Forrester Marketing Forum 07 Archive
Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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Originally I had planned to stay for both days of the Forrester Marketing Forum, but I have another event on Thursday that I need to get back for. With that, I am leaving Miami late Wednesday night and dashing back to Central Florida. There were a few sessions on Thursday I really wished I could make, but duty calls.
Similar to Mplanet in 2006, this event featured an all-star cast of speakers and sessions. Highlights for me were the session by Peter Kim, Sylvia Reynolds and Eric Kintz.
All my photos from the event can be found on Flickr. Blog coverage will continue on the Forrester Marketing Blog.
Eric Kintz, VP Global Marketing Strategy & Excellence with HP lead the final keynote session of the day.
Eric started off his keynote by plugging the primary theme again, the customer is the focus. It doesn't matter if you're B2C or B2B, it's the customer. HP has millions of interactions with customers every day and every second. HP sells three printers every second. That's a lot of customer interaction. They have to get it right with each of those customers and with each of those interactions.
To drive customer centricity at HP they are focusing on:
- Integrating the customer into driving business
- Measure and manage what matters to the customer
- Inspire employees to drive customer centricity
HP developed their performance chain. First off they had to gather metrics and tie customer centricity to profitability. Customer experience builds customer loyalty, which builds sales. Next up, operations looks to improve efficiencies in processes that matter to customers. The final piece is the employees. The goal is to have employees focus their attitudes and actions towards the customer.
HP measures and manages what matters to the customer. Technical support is a major customer touch-point. They want to make sure that when you call support that your problem is fixed and done so quickly.
Internally, HP has been focusing on customer experience training. Teaching their staff how the customer thinks. Another initiative is the 'Voice of the Customer'. With this program, any HP staff member can log a complaint/issue for a customer.
HP is also fortunate to be a B2C and B2B provider. They can often take a B2B customer (and their employees) and turn them into B2C customers. That's a powerful thing. Moving forward with B2B they want to market one account at a time. It means knowing the customer.
One new project is Change Artists, it is a portion of the HP web site that allows CEOs and CIOs to discuss issues surrounding technology. The discussion is about problems and solutions and not HP products. By hosting this conversation HP is learning what their customers want.
The breakout session in the afternoon that I attended discussed customer-centricity in the B2B space. Can it be done? The panel was made up of: Laura Ramos - Forrester Research, Don Friedman - CA, Jeff Reid - UPS, Marc Ruggiano - John H. Harland Co.
Laura introduced the session with some background on how the topic came about. Like many of the other sessions, it was based upon Peter Kim's research on marketing organizational structures. Much of Peter's research was B2C focussed, so how does this apply to B2B? Are the same sets of skills and attributes of a traditional B2B marketer relevant?
Forrester's recent research has shown and many B2B marketing organizations do not use customer-centric metrics. Once again, do the new rules of customer-centric B2C apply to B2B?
Laura then introduced panelists one at a time. Each of them spent a few minutes talking about experiences from within their organization.
Don Friedman, CA - Yes, B2B can be customer-centric, but the big question is how? One of the issues they face is how do they bring products to market that customers really want. Marketing used to be a function of promoting a product, today it's driving product development, the campaigns come at the end. When you have 1200 products in the portfolio it's difficult to change thinking overnight.
Being customer-centric doesn't always mean restructuring your marketing organization, it means putting the needs of the customer first. Sometimes you can work within existing structures to get that done.
Jeff Reid, UPS - UPS has a huge, diverse customer base. They have always used basic segmentation to organize their efforts. Moving forward they look to enhance their current segmentation and how those customers use the different channels within UPS. They have also developed personas. Their research has shown that they sell to five distinct personas. These personas are always looked to in the development of products/relationships. They looked to see what pained their customers and worked backwards.
A traveling road-show introduced the rest of the company to these personas. The road-show was successful since many internal groups had never really met/dealt with a customer.
