Thursday, April 29, 2010

Customer Relationship Management And The Greek Crisis



If you are European or familliar with the financial markets, you have heard about the crisis Greece is experiencing right now. Greece is facing a situation where it can't pay back its debt, and therefore is nearby bankrupcy. Indeed, the more its debt increase, the higher the interest rate gets.

Now Greece, as it is part of the European Union, is counting on the help of its European partner to lend it money, in order to pay its debts. Isn't European Union meant for those kind of situation?

It might be. Actually the European Union is eager to provide for about 70% of Greece needs in cash, the other 30% will be funded by the International Monetary Fund. But it would be too simple. Hence, Germany, the most powerful country of the Euro zone, will not lend money unless Greece provides a clear and realistic cost cut program.

Germany is hence doing what the United States have not done while some of their main banks were going down: imposing some concessions and terms for money to be lent. Germany wants to make sure Greece will use wisely this money, in order to change what brought them at this point.

Why do I speak about that, and how do I link this topic to customer relationship management?
Of course it might not seem obvious. But I like how Germany reacts. Indeed, a lot of customer relaitonship management program are based on providing promotions to customers. But as I have said many times on this blog, customer relationship management is about measuring customer value (past, present and future), in order to provide an accurate message).

Indeed, a lot of customer relationship management programs are not profitable, because they have forgot to measure the return on investment, and one's customer potential.

CRM programs implies large amount of investments in order to:
  • Build a strong information system base, which will allow to store customer data, and makes it possible to get accurate knowledge out of the customer
  • Aquire a know how: If you get data, you must be able to analyse and to act based on it. It seems silly, but a lot of company have tons of information and they don't know how to use it wisely.
  • Get a team of people which will animate this data base, and analyse it
Therefore, prior to actually making the statement "we are launching a CRM program, it is important to see if you will actually benefit from it.

Germany did not say it did not want to help nor to lend money to Greece. It just wants to make sure the investment will be worth it. And that should be the very same thing with a CRM program. Customer relationship management must be proparly managed in order to give a clear competitive advantage.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Gatekeeping To Generate Leads

I have read this very interesting blog post from my Friend David Spark: When is the right time to gatekeep content to generate leads?

Indeed, some people like to provide "white books" in exchange of your email address. The goal is to get contact information to generate leads. But as a matter of fact, you will have very poor return rates if you base your strategy on it. Indeed, as David says, email information is personal and has a value. And most of the time people either doubts about the value of the content you want to provide in exchange of the email, but also knows it is not worth it.

The idea is to have a facial value of the content you are going to provide is higher than the email address value.

Here is my thoughts:
1/ Have free interesting content
The first thing is to create traffic on the page. Therefore you need to provide interesting news and information on your blog/website. You need to show your know how, to give tips that shows also you are eager to help the reader.

2/ Create a high value package
You need to understand what would be worth your reader to contact you. Is it white pages? Is it a tool? Is it a check up? You need to figure it out.

3/ Find out the best way to establish the contact afterward
You need to think about a step further. How are you going to actually go beyond giving something out, but you sould think about how you could jump on the occasion to meet with the person, or proposing an extra service.

As I was working in the mortgage business, I have seen once the website of a mortgage broker that I always quote as an example. They had a very nice website, with a lot of information. But they were also proposing a special package, which was worth couple of hundreds dollars. This package was including some reports, tools to manage a mortgage, among other things. But also, if the person who downloaded the package was actually getting a mortgage with them, he could gets back his hundreds of dollars from the mortgage contract.

Very interesting as it was also hooking up the reader into the will to actually buys his house with them.

What do you think about it?

Sunday, April 25, 2010

SCOPS 2010 à Paris DauphineL


J'ai eu la chance cette année encore de me rendre à la cérémonie des SCOPS 2010, organisée par le master distribution et relation client de l'Université Paris Dauphine, où j'ai d'ailleurs fait mes études.


Qu'est ce que les SCOPS?
Le SCOPS est l'observatoire national de l'innovation commercial. Piloté par Paris Dauphine, il a l'ambition de recenser les meilleurs pratiques commerciales en France, et de les analyser afin de ressortir le meilleur. Chaque année, il y a une cérémonie qui a lieu à Paris Dauphine, dans la salle Raymond Aron, ex-salle de réunion de l'OTAN, où les étudiants du master présente les différents dossiers, qui sont sujets à des votes, puis à des remises de prix.


