Multichannel Magic

Secrets are powerful. They connect people and hold organizations together. Most Mafia flicks have a character that is in high demand by the organization and the authorities. The character is in a position of power because he is knows the secrets of the family. If the authorities gain access to those secrets, they win. Invariably, there will be a battle between the opposing forces because people want to know where the bodies are buried so they can destroy the organization.

Companies have secrets that affect long-term success, too. While less macabre than the family’s buried bodies, unfound business secrets can still destroy the business. Knowing the secrets hidden in corporate databases is the difference between growth and lost marketshare. Invest resources in finding the information that makes your company better. Get started by asking these questions:

Why do your customers choose your company over the competition?

What are the internal and external trends that affect your business?

How do processes and policies help or hurt your company?

What data provides actionable information?

Where do lost customers go?

How many new customers are hit-&-runners?

Which social media sites are your customers using?

How does everything (yes, everything) work together to benefit customers and company?

Why were specific processes and policies established?

Are the processes and policies still needed?

How do your customers move between channels?

Why isn’t your social media strategy working?

What is the tipping point that makes customers click, call, or visit?

Having knowledge about the items listed above is “knowing where the bodies are buried.” Body parts are often scattered across channels, departments, and divisions. It’s like a secret formula where segments are given to different people to safeguard it. They have to work together to assemble it into something usable.

Who knows where the bodies are buried in your business? Is it you? Someone else? Or, is it possible that no one within your organization knows the innermost workings that drive revenue, profitability, and customer satisfaction?

Seeking answers often finds more questions than answers. Keep digging until you find all of the body parts that make your company unique. The information you discover along the way can be used to make your business more efficient, your marketing more effective, and your customers more loyal.

Every self-respecting wise guy knows that someone in the organization needs to know where the bodies are buried. Shouldn’t you know, too?

To learn more about finding actionable information, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

Digging through bits and bytes to find information that can be used to grow your business, improve service, or reduce costs is not for the weak of heart. Contradictory opinions about the importance and how to use data are everywhere. Navigating from raw data to useable information is a minefield that can derail the best laid plans.

I’ve been playing with numbers all of my adult life. It is one of those things that engineers do for fun. Numbers can be manipulated to explain anything. They can also be used to confuse and mislead. Data manipulation used to be an internal company issue. Presenting departmental information in best possible light is not unusual. It is almost expected.

Things have changed. Data manipulation is a global issue today. Companies are dependent on third party sources for information that will be used to identify problems and opportunities. Access to raw data to double check the conclusions is limited. The inability to confirm accuracy forces management to navigate a highly competitive marketplace on wings and a prayer.

There are only three types of metrics to be found in analytics. Identifying them improves the odds of making the right management decisions. They are:

1. Actionable: Information that has been proven to increase sales, improve satisfaction, or reduce costs is actionable. This includes customer behavior, service levels, fulfillment costs, and anything else that can be tied to cause and effect. Response rates, average order, lifetime value, and other marketing metrics that can be validated are actionable too.

   As a rule of thumb, actionable metrics are results oriented. They measure the data that directly affects the bottom line. If in doubt about the validity of the effect, start with profitability and work backwards to verify that the selected metrics influenced the results. If verification is not possible, move the metrics from actionable to interesting until the numbers can be tested. After all, do you really want to make management decisions using unverified data?

2. Interesting: Before information becomes actionable, it is interesting. Trends may be spotted in the data but the meaning and application isn’t clear. Or, it could be a number that indicates action on the part of customers and prospects. Technically, likes and follows could be placed here, but let’s not go there right now, okay? People liking and following are hard to qualify as prospects or customers. The platforms work hard to prevent those qualifications from happening by limiting access to information that allows companies to identify customers and prospects individually.

   Statistics are also interesting. People have discovered that they can ask a few questions, manipulate the answers into some form of statistics, and “Voila!” they have a press release that presents them as an expert. The data isn’t empirically sound and the conclusions serve the creator instead of the recipient. Statistics are only useful if they apply to your business and can be used to make it better.

3. NSFW (Not suitable for work): Some information simply isn’t suitable for work. It may be interesting in a “Can you believe what I just saw?” way but it does nothing to move your business forward. Every social influence ranking service falls into this category. The metrics they share do nothing to help you grow your business. Likes and follows usually fall in this category too because the entry threshold is too low to adequately qualify people as prospects.

   NSFW metrics may make good cocktail conversation if you are in the company of people easily influenced by appearances. The rest of the world will find the references laughable. Ideally, no one in your organization will invest resources in information that doesn’t improve the business.

While some information has to be exact, there are metrics where close enough provides benefits. They can be monitored for trends to identify problems and opportunities. In a world where access to raw data is routinely denied, managers have to find ways to work around the challenge. Monitoring trends is one way. Using social media to acquire contact information is another because it provides actionable information. To insure your analytics investment isn’t wasted, identify the type and what you are going to do with it before spending the money.

