Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Webinar: Reduce Attrition and Build Customer Loyalty with Analytics

Here's a link to stream the webinar we did today! I'm also happy to send you the slides that we used or the Federal Reserve Board Study that Debbie and I reference.

Intelligent Results makes the Wikipedia

I guess the new Internet definition of being "for real" is getting a spot on Wikipedia.


Visit the Intelligent Results reference


Monday, October 02, 2006

Think customers: The 1to1 Blog

Think customers: The 1to1 Blog: "WalMart Overextends
by John Gaffney"

Interesting post from 1 to 1. The ideas expressed below John's post in the comments also illustrate the struggle today's large mega brands face as they grow. Credit card issuers becoming banks, becoming stock brokers and retirement planners, becoming insurance agents and latte vendors. Of course large companies must grow but the questions is can their brands? Or, should they look to create new brands.

The art and science of brand marketing may truly be knowing when a brand is stretched beyond its ability to deliver on it's promises and balancing that with creating so many brands that the consumer can't develop a relationship with any of them. Here's a couple examples. I don't want salads or burritos from McDonalds but I'm happy to go to a McDonalds owned restaurants for either if they inherit some of the value and convenience attributes their parent has. On the other side, as a loyal Marriott customer I'm completely confused about where I'm now supposed to stay when I go down-market. There seem to be 3 or 4 Marriott owned "courtyard" type hotel chains now and I can't tell the difference. The effect is I don't frequent any of them.

The net-net is that brands can't stretch forever and that marketers need to listen to the "voice of the customer" to understand where issues are arising and when expectations are out of line. This same voice can then help to segment customers, identify business opportunities and illustrate the brand attributes necessary for new emerging offerings.