcha!!” every other aisle.

Finding the best deals, enabled by geolocation can be a competitive sport and it made me think about the other ways location based marketing can and will change the customer experience in other industries. 

Ever seen a QR code? I’m sure you’ve seen a few lately in magazine ads. These little boxes can hold any digital media you desire. They are a real-world link to a virtual destination. By tagging an object with a QR code in the real world, a marketer can reveal the history, details, and of course, the marketing message for any given product or service.  The possibilities are endless.

Other industries could make use of location based technology to truly make a difference in a customer experience Here’s a short list of some possibilities:

Pharma:
Imagine a drug maker uses a location based strategy that includes a QR code.  When the pharmacy fills a prescription, that drug maker produces a custom QR code to stick on the label.  That code instantly takes the patient (via a quick scan using redlaser or any other free reader) to a library of documents and videos that educate me about how to manage or manage a health challenge. Take it further – since the phone knows where I am, how about suggesting some smart choices at the grocery store and including a few coupons to help incent me to make healthy choices…. If I stay on this train of thought, I eventually share that code with my physician, and create a space where the patient and physician can dialogue care.
Healthcare: From an excellent report from mobilestorrm.com) “Looking ahead, advanced solutions such as implanted wireless sensors and robotics inside patients, combined with an always-on mobile data connection, can open a wealth of opportunity in terms of real-time care, emergency response and remote monitoring. Imagine having a health condition that’s monitored and managed remotely to where your physician can easily know of problems before you do. Care can be administered in real-time, without the need to schedule appointments or wait until it’s potentially too late, and much more expensive, to treat effectively.”

Service repair:
Let’s say something in my house breaks. Perhaps it’s the water heater.  If the manufacturer or reseller used a QR code tied to their inventory and service center, and I scanned it with my phone, they could direct me to a page where I can instantly purchase a replacement on the spot. One step further, they could direct me to a service portal that knows what the part is and asks me to schedule the service call at my preferred time.  (Side note, if the service company in the above example had used our Swyft for Mobile App, they could simultaneously push that service call to the closest service agent in the field – but we can save that for a different post.)

Airlines:
It’s already happening with mobile boarding passes.  You see it more and more at the airport. But what about using my location in the airport to help make the experience even better? The best example enhancing the travel experience with real time information today is the Denver Airport . They provide security wait times and parking lot updates right on the home page, and they even have a scavenger hunt you can play if you’re stuck there for a while.  But I’m talking about using my physical location in real time.  I think the airlines could get in on this game by delivering location-aware information to enhance my travel experience. For example: if I have a long flight – remind me to get some reading material, and maybe provide a 10% discount at the news store in their terminal. No meal on this flight? Make sure I know that, and suggest a restaurant in the terminal… you see where this is going.

How do you think your location could affect the way you interact with brands. How much will be too much?

References
10 Mobile Marketing Predictions for 2011 http://tinyurl.com/36u8s5v
http://techland.time.com/2010/12/07/check-in-for-holiday-savings-how-to-find-location-based-deals/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704694004576019691769574496.html
http://gigaom.com/mobile/geolocal-the-rise-of-consumer-location-based-services/
http://gigaom.com/2011/01/20/google-eyes-mobile-as-the-key-to-2011/
http://gigaom.com/collaboration/how-to-make-paper-communication-productive-with-qr-codes/
 

It was a week long and I was dedicated, motivated and excited the whole time. [Ok, fine. It was a long week that kicked off with me hallucinating from starvation and included moments where I was ready to tear the door off my fridge - but it ended on a high note with a 5lb weight loss, a hard earned sense of accomplishment and a tear jerking reunion with a bottle of red zin.] Goal met, I’ve moved right along with no real intention of enduring said detox again.  But the process has me thinking about the ‘one hit’ relationships we have with certain brands.  How can they bring us back after we’ve reached a goal – after we think we’re done?

Using my own experience and preferences as a starting point, I’ve thought of a couple ways that a brand who sells ‘one and done’ products or services could secure my loyalty, re-engage me and make me want to ‘do it all again’:


1)  Connect with me during my journey: In the aforementioned example – I wasn’t enrolled in any type of formal program… it was merely a week long eating plan I read about on a blog. Had I enrolled in something formal and relinquished contact information, (ie, email address or phone number) I would have welcomed encouragement during the journey.  I had to buy all kinds of exotic ingredients (easier said than done around here - dried bonito flakes? Really?) I also had to organize my meals by preparing them the night before. I was totally immersed in the process each day and would have welcomed an email or text message with tips on how to save time preparing.  I would have been delighted if my foursquare check-in at the natural foods store had generated a discount on the incredibly expensive ingredients I had to buy, or even if a consolidated shopping list had magically appeared via text.  These types of interactions would have just made the big price tag that much easier to swallow and it would have kept me engaged and encouraged.