To learn how to find actionable information, email Debra at dellis@wilsonellisconsulting.com.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou

How people feel have a direct effect on how they relate to others and judge shopping experiences. Academic studies have shown that satisfaction is a combination of cognitive and emotional evaluation. Reading the studies gives us insight into how people respond to service perceived as good or bad. They fail to provide specific information on how to deliver satisfaction.

Accurately defining specific cause and effect is close to impossible because every person has emotional baggage that affects how he reacts to circumstances. The baggage may come from the person’s life or it may come from previous shopping experiences. The challenge companies’ face is how to identify what people need on an individual level. Systems, processes, and scripts address general, not individual needs.

The desire to deliver excellent service is countered with the need to be economical. High quality service, as defined by industry standards, is very expensive. The good news for your company is that it really doesn’t matter how your industry defines excellence. All that matters is what your customers want. (I need to qualify the previous two statements. If your goal is a nice trophy declaring that your company provides the best service, go for the industry standard. If not, let’s continue.)

People need to feel valued. When they do, service is perceived as being better (even when it isn’t.) Creating an environment where customers feel appreciated improves satisfaction and loyalty. Actions show value better than words. Here are some do’s and don’ts for making your customers feel valued:

Do listen. It is impossible to provide an answer without understanding the question. Let customers finish telling their stories before trying to solve the problem.

Don’t pass people to others. One stop service is the best. It saves customer and company time. If a pass needs to happen, explain to the customer why someone else has to be involved.

Do show respect. Good manners may not be cool in some circles but they are mandatory in customer relations. Require your team to be polite and respectful at all times.

Don’t forget that companies serve at the customer’s pleasure. Every product is a commodity these days. Your customers can find what they need elsewhere.

Do design systems and processes to streamline the service process without sacrificing the care. People like self-service. Providing the needed tools improves satisfaction and reduces care.

Don’t let industry expectations define your service. Your customers choose your company for a reason. Focus on their needs instead of what the competition is doing.

Do ask people how you can serve them better. Use the feedback to create customized service experiences. When people feel understood and appreciated, they keep coming back.

Don’t ask people for feedback if you are not going to do anything with it. They’ll wonder why you wasted their time. If the feedback can’t lead to change, explain why.

Growing a company in a competitive environment requires wise resource allocation and strong execution of the chosen strategies. Email falls into the “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” trap. The tool works so well at generating revenue, people fail to use it for other opportunities. This keeps companies from growing as fast as possible.

There are four reasons to send emails to customers and prospects: Acquisition, retention, sales, and service. Simply put, send emails when you want to acquire new customers, keep the ones you have, increase sales, and provide service.

Most companies are very good at delivering on the increase sales objective but fail miserably at the others. People miss opportunities to acquire new customers, improve relationships, and increase satisfaction because email marketing is so good at generating revenue.

Adding the other three objectives provides a competitive edge while increasing sales. It is a classic win-win scenario. Isn’t it time your company started getting more from your investment in email marketing?

The first step is to complete a mini review of your email marketing program to see how effective it is at acquisition, retention, sales, and service. Make a list of the emails sent over the last year and place them into the appropriate category.

What percentage of the emails was designed to acquire new customers? This includes all emails sent to prospects and those that specifically ask customers to share the information with a friend. (Placing a “Tell a Friend” button in the email doesn’t count.) How effective were the acquisition emails at generating new prospects and customers? What changes made them better? How much did it cost to acquire new people?

How many of the emails were specifically designed to keep customers coming back? This question is often met with the response, “our promotional emails keep customers coming back.” If your company is Walmart or you can effectively compete with low price leaders, this response is right. If your company is like most, you don’t have the margins to guarantee the lowest prices and need to create loyalty based customer relationships.

Do your sales emails consistently generate revenue or are you seeing peaks and valleys? Email promotional programs are very predictable once you have enough historical data. Peaks and valleys that are not seasonal suggest that there may be underlying issues affecting your revenue. Subscriber fatigue is one such issue. It happens when people receive the same type of emails over an extended period of time.

The first sign of subscriber fatigue is a decline in open rates. If there is nothing new, then why open the email? The second sign is a higher click-through rate on opened emails. When people are ready to make a purchase, they look for a discount. The combination of lower open rates and higher click-throughs indicate that your emails may have become a coupon mecca.

Are your service emails a statement of facts or a conversation with your customers? Order and shipping confirmation emails can be much more than “here’s your information, thank you for your order” notices. They can be entertaining like the one from CD Baby that colorfully explains that the order has been shipped:

“Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year”. We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!”

Derek Silvers, the founder of CD Baby, says this is the most successful email he has ever written. The recipients shared it with friends, posted it on blogs, and ultimately introduced thousands of new customers to the business. If the fun content doesn’t fit your brand, find the words that keep your company’s image and entertains your customers. They will share it too.

A good email marketing strategy increases sales. A great email marketing strategy increases sales, introduces the company to new people, and keeps customers’ happily coming back for more. The only way to move from good to great is to optimize every email sent to customers and prospects.

This post is an excerpt from 31 Ways to Supercharge Your Email Marketing.