Le vote est réalisé par moitié par le public présent dans la salle, qui se voit remis un boitier électronique, et par un panel d'experts pour l'autre moitié. Nous avions la chance de compter dans ce panel cette année Henri Kaufman, PPC, Thibaut Meunier, Jean Prevost entre autre. Un panel intéressant donc, composé d'agences, d'industriels, de distributeurs, ou de consultants.

Les catégories
Les SCOPS ont donc visé à récompensé 5 catégories:
  • Les services
  • Les concepts commerciaux
  • Les activités promotionnelles
  • Les programmes de fidélisation
  • Les stratégies relation client
Pour chacune de ces catégories, un secteur d'activité était représenté:
  • La grande distribution
  • L'art de la maison
  • La finance/assurance
  • La communication
  • Le luxe
Plus de 200 concepts ont été étudiés, pour arrivé pour chaque catégorie à 5 candidats. Ce qui était intéressant est de voir les qualités oratoires des étudiants, tous très à l'aise devant le jury d'expert, mais aussi la qualité des recherches, avec des concepts effectivement novateur et différenciant.

Ce fut donc une vrai réussite, et cela m'a fait très plaisir de voir d'anciens professeurs, et de voir la vivacité de ce master, qui continue à faire du chemin.

Je me servirai certainement de certains exemples pour écrire des article sur ce blog, mais je vous copie ci dessous le compte rendu que j'ai fait "live" via Twitter. N'hésitez pas à me contacter si vous voulez en savoir plus.
  1. Tgv familly wins
  2. 750 members for 10 000 requests. This is very few... But i'd'like to know if that works.
  3. The-sphere.com a elite social network. 3000 dollars per year to access. A concierge ser ice is provided. There is a coop system
  4. 84% of trains full with the tgv family. I like the way they work on the customer experiencde to differentiate from other competitors
  5. They had a joint venture with disney to get plays and toys for kids.
  6. TGV family. A new train concept based for family. The idea is to propose a customized customer experience for a family
  7. It actually places on the community. Which is very interesting
  8. Credit agricole breizh-banque.com a community bank. It's'in 3 D's.. It works on the bretons, a large diaspora
  9. Increased 0,6 point of customer satisfaction.
  10. Interesting because it is about the customer experience, or actually the consumer experience
  11. Le meridien: arrival experience. Customer relationship by the design
  12. Clubatcost.fr u pay at the lowest price. There is a subscription fee.u pay with no mergins.
  13. I'd'like to know if it s'profitable though
  14. They use electric cars for the delivery... Nice, and ecological
  15. Evianchezvous.com november 2009, they sell for at least 12 bottles and deliver at home.
  16. Crm strategy... I can't wait
  17. La croissanterie airfid
  18. @nclairembault je te le recommande.
  19. This is a facebook like app for yacht lovers
  20. Beneteau yacht club. A luxuary crm program. This is very interesting
  21. Target: 20000 subscribers. Actually: 35000 in a year! I like this one
  22. 10% of generosity rate, and the whole familly benefits of it. This shows out there is not only pros.
  23. Air de famille: the crm programs of corsairfly. www.airdefamille.com
  24. @nclairembault moi j'aime beaucoup seesmic
  25. Umc health insurance's'point counts is very complicated
  26. This is interesting as they start to propose different levels of rewards
  27. They get invitations to private sessions, and other benefits.
  28. Fnac card one. 40 000 peopke have been picked for the premium loyalty reward program. It s'dedicated to 2% of card holders
  29. All of that in 8 months
  30. 70000 subscribers and 17500 vip cards activated.
  31. Mon club vip, the l'oreal crm programs. It is very difficult to establish a crm programs for suppliers as it s'hard to get end customer data
  32. This is a nice way to use loyalty reward cars, or actually to get rid of them
  33. Airfid , a web based. Enabling to have several loyalty reward programs all together
  34. Loyalty reward programs.
  35. Ikea won by 1% before Celio
  36. I vote for ikea because it helps to work before the purchase in a very pragmatic way
  37. Would like to eat there... Above paris with great chefs
  38. Cuisine creative: restaurant n'a kind of zepellin
  39. Would like to know more about la realite alterne jeu
  40. Can you stop it. First alternated reality game. U need to try to save the town of lille.
  41. I'm not sure of that one: to get children into a game to sell them financial products
  42. Bnp paribas uses alioscopie and augmented reality.