2)  Know what my results are: Most programs (like this detox) focus on the end game – pure results.  So it would make sense if the brand a) knew my actual results b) helped me benchmark the results (I LOVE feeling at least better than average) and c) sent me personalized encouragement.  If I had reported my progress in real time (for example on a mobile app) and received feedback and encouragement that was personalized to me “way to go Jenn, just 2 more days until you can reward yourself with a glass of wine.” I would have loved it.  No one likes to feel like they are doing it alone. Even some sort of encouragement from others like me would have been really well received too: “You and 10 others are on day 3, see what they have to say, click here…” I would have clicked – if for nothing more to reaffirm that misery loves company.

3)  Remind me of my success: So after it’s all said and done, and I’m enjoying my normal diet again – you can bet a timely reminder via email or text: “Those jeans still loose, or is it time for us to break out the juicer again?” would get noticed.  Because no, my jeans aren’t loose anymore. (bummer) Point is - remind me of my results and re-engage me.

4)  Give me incentive to try again: A split second after remembering how elated I was to fit into my jeans my mind would snap back to how difficult the program was to stick to and how expensive it was.  If a brand were serious about customer loyalty and getting me to try the program again, the next logical step would be to incent me with a personalized invitation to come back.  That could come in any format – a discount card for my favorite place to buy jeans? (creative!), a coupon to my local whole foods? (not as subtle, but maybe more effective) or most obvious – a discount to re-enroll if there was a fee to start with.

Bottom line: single use products and one hit programs have a huge challenge in creating customer loyalty or repeat business.  The very nature of an end goal (like a weight loss program) sort of sets them up for that.  Obviously, everyone wants to ‘maintain’ when they reach a personal goal like weight loss or better fitness in general – but very few people are ready to part with money for maintenance if they don’t have to. 

My advice: Use the right combination of technology and customer insight to keep customers like me engaged.  Be in it with me, remind me of my success and lure me back with incentives.  Seems logical, right?  The technology to pull this off exists today (insert self serving sentence at end of blog post here.) The question becomes, do brands know how to use the technology that exists to execute on this type of customer loyalty/retention strategy? Hint: it requires multi channel interaction management, adaptive decision support and the ability to pull customer data from anywhere at any time.  We will continue this thought on a later post.  Right now I have to go juice some beets and chard…

We came away feeling more excited than ever about launching our new apps in the AppExchange! The reoccurring themes we heard during the event that really got us pumped included:

Making everything:

Now: Real-time information shared across channels is the sure fire way to improve efficiency, satisfaction and performance.

Mobile:  Delivering the decision support sales and service reps need anytime, anywhere and on any device will continue to differentiate leading organizations

As-a-Service: Freeing teams from the colossal time and expense suck of boxed solutions will empower them to define and execute strategies faster than ever before.

 


In the coming weeks, we will launch Swyft Mobile for Salesforce as well as, Swyft Contact Center for Salesforce.  Both solutions echo the themes we heard at Dreamforce and we are thrilled to be a part of the growing family of apps that extend the possibilities of the Salesforce platform.

We also had a great time interacting with Dreamforce attendees at our booth.  We enjoy using social apps like Foursquare to make events more fun, and our promotion included an iPad for one lucky winner that checked in during the event.

Our lucky winner is Rhiannon Bach, VIP Marketing Associate from Harrah’s

(Rhiannon, Now you can chatter on the go and ‘roll like Benioff’… but please - store the iPad somewhere besides your pants!!)

Layered on their complexity is the diversity of products (e.g. P&C, life, health) and distributions systems (e.g. independent agents, direct, brokers).  Line of business leaders in insurance organizations juggle very different goals:

Marketing focuses on increasing market share with the right product messages and the most competitive programs.

New Business focuses on closing new business and increasing the wallet share of the existing book of business

Policyholder Service focuses on improving policyholder satisfaction with better efficiency and lower cost

Claims focuses on quick response and fairness to both the company and policyholder

Underwriting focuses on capturing profitable business and shedding undesirable business.

Producer Development focuses on training existing agents and recruiting new talent.

As seemingly different (and sometimes conflicting) as these individual goals can appear, they all share an elusive goal: Improving the outcome of every interaction to improve or increase ‘something.’

