The output of effective total marketing is the promising marriage of the company promise and customer experience; a satisfied customer espousing your products and services to all. However, harnessing the essence of customer-centricity is easier than it sounds in the textbooks. So how can it be part of Total Marketing?

Companies are seeing some real step changes in putting the customer first; they are revitalising their approach to meeting customer needs by embracing innovation. It’s the word on everyone’s lips; even the government is taking it seriously “The Cox Review was commissioned to look at how best to enhance UK business productivity by drawing on our world-leading creative capabilities” (Ref.1) Innovation is key and its success depends on understanding customers’ needs, but it is not a panacea to customer-centricity.

Some of the fundamental challenges to a total marketing or total customer-centric approach still exist. In our experience, in previous client side jobs and working with clients, the following are the most common barriers to delivering optimum customer experiences.

The following provides more detail about the above challenges:

1. Lack of inter-departmental collaboration

What’s the problem?

There is a fundamental human need to have your ideas loved and cherished. So, why is it then that we try to pour water over everyone else’s? It’s simple. Because we want ours to win, to live, to breathe and to be on the 96 sheet outdoor billboard. NIH or Not Invented Here is a wide-spread corporate phenomenon. People like to be involved from the start and have an equal voice in the idea generation process. Nobody likes to be given a ‘done deal’, only to have to implement something they’ve had no input to. Tom Kelly talks in his book 10 Faces of Innovation about how “the role of devil’s advocate is nearly universal in business today. It allows individuals to side step themselves and raise questions and concerns that effectively kill new projects and ideas, while claiming no responsibility”. This is when staff productivity goes down and levels of disengagement set in.

What’s the solution?

It seems obvious to just say ‘get the relevant stakeholders involved at the outset’, but if you do it in a fun and engaging manner; the difference to the life of the project and therefore the customer experience at the end can be amazing. Impartial facilitation works well and allows everyone to be heard and involved. This is ideal for many objectives, from idea generation workshops to general decision making in meetings. The facilitator needs to have a well designed format and preferably training in facilitation. We have found graphic facilitation works fantastically with our clients; using large templates and visual images really brings everyone together. The consequence of approaching inter-departmental collaboration in this way sees higher productivity, increased staff engagement and everyone knows and appreciates their important role in the value chain.

2. Stale customer knowledge

What’s the problem?

If you have excellent CRM data, it can tell you an awful lot about what your customers are doing, but it will not tell you why they are doing it. Many assumptions are made about what CRM data does and doesn’t mean and this leads to the development of customer service strategies, NPD or marketing material that doesn’t marry with customer needs. Only the customer can tell you why and market research is key.

The other problem can lie in the way traditional market research is handled. As a researcher, I am an advocate of customer understanding and believe this has some truly hidden power for business [see What’s the solution?]. If we do not challenge clients in terms of their objectives and how the research should be carried out, then we’re not doing our job. The end point in all of this is to help businesses’ relationships with their customers. You and I are customers; don’t we want things to be good for us?

What’s the solution?

Business activity whether it be strategic or tactical is changing and adapting. In order to keep your finger on the pulse of your customers you need to have continuous deep understanding of them. This will help you to feed in new information to a variety of ongoing projects e.g. strategy development, marketing communications planning and NPD. Qualitative Panels have worked well for our clients, giving them valuable on-going insight into the life of their customers

The other key to understanding customers is how deep you go. 95% of our thinking takes place in the sub-conscious (Ref. 2) and it is this that drives buying behavior. Surface level questions bring surface level answers and these often do not hold the key to how a person truly thinks and feels. Techniques for this are still in their infancy but we have had some great results with our Sub-Merge for financial services; where clients are surprised to see that rate is not in fact a key driver.

3. Insufficient access to Customer Knowledge

What’s the problem?

Often we find that clients’ changing priorities mean they can’t attend research de-briefs. It’s no different to the customer world – in the business world, people are busy. In addition, the PowerPoint deck is rarely re-referred to after de-brief - not that it isn’t a useful document to have, it’s the complete story. It’s just that the format sometimes means it stays in the bottom of the desk draw. It’s unwieldy trying to find your nuggets of information in 48 slides. So, the other key challenge is access to past research. Companies have so much information that it would be a tiresome job to catalogue it and…as we’ve said, people are busy, and it won’t be a top priority.

What’s the solution?

Web-sites/portals are an excellent way of holding and categorising customer knowledge. Tabulation systems give easy access and it’s a doddle to upload and down-load presentations and video.

We’re also developing blogs, pod-casts, live and recorded de-briefs on-line and surgery sessions. This is more relevant to people’s lives at work; we want the info to be useful and usable.

4. Not knowing how to effectively apply customer knowledge

What’s the problem?

Customer needs.

“What?” I hear you cry…”I thought that was the holy grail”. Yes, it is, but only if

a) you know how to articulate them and
b) you know what to do with them once they have been articulated.

I have spent many meetings working client side hearing the debates around what a need is or trying to find the ‘right’ one. [Can’t a customer have more than one need?] Often these debates focus around ‘quicker’ ‘convenience’ but this is not specific enough. A need is a problem or frustration articulated as a benefit, for example ‘helping your children ease their student debt’.

Once the need has been articulated, the next major challenge is working out how to turn it into a profitable solution. Therein lies one of the biggest problems:

Profit.

“What?” I hear you cry again….. ”I thought marketing was all about meeting needs profitably”
Well, yes it is, but only if you assess the potential income or profit at the right stage.

Often profit and income estimates are made far too early, ie before an idea or concept has been tested with the market. Unfortunately this is often what is required in business cases to get up-front investment agreed, but it is these early assumptions that can lead to the shocking product failure statistic, nearly 80% of new offerings fail (Ref 2). Product and service development does require investment, but until a concept has been developed and tested, you cannot begin to work out the potential income.

What’s the solution?

Customer needs can only truly be identified by a deep knowledge of your customers (see what’s the solution to ‘Stale Customer Knowledge). Articulating needs and generating winning product propositions takes a well-thought out process from defining benefits to brainstorming. This is best done collaboratively, ie by including a variety of stakeholders (see what’s the solution to ‘Lack of inter-departmental collaboration’). In specifically designed product generation processes, profit estimates are left until the very end, ie until after you have tested back your ideas with the customer. Until you know whether your customers like it, how many of them like it and what price they might pay for it, you can’t estimate product take-up and income.

Caroline Southard
Innovation Director
c.southard@metroresearch.com

www.metroresearch.com
0870 241 2401

References:
1 HM Treasury – Cox Review of Creativity In Business. The Cox Review of Creativity in Business: building on the UK's strengths was published on the 2nd December 2005. The review was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of Budget 2005 and has been led by Sir George Cox.
2 Gerald Zaltman – How Customer’s Think