Another major focus is creating and using credible metrics. When you cross different business units in a customer-centric model you need to make sure that the metrics you are using cross over well. For example in the web-space abandonment is an often used metric. However, outside the web-space it's not a well known term.
Marc Ruggiano, John H. Harland Co. - Harland is a major provider of products and services to financial services companies. Many people know Harland from checks. They print checks. However the payment world is changing. Banks aren't seeing an increase in check orders.
For years Harland had a geographically organized sales teams and product-focussed call centers. In the last two years they have undergone a large reorganization. Sales and marketing is now organized by the financial institution segment, i.e. large bank, small bank.
Harland has an interesting cross between B2B and B2C. The banks are Harland's clients, but the end users of the products are consumers. In this model then need to address the needs of the client and then their clients. Not only do they need to know their customers, they need to know the consumers.
Customer-centric marketing matters if:
- You server clients with different challenges
- You customize products for clients
- You have different business models for different clients
- Your competitors vary from client to client
- Your performance or expectation differs by client
- Your budget dollars need to stretch farther than before
Laura then joined the group and opened up the Q&A. She opened with a statement, "Are we all in agreement, B2B can be customer-centric" The panel agreed. Next, do you need to organize yourself around customer channels?
Don wondered if companies can really afford to re-organize their marketing structures by customer. There is benefit, but we're back to the 80/20 rule. The largest customer groups get the attention first.
How do you handle internal politics and disagreements on shared projects?
Jeff said that within UPS they let the customers decide. When you look at what the customer wants/needs then you take opinion out of the development process.
Good lines from Don: "If you don't have a customer you don't have a business." "Being customer-centric is not conducting focus groups and reading reports."
During the Q&A of her session, Sylvia Reynolds from Wells Fargo said (paraphrasing):
For years everybody was searching for the online customer. There are no online customers. Customers are real people.
If you remember
Shel Israel had a similar comment about 'virtual friends'.
The final keynote before lunch featured Sylvia Reynolds, CMO, Wells Fargo. Sylvia's session also dealt with customer centricity (sense a trend here).
Sylvia started with a few basic questions: What is customer-centricity? If this is so important why haven't we been talking about this before? Are all these new technologies (blogs, podcasts, etc) enablers or distractions?
Sylvia provided some stats about Well Fargo and how they interact with their customers. Wells Fargo has 23 millions costumers with millions of interactions with them via stores, on-line, phone and ATM.
What's important to realize is that in their history Wells Fargo has always been focussed on the customer, it's just now called customer-centricity.
Sylvia joked that a customer has never asked Wells Fargo to be more centric.
Wells Fargo has been very successful, so it's difficult for Sylvia to convince management that they need to change they way they do things. From management's perspective, if they weren't doing things for the customer already, then they wouldn't be successful.
The new goal is to manage sideways. Wells Fargo is looking to build customer experience across their 80 channels. That's the challenge.
Sylvia asks, "How many of you have been in a meeting where somebody talked about the 'customer' and they inserted their own preferences?" Do they really know the customer?
All the new technologies are exciting, but use the new technology to solve real problems.
At first collaboration between departments was for mutual benefit. Cross-sell is a religion within Wells Fargo. The new approach is to build collaboration with the customer's needs first, then internal benefit second. The new directive: Make our shared customer the center of all decisions. Nobody 'owns' the customers.
Wells Fargo is starting to use campaigns that connect to larger customer issues/dreams. This is a departure from 'product' marketing.
Wells Fargo is also trying new forms of marketing: blogs, events, Second Life. However, the use of new technologies is rooted in solving a problem. They discovered that people under 18 didn't know about Wells Fargo's history, or felt it made them look old. With the Guided by History blog they are trying to make the history of Wells Fargo relevant, hip and current.
After a short morning break the keynote sessions at Forrester Marketing Forum continued with a session led by Gary Skidmore, Corporate Officer and EVP, with Harte-Hanks.