If Marketing can improve the relevance of their messages and the accuracy of their programs – they win.  If New Business can reduce the sales cycle for new business and pinpoint subtle opportunities within the existing book – they win.  If Policyholder Service can reduce the steps taken to find the right answer, they win.  If Claims can identify gaps in coverage and new business opportunities, they win.  If Underwriting can see the whole picture and focus on the profitable targets, they win. If Producer Development can leverage the knowledge base to get new agents up and running faster – they win.

While their journey towards reaching that common goal (improved interactions) may commence down very different paths, a common desire to:

Create a consistent message

Increase agent knowledge

Understand and leverage multichannel customer interactions

Increase efficiency

Reduce costs

make insurance organizations ideal candidates for a technology platform that creates a single view of multichannel customer interactions and informs every business unit with relevant content delivered at the time of need.

In the coming weeks we will explore how the different insurance lines of business and operational areas can benefit from a true multi-channel policyholder interaction strategy.

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We spend enormous amounts of time helping organizations understand how our technology can help them improve their customer interactions across multiple channels and almost every time, we end up telling a story to help illustrate the point.  We decided to take one of our stories and turn it into a short video that can do a little of the explaining on demand. In this video, we explain how to make interactions across mail, the call center and field sales more efficient, profitable and seamless.

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It was a great conference with an interesting mix of international and domestic companies and I was given the opportunity to moderate the keynote panel that was focused on maintaining and reinforcing brand integrity across multiple channels.  There were a couple of guys on the panel who know a little about brand management: BJ McDonald from Continental Airlines and Bob Simmonds from Disney. Both are responsible for domestic and international contact centers and have to balance answering service questions, delighting customers and being efficient while maintaining a brand image that’s consistent with their online presence, glossy TV spots and the subjective meaning of their brands in the minds of their customers, that’s been built up over years of exposure and investment.  Sounds simple, right? —Hardly.

They’re both using old-school techniques (agent incentives and immersive training), as well as, new approaches (social media integration and significant technology investments) to manage this complex challenge.  I asked them each to talk about how they position their brand with new employees and the tools they use to support a consistent customer experience (you’ll be able to access the replay on our site soon.)

Although there are clear differences between Disney (who has Cast Members not Agents) and Continental’s approaches there are also some similarities I gleaned that could translate to any consumer facing business: our brand stands for something; it’s important to be consistent and there’s an awareness that the challenge of maintaining the integrity of a brand increases every day with every new social media outlet and passionate blogger.

I also hosted a panel that reviewed how diverse companies had deployed technology to improve loyalty, retention and customer cross-selling.  Tapan Dandnaik, the SVP in charge of Mediacom’s customer service centers (http://mediacomcable.com/index.php) talked about his experience with Swyft’s solution, and described how they simultaneously increased cross-sell results while getting more efficient by using real-time decisioning and personalization to guide their agents.  Using Swyft their agents make the right recommendations – just in time. 

Tapan also shared some really interesting insights on the evolving challenges that agents have in absorbing a tremendous amount of customer and product information, how that’s significantly increased over the past few years and that technology and best practices can bridge the gap.  Tapan has brought a six sigma discipline and a financial modeling philosophy to the challenge and that’s clearly driving positive results.  (You’ll be able to access a recap of his comments here soon.)

As for the Exhibitor Hall - Swyft’s Foursquare promotion within our booth (http://www.getswyft.com/foursquare/) was a lot of fun.  Frankly many attendees were not fully up to speed on Foursquare but dropped by the booth to learn more and play the game.  Mathew Ames ended up as the undisputed mayor of the ICCE, and took home a coveted Foursquare Mayor T-shirt.  The game was a good conversation starter and folds in well with our emphasis on Swyft for Mobile (http://www.getswyft.com/channels/details/mobile_channel).  Jenn (VonHagen our CMO) did a tremendous amount of work to make Foursquare relevant within our platform and is, in my opinion, on the cutting edge of social media marketing for a B to B solution.  Look for a similar theme at our booth at Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce Cloud Expo (http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF10/cloudexpo/) in December.  Stop by if you attend Dreamforce.  Steve, Ryan, John and I will all be there.  We’ll be highlighting our soon to be announced (or did I just do that?) app Swyft Mobile for Salesforce.com…

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Remember when we were all enamored by the mere use of social media by President Obama’s campaign team?  Though cutting edge at its time, it appears amateur when we take a look at the media juggernaut that is Meg2010. 

Meg Whitman, the Republican challenger to Jerry Brown is projected to spend more on her campaign than any other non-presidential campaign in history.  Recent estimates have Whitman spending over $165 million, including $125 million of her own money.  No doubt, she had a notable business career at eBay, but she was relatively unknown on the political scene—certainly when compared to Jerry Brown’s lifetime career in California politics.  That said, what’s caught my attention is the expert commentary unrelated to what she is spending, but focused on what she is saying, to whom she’s saying it and how she is getting her message out.