  43. 45000 living rooms have been created. They got customer prosects emails thanks to the concept.
  44. That would be interesting for ikea to have furnitures in sim city or second life...
  45. Ikea www.moi-et-monsalon.com you build ur on living room, thanks to ikea furniture. Then u ask on facebook for people to vote for urs
  46. What is interesting is that it actually doesn't cost much in margin to the company.
  47. Celio recycles jeans. U get discounts by giving back ur jeans. This is actually pretty comon as a sales technique
  48. @nclairembault great post
  49. The goal is to show off their aggressive pricing and their customer relationship strategy.
  50. Leclerc, la garantie promo: they compensate anytime the difference between their permanent products with potential competitor's'sales
  51. Sales innovation's'turn
  52. Once again it's'a fantastic event
  53. Zilok has won
  54. i hesitate with zilok and lilibricole
  55. What is interesting is that they have set up a clear competition advantage, by certifying products. Instantluxe.com
  56. Instant luxe: certified second hand luxuary articles
  57. Will zilok prove them wrong
  58. 5000 vehicles available on zilok. This is funny because goshn was saying that people are attached to the ownership of cars.
  59. Zilok, customer to customer rental company. They use geolocation to rent the nearest car possible. They are insured thanks to a partner
  60. Binckbank low cost broker advertising free.
  61. www.lilibricole.com v
  62. This pretty smart, to go on this segment that is actually seeking for working at home
  63. They are seeking to develop via franchising
  64. They have an e commerce website
  65. They propose home construction classes for women
  66. Lilibricole, le bricolage au feminin
  67. Pretty interesting the merci concept
  68. They managed to negotiate discounts of national brand like yves rocher to get less mergins...
  69. Merci, a charity store. 100% of profits to a charity for Madagascar.
  70. Carrefour communique sur la marque et Auchan sur le format. C'est pour cela que Carrefour a pu faire converger son branding
  71. Carrefour city is a great example of powerful retail branding, and the success of carrefour market is a great example
  72. Carrefour City is a nominate. And what about DIA?
  73. Now it s'the concepts
  74. Kris, l'essayage des lunettes en ligne wins! Good! The app is awesome
  75. Slight bug... Who will win?
  76. Chaumet Iphone Apps: Dandy art. Augmented reality thanks to a picture of the wrist u may try out the watch.
  77. Montimbre en ligne: to download ur stamps at home... Déjà vu for years in the US
  78. Virtual paycard of cofidis online. U download a software, and then it creates a credit card number on the go, each time u want to pay
  79. 100 subscriptions/day,the week they launched the service
  80. What's'cool is that they took into consideration the trunk place available, because it is very important if u want to buy furnitures
  81. Ikea launch a carpooling system to get downtown customers.www.covoiturage.ikea.fr
  82. 120000 connexions per month 60% of visitors use the tool online
  83. Kriss and augmented reality: you can try ur glasses on the web with your own face picture. You may send it on facebook for friends opinion
  84. About 1400 restaurants took part in it
  85. The idea is to show out people that took the good measure.
  86. Coca cola: ilsjouentlejeu.fr . The idea is to show out restaurants that decreased their price to the lower taxes.
  87. @PhilJ it's'a sign twitter is moving fast toward generating revenues
  88. @henrikaufman je suis la aussi
  89. Jean prevost directeur de l'innovation du groupe casino is here too
  90. Good mention: nespresso is a great case study of retail realized by a supplier
  91. The crowed will be able to vote thanks to remote handhelds
  92. The work has encompassed 200 concepts, which were checked in details
  93. This is an event of le master distribution et relation client of Paris Dauphine
  94. @ppc is here too
  95. 6 industries: food, services, housing, finance, communication and luxury
  96. Here are the categories: services, sales concept, promotional activities, loyalty reward, customer relationship management strategies
  97. The goal of SCOPS is to reward sales and marketing original efforts of the year.
  98. Glad to see @henrikaufman
  99. Live at dauphine SCOPS
  100. It would be interesting for events like that to classify tweets to better use them afterward
  101. Will be tweeting live tonight @ dauphine for the SCOPS. Who'll be there?