How do you make customers the very center of what you do? That's the big question on everybody's mind here. Look to Starbucks, they've made an emotional connection with their customers. Think about their customer experience. As a customer you can order the drink you want with the ingredients you want. It's all about the customer. Gary then showed his standard Starbucks order: Tall, Decaf, Non-Fat, Iced, Vanilla, Latte.
Are your customers fans? Apple has a serious fan base. Look at the iPod, 100 million sale and over 2 billion songs downloaded. Think about the social game, "What's on your iPod?" Everybody has a unique playlist on their iPod..it's a unique customer experience.
To win in the market you must let your customers rule. Think about the upcoming generation, they are growing up with this new set of customer experiences that are all about them. Each year, as they grow older they will become more of your revenue base. It's all about them.
Want to create a customer-centric organization? First off, take care of your employees. Take care of their needs so they can focus on taking care of your customers' needs. For example, Cabela's encourages their staff to borrow equipment from their inventory. They want them to experience the products as the customers would.
Customer-centricity is a journey not a destination. If it's done right it will touch every facet of your organization.
Five strategies for achieving customer centricity:
- Information: Accurate, high-quality data about your customers
- Opportunity: Give people access to the data to build relationships and look for opportunities
- Insight: Understand the data, target and predict
- Engagement: The application of the data
- Interaction: Program execution, look to work in all channels in all locations (online/offline)
However, in business you have to make trade-offs. Knowing your customers will help you make those decisions.
Customers want access, they want information. Know how they want access. Customers also want choices. However, what they choose today might be different from what they choose next week. Customers also want experiences. Experience is becoming the secret sauce in business. Customers want reciprocity. They also want control.
The second keynote session on Tuesday was led by Mike Fasulo, CMO of Sony Electronics. Mike asked the audience, "How many of you have owned a Sony product?" Just about every hand went up in the room. Mike jokingly thanked the audience of highly-distinguished customers.
Mike feels that the successful brands of the 21st century will be those that can execute a truly customer-centric approach.
What keeps Mike up at night? Increased competition, widespread commoditization, price erosion. However, if we're only thinking of the customer do any of those matter?
When Sony launched the Bravia the did a tremendous amount of research to gain customer insights. What did they learn? The target audience was women. Women were not usually associated with electronics. However, their research showed that 55% of all consumer electronics purchases were made by women. Women influence 83% of all electronics purchases in the U.S.
Sony launched the product as the world's first television for men and women. The focus was on picture quality and style/design. Both of these items were equally important to men and women.
How do customers view Sony? Customers view Sony as a single brand. They don't see Sony as their individual units, i.e. Sony Pictures, Sony BMC, Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment, etc. But that's how Sony is organized internally. That's not how products come to market. The internal and external views don't match. The problem is, how can each of these units leverage the overall Sony brand?
In the imaging world, they have three brands, Alpha, Cyber-Shot and Handycam. However from the consumer perspective it's just imaging.
How do they align customer service, product marketing, corporate communications, event, sales and finance to serve a single customer across various product lines and divisions?
Looking at a recent campaign they launched, you see two different product lines sharing a theme. The focus is on the use of the product, not the aspects of the product, i.e. zoom, megapixels, etc.
Now the problem becomes continuity. Carrying those commons themes across all mediums. One thing Sony is doing is syndicated major campaign elements to vendors and point-of-presence opportunities.
Another customer-centric effort is the Sony stores. The purpose of Sony stores is not to sell product, it's to engage the consumer with Sony. Let customers shop where they are comfortable.
(Disclosure: Sony Computer Entertainment America/SCEA is a client)
Peter Kim, Senior Analyst with Forrester Research led the opening session at the Forrester Marketing Forum here in Miami, FL. I was fortunate enough to catch Peter speaking about the reinventing the marketing model at Mplanet last year (session review). Peter's report on reinventing the marketing model served as the inspiration for much of this event. It seemed fitting then that he should lead things off.