Ms. Whitman’s campaign is utilizing the tactics and techniques that business marketers have used for decades – customer segmentation.  More specifically and more compelling is that her strategy includes the use of technology to layer “personalization” on top of “channel optimization”.  Recently, Time Magazine covered her strategy citing a clear link between her marketing tactics and her quick jump in popularity.  Time called out the use of “micro targeting software that helps tailor mailings and phone calls to voters on the basis of not just traditional factors like party registration but also polling and purchasable consumer data like magazine subscriptions and car ownership.”  The article went on to mention, “If you’re a voter in California, it’s possible you have received 16 or 17 mailings but this time, all of them highly specific to you, with your name on them, talking about issues they know you care about – not just a generic ‘Vote for Meg Whitman’.”

Taking a look at her site, you see very clear segmentation with focused campaigns designed to capture the vote of young California students and professionals through her ‘Gen-M for Meg 2010’ message.  She also targets Latinos, women, agriculture, educators and more - all through her targeted “insert interest group name here” for Meg 2010 campaigns.  Browsing her site, I counted no less than 25 specific strategies – all with unique and personalized messages.  On top of web and mobile channel segmentation, her direct mailing campaigns are tailored to the specific demographics and psychographics of each household – unprecedented in political advertising.  She understands that one message doesn’t fit all and she’s relying on technology to make sure everyone hears and experiences what she thinks is the right message via the right format.

Her strategy doesn’t stop at segmentation and personalization.  She exploits channel preference with what seems like every aspect of social media – Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, Ning, Flickr and yes, you guessed it – there’s an App for that too.  She uses text messaging to run contests and along the way keep her supporters and followers up to speed on all aspects of her campaigning.

We won’t know until late this evening if Whitman will get the return on investment she’s looking for.  As of this writing Jerry Brown is ahead in the polls by a margin of 5 percent.  But the real point is this: six months ago Brown was clearly leading the way and Ms. Whitman was relatively unknown.  Love it or hate it, what we can’t argue is that this strategy has set a new standard for politicians and business alike.
It seems to me that if more of the consumer business community took note of Whitman’s execution, on all levels of segmentation, personalization and optimization, that we might have happier customers and, who knows—more profit.

I’m always encouraged when our customers discover ways of using our solution that we never envisioned, but add value in unexpected ways.  I was talking with a customer the other day and he mentioned that they’ve found some pretty interesting collateral benefits to our solution.  In one of their large contact centers they’ve found:

• It’s easier to train new employees on their complex product catalog via our interactive sales guides
• Our service alerts have helped them avoid multiple transfers and extended on-hold times to get the right information
• Agent turn-over is lower after deploying our system, which he attributes to more engaged agents
• They can roll out complex new products and offers, that they would not have considered previously making through agents, without much friction

We have traditionally focused on the benefits to the top-line when using the Swyft solution (sell more = more money) but the benefits to the expense line seem to be just as interesting (do more with less = lower expense).

This client believes that the net result is this: Swyft has significantly moved the needle for them in efficiency and expense savings - both benefits that they hadn’t considered when evaluating our solution.  They were focused on selling more, which they’ve done, but, in the current environment, they are also acutely aware of any positive impact to efficiency.  He’s been asked to do more with less and it’s nice that we can help…even if that’s a “hidden” benefit.

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1. Aggregate customer information you have from every system, and organize it in a way that a customer service agent can quickly digest.

Aggregate: Gathering Data from multiple sources is a huge challenge. However, use of a SaaS platform that can aggregate, organize and display data to your customer facing employees is a way to leverage all of the historical data that you have and deliver it into one place where agents across all channels can access it to improve their interactions.

2. Take action in real time.

Make customer insight actionable at the point of interaction: Most enterprises have some idea of what they’d like to recommend to a customer but have difficulty making customer insights actionable at the point of a customer interaction.  New information, gathered in real-time (say the customer’s mood) coupled with dynamically changing scripts and pre-configured process flows for your employees will improve customer interactions dramatically.

3. Prioritize and personalize recommendations based on the reason for the initial interaction.
Adaptive decisions for prioritization: The decisions that you make can’t be stale or rely on business rules written long before an interaction occurs.  Prioritizing a recommendation, at every point of a customer interaction, absolutely depends on adapting to the dynamic circumstances of the interaction.  What’s the customer’s mood?  Did you learn something during the conversation that could change the recommendation? 

