Relationship Marketing
Relationship Marketing
We found one New York Times articles regarding the holiday online sales boon and customer complaints of particular interest. The most telling quote in the article came from a lawyer regarding his experience. “Much as I enjoyed avoiding surly clerks and pushy shoppers, I felt unexpectedly empty after purchasing gifts…Ordering online was faster, but it felt like work.”
Billion Dollar Change
Thanks in no small part to the government’s ability to misplace a few billion research dollars in long-term technology, ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded the development of the replacement for the telegraph and telephone…the Internet. While some view the Internet as an evolution rather than a revolution, the fact is that it is rapidly – and disruptively – changing the way individuals and organizations communicate.
Point and click outlets have painted a clearly rosy picture for the customer – business or consumer – than their brick and mortar or catalog brethren. E-tailers have overlooked or ignored the fact that items can be wrong, damaged, late or lost forever.
Technologists, economists and futurists estimate that 90+% of today’s dotcoms won’t exist in 2 years. Some industry analysts say that only one out of 50 such firms will survive their two-year anniversary. The fallout is inevitable because the rush for gold (VC gold) in Silicon Valley and in other silicon areas of the country was too irresistible to B school graduates and non-graduates alike. With venture capital firms throwing $11 billion at anyone calling themselves a business-to-consumer (B2C) dotcom, the fever was easy to understand.
Follow the Money
Only more sage people and organizations recognized that the consumer wasn’t where the money was going to be but rather it was the business-to-business (B2B) effort that would reap the long-term growth and long-term profits. While consumer sites spent themselves into oblivion prior to the holidays and at the Super Bowl, business sites which received only $3 billion in investments in 1999 watched sales go from zero a couple of years ago to more than $114 billion today.
By 2003 Deloit Consulting estimates B2B will be six times larger than the B2C market and that by the end of 2001 91 percent of U.S. businesses will do their purchases on the Internet.
The reasons for businesses to make the switch are easy to understand since they can measure the results on the bottomline. According to Boston Consulting, B2B will boost productivity 9 percent in the next five years and Goldman Sachs says B2B can slash processing cost more than 20 percent. GE turned in record earnings for shareholders in 1999 and reported that their B2B initiative had cut purchasing costs to $1 compared to $50-$200 per transaction.
B2C organizations can’t show the consumer that type of benefit, especially when he or she encounters big delivery and service/support problems.
We have been busy branding, positioning and promoting our virtual locations. We have been so busy telling the world how great our companies are and how we’re going to change the business and commerce we’ve forgotten the most important factor…the customer.
Companies have to think beyond the transaction and focus on the entire customer experience.
Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the fact that customers tell you who and what you are. Branding is the real-time amalgamation of customer value delivered & customer satisfaction achieved. In today’s Internet environment brand is invented & reinvented minute by minute.
Shifting Focus
Perhaps its time for consultants – including public relations – to help management shift their eyes from the very lucrative and tempting IPO market to the customer who makes the Internet and Web the global phenomenon it is today.
While consumer-oriented dotcoms lose money by the trainloads to prove their click-and-order enterprises are the wave of the future, corporate mangers and governmental agencies are struggling to determine how they can control, manage and make money in the new environment. Companies that believe one-to-one relationships can be computerized invest heavily in new hardware and software systems to automate the customer relations process. Local, state and national governments struggle to determine how they can tax the new economy to support themselves today and in the future.
Rather than working hard to pile up clippings by the pound, PR people would best serve their organizations by helping management focus on the area that counts most – enriched service. Certainly it sounds basic. But somewhere along the line we have sped right by the basics.
Check Your Experience
It’s time for you to get your hands dirty and find out exactly what type of experience the customer has with the organization. If you encounter a problem at any point in your interaction with the company and you’re familiar with the organization, multiply that problem by 1,000 – 10,000. Remember the customer will be less tolerant and a satisfactory transaction is only a click away.
Once you’ve done everything possible to attract customers to the website, part of your job will be to help make certain they come back again and again. Amazon.com lost more than $370 million in 1999 and they will probably lose $350 million this year. We admit we can’t follow the logic of a company that loses money is also considered to be wildly successful but it is easily to see that their customer satisfaction is quite high. According to the company’s reports over 70 percent of their sales late last year were from repeat customers. This makes it easier to attract new customers.
Whether your organization is brick and mortar or click and order, the challenges for public relations and company management will be the same. The customer is still the person who tells you what you are and how successful you are.
Over the next five years the glow of excitement will disappear from ecommerce and ebusinesses. Part, if not all, of the customer experience will be gained from the Internet and Web. How well you help produce a quality experience between the company and the customer will help determine if yours is one of the firms standing or was one that was assigned to a shallow grave.
Suddenly, customer relations takes on a whole new perspective for management and a new degree of urgency in helping the company succeed.
###############
Relationship Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
If you believe the noise, everyone who abandoned brick and mortar stores for the marvelous click and order dotcoms have returned to their roots trying to straddle both sides. To help firms ride the media and IPO frenzy, public relations people did such an excellent job of hyping the speed, ease and beauty of on-line shopping we oversold how good it was going to be.
