Ways Customer Data Helps Customer Retention

No doubt, data is key to customer acquisition.

But data should be applied to customer retention, too.

When Loyalty360 surveyed 129 executives, here's what respondents said about how data ups the retention factor.

1. Assists with campaign segmentation by identifying groups of customers with similar interests.

2. Triggers 1:1 communications, by effectuating personalized emial campaigns.

3. Builds predictive analytic models that help extract information form the collective experience of a company's customer base and use the data to predict trends, propensities, and behavior.

4. Helps to understand customer attitude and behavior, thus enhancing customer engagement.

5. Helps identify brand affinity.

6. Promotes product propensity and the ability to identify additional products the customer is likely to purchase.

7. Pinpoints channel preference.

Overall, Making Every Interaction Count: How Customer Intelligence Drives Customer Loyalty found that taking action based on the customer intelligence gained from mining and analyzing data yields bottomline results: 54.3% of respondents reported increased spend by loyalty members (54.3%)

Source: Making Every Interation Count, Joint paper of Acxiom and Loyalty360
Download the full paper here.

What Customer Service "Chatter" SHOULD Be Doing For Your Organization

A report from Salesforce projects that a new level of business intelligence will come from online support communities operating in the cloud. So-called "chatter communities" are touted as both a multiplier for current support efforts, as well as a prospective revenue generator for sales and marketing.

Online discussion communities are nothing new, of course. These meeting places for customers with problems have traditionally been set up by vendors or by customers themselves looking to one another for help. In today's data-laden world, however, vendors should be using online discussions in a variety of other organization functions. For example, "chatter communities" supply market research, identify engaged customers, and open the door to volunteer testing and problem-solving.

Feared by some organizations as a place where grumpy customers will sign on to gripe, online discussion boards actually help control bad sentiments by furnishing a place to let off -- and respond to -- steam. Importantly, open discussions also allow companies to integrate customer commentary with other communication and support mechanisms.

In summary, Salesforce suggests that chatter communities should help solve multiple organizational objectives, to wit:

• eliminate "ghost town" problems where customers get no feedback;
• set-up solution channels for especially difficult or peculiar problems;
• integrate the various silos which provide customer support;
• capture customer knowledge;
• replace "noise" with real answers;
• establish a beginning point for newbies to check-in;
• help control negativity;
• demonstrate organizational credibility;
• measure the productivity, success, and ROI of support communities; and
• apply customer support activities to the larger data mining initiative.

-- scrubbed by MarketingBrillo