Peter said that this entire conference has been organized around you/us (the attendees). The conference could have been held in Boston or New York, but we thought of you...so we're in Miami.
Wanting to be customer-centric is different than actually doing it. It's the details that count. Customer-centricity is easy to say, hard to do. But here's the secret...it's in the details.
Peter hopes to cover three major points: Why now? How are marketers doing it? How can you make it real?
Why now? Customer expectations have changed. People expect immediate service. When you call or send an e-mail, you expect quick service. There is also social computing. Customer can now create content, talk with each other, etc.
The stage is set for more vocal consumers. However, marketing is not ready for change. Marketing organizations are broken. Increasingly the marketing department only controls one of the Four P's....promotion.
A few lessons: Don't try to own the customer. Build relationships with IT, HR and other departments.
How Are Marketers Doing It? Do you have a customer-centric culture? USAA does. USAA provides insurance and financial services to members of the armed forces and their families. When USAA trains new employees they educate them about the military. USAA makes sure that their staff understands the life of their customers. USAA has adjusted their billing cycles to match military pay periods so it's easier for their customers. Everything USAA does is for their customers, and it builds a strong customer relationship.
Technology can assist with customer-centric programs. Del-Monte has been using blogs to engage dog owners to listen & learn. They are developing products that their customers want and need. That makes marketing much easier.
How Can You Make it Real? Build functional relationships. Customer advocacy creates customer empathy. Use technology to make what exists better. Listen and learn. Focus on the details.
Here are a few other links from Peter's session: Forrester Recap, Q&A
The 2007 Forrester Marketing Forum officially kicked off this morning with opening remarks from Forrester Research Chairman and CEO, George F. Colony. To set the stage for the conference, George reviewed the six things he tells the CEOs he talks with:
1. You company is inside out. You need to put the needs of your customer before the needs of the company.
2. Your web site needs work. Company web sites they review fail to meet the needs of customers. Think of the customer first.
3. You should be asking one question. Would you recommend this product or service to a friend of colleague? The net-promoter is becoming a driving force within organizations.
4. You don't own your customer... your customer owns you. Loyalty is waning like never before.
5. Bits wants to be free....bits want to break the law. Companies don't like this, but it's the truth.
6. Great marketing + great technology is the only way forward. The most powerful part of this statement is the "+" sign. It's the combination of those two elements that makes the magic. It's the companies that do this well that will be successful.
Here will be my home for the rest of the day :-) The Forrester staff is busy with final technical checks and rehearsals. Peter Kim will be on-stage for the first keynote in about 30 minutes.
The Forrester Marketing Forum kicks off tomorrow morning here in Miami, FL. There will be two days of marketing madness with much of the focus on customer-centric initiatives.
You can follow the official Forrester Marketing blog at: http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/. Peter Kim will be blogging, as well as Marianne Richmond. I'll be posting throughout the event and taking some photos.
Next week begins another travel/conference binge. First up is the Forrester Marketing Forum 2007 in Miami, FL. I'll be heading down to Miami early on Tuesday the 10th to catch up with George Vazquez from PRNewswire and hopefully some of the gang from Scrapblog.
Friday of next week I have a quick day-trip to NYC for a PRSA Association/Nonprofit Section Conference where I will be speaking in the afternoon. Tom Biro and I are looking to hook-up for lunch/coffee in the early afternoon, you're welcome to join us...I'll have more details later.
The week April 16th I'm off to New Orleans for the Word of Mouth Marketing Association's Basic Training (WOMBAT) event. Looking forward to seeing a number of familiar faces at that event. WOMMA is always a good time.
For disclosure purposes: Forrester is providing me press access to their conference but I cover all travel expenses. WOMMA provides me free access to WOMBAT and a hotel room, but all other travel costs are out of my pocket. Each of them request that I post to their event blogs, but I am free to re-publsh on my blog. All photos will be posted to my Flickr photostream.