We found one New York Times articles regarding the holiday online sales boon and customer complaints of particular interest. The most telling quote in the article came from a lawyer regarding his experience. “Much as I enjoyed avoiding surly clerks and pushy shoppers, I felt unexpectedly empty after purchasing gifts…Ordering online was faster, but it felt like work.”
Billion Dollar Change
Thanks in no small part to the government’s ability to misplace a few billion research dollars in long-term technology, ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) funded the development of the replacement for the telegraph and telephone…the Internet. While some view the Internet as an evolution rather than a revolution, the fact is that it is rapidly – and disruptively – changing the way individuals and organizations communicate.
Point and click outlets have painted a clearly rosy picture for the customer – business or consumer – than their brick and mortar or catalog brethren. E-tailers have overlooked or ignored the fact that items can be wrong, damaged, late or lost forever.
Technologists, economists and futurists estimate that 90+% of today’s dotcoms won’t exist in 2 years. Some industry analysts say that only one out of 50 such firms will survive their two-year anniversary. The fallout is inevitable because the rush for gold (VC gold) in Silicon Valley and in other silicon areas of the country was too irresistible to B school graduates and non-graduates alike. With venture capital firms throwing $11 billion at anyone calling themselves a business-to-consumer (B2C) dotcom, the fever was easy to understand.
Follow the Money
Only more sage people and organizations recognized that the consumer wasn’t where the money was going to be but rather it was the business-to-business (B2B) effort that would reap the long-term growth and long-term profits. While consumer sites spent themselves into oblivion prior to the holidays and at the Super Bowl, business sites which received only $3 billion in investments in 1999 watched sales go from zero a couple of years ago to more than $114 billion today.
By 2003 Deloit Consulting estimates B2B will be six times larger than the B2C market and that by the end of 2001 91 percent of U.S. businesses will do their purchases on the Internet.
The reasons for businesses to make the switch are easy to understand since they can measure the results on the bottomline. According to Boston Consulting, B2B will boost productivity 9 percent in the next five years and Goldman Sachs says B2B can slash processing cost more than 20 percent. GE turned in record earnings for shareholders in 1999 and reported that their B2B initiative had cut purchasing costs to $1 compared to $50-$200 per transaction.
B2C organizations can’t show the consumer that type of benefit, especially when he or she encounters big delivery and service/support problems.
We have been busy branding, positioning and promoting our virtual locations. We have been so busy telling the world how great our companies are and how we’re going to change the business and commerce we’ve forgotten the most important factor…the customer.
Companies have to think beyond the transaction and focus on the entire customer experience.
Somewhere along the line we lost sight of the fact that customers tell you who and what you are. Branding is the real-time amalgamation of customer value delivered & customer satisfaction achieved. In today’s Internet environment brand is invented & reinvented minute by minute.
Shifting Focus
Perhaps its time for consultants – including public relations – to help management shift their eyes from the very lucrative and tempting IPO market to the customer who makes the Internet and Web the global phenomenon it is today.
While consumer-oriented dotcoms lose money by the trainloads to prove their click-and-order enterprises are the wave of the future, corporate mangers and governmental agencies are struggling to determine how they can control, manage and make money in the new environment. Companies that believe one-to-one relationships can be computerized invest heavily in new hardware and software systems to automate the customer relations process. Local, state and national governments struggle to determine how they can tax the new economy to support themselves today and in the future.
Rather than working hard to pile up clippings by the pound, PR people would best serve their organizations by helping management focus on the area that counts most – enriched service. Certainly it sounds basic. But somewhere along the line we have sped right by the basics.
Check Your Experience
It’s time for you to get your hands dirty and find out exactly what type of experience the customer has with the organization. If you encounter a problem at any point in your interaction with the company and you’re familiar with the organization, multiply that problem by 1,000 – 10,000. Remember the customer will be less tolerant and a satisfactory transaction is only a click away.
Once you’ve done everything possible to attract customers to the website, part of your job will be to help make certain they come back again and again. Amazon.com lost more than $370 million in 1999 and they will probably lose $350 million this year. We admit we can’t follow the logic of a company that loses money is also considered to be wildly successful but it is easily to see that their customer satisfaction is quite high. According to the company’s reports over 70 percent of their sales late last year were from repeat customers. This makes it easier to attract new customers.
Whether your organization is brick and mortar or click and order, the challenges for public relations and company management will be the same. The customer is still the person who tells you what you are and how successful you are.
Over the next five years the glow of excitement will disappear from ecommerce and ebusinesses. Part, if not all, of the customer experience will be gained from the Internet and Web. How well you help produce a quality experience between the company and the customer will help determine if yours is one of the firms standing or was one that was assigned to a shallow grave.
Suddenly, customer relations takes on a whole new perspective for management and a new degree of urgency in helping the company succeed.
###############
Relationship Marketing - To learn more about this author, visit Andy Marken's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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