Real-time personalization: Nobody appreciates being treated like just another face in the crowd.  Your customers are expecting you to personalize the conversation you’re having with them. Customer must have a personalized experience tailored for the web, contact center, mobile device and other channels you use to engage your customers.

4. Create consistency and a seamless transition from one channel to the next.

Cross-channel insight: Your customers interact with you across multiple channels; they may walk into a branch, call your 800 number and visit your web site—all in the same day.  Real time customer insight delivered across multiple channels helps you react to customer activity immediately and adjust your recommendations and follow up activities to match your customer’s preferences.

A single view of the customer: Integrating relevant internal and third party information into a single “virtual” customer view, in real-time, allows you to have perfect insight to deliver the best recommendation at every point of contact. 

5. Automate the Follow up Process:

Triggered workflow: Follow through really is everything.  During and after a customer interaction proper workflows must be triggered to ensure that the interaction is managed quickly, efficiently and profitably.  By automating the process and tying workflow triggers to dispositions taken during the interaction even the non-seasoned customer facing employees can deliver a consistent and profitable interaction.

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Abbott expects to lose $100 million in connection with the recall and it makes me wonder if that includes the potential customer abandonment they will surely have to overcome.  Since I feed my son a Similac product, I’ve been paying attention to the recall for obvious reasons.  But I’m also in the business of paying attention to multi-channel customer interactions,and this whole mess has me thinking about technology’s role in handling a crisis like this one.

The recall came after one manufacturing plant discovered common beetles within the plant.  Abbot immediately assumed there was a remote possibility that some of the formula could contain beetle parts or larvae – so they did the right thing – they investigated, called the FDA and voluntarily recalled all the lots that could have been made within that plant.  You can read more about Abbotts approach to the recall here.

I personally use the brand that was affected, and luckily my experience so far has been very positive. I have been able to purchase liquid forms for the same price, and I’ve received a return package for my recalled cans.  That said, I’ve seen some brutal backlash on internet like this facebook page pulled together for the sole purpose of starting a class action lawsuit.
For me, this is where this experience becomes a lesson.  Abbott made the recall announcement about 20 hours after the discovery.  While that’s understandable due to fact checking and the desire to communicate clearly and effectively—what’s not as understandable is why Abbott couldn’t prepare for what had to be obvious during that time– a huge surge in call volume and website traffic.

[Panicked Parents + Internet + Mobile Phones = Guaranteed record surge of incoming interactions]

So how could technology have helped Abbott in this scenario?  Here are a few things that come to mind that could have helped create a better experience and reduce the fall out:

Decrease Frustration with Faster Responses: If Abbott Labs had a multi-channel customer interaction platform that could automatically serve up the right flow of questions, real-time answers and process flow (ie, if customer states this lot number, then ship overnight recall package, coupons for liquid formula and a personalized email with questions and answers regarding that specific formula) they could have sped up the process of the recall for the customers who were truly affected.

Decrease Call Waiting Frustration by Ramping Resources Faster:  Abbott certainly couldn’t hire the extra full time employees needed to handle the volume in less than 20 hours – but that’s what outsource companies like TRG are for.  With a SaaS platform they could have had outsourced reps access the platform and operate just as effectively as their permanent call center employees—in less than 20 hours.

Prevent Website Crashes by Personalizing Emails and Web Visits: If Abbot had a multi-channel customer interaction platform, they could have personalized emails and redirected some of the web traffic, reducing the hits to the general recall site (it crashed for an extended period of time.)  Many parents that have purchased Similac are part of the Strong Moms program.  When you join, you get a login and a steady stream of email communication and coupons.  By self identifying during login Abbott may have been able to use historical purchasing information to provide immediate recall guidance or more specific product and geographic information via dynamic personalized messages both on the web and email.  To their credit, they did use email and Strong Moms to communicate, but the added power of personalization could have clarified the communication and given them a chance to make a really personal connection with the parent (translation: “We know what you usually buy, and you can trust that we are providing you with the most accurate information possible.”)

As a mom, I understand the frustration and panic around wondering if you’ve fed your child contaminated formula. Even though there was “no immediate health risk,” the countless sleepless nights I’ve had recently with a fussy 7 month old, and the pain I feel when I think he may have suffered under my watch has me paranoid, frustrated and pretty angry.

On the other hand, as a business person, I understand that mistakes are made and I realize that the way mistakes are handled is usually more impactful than the actual mistake. Overall, I think Abbott handled this crisis the best way they were prepared to.  With the right use of technology, they could have been prepared to handle it more effectively and more efficiently.