(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5)
Loading ...Another discussion from the weekly Strategize-her with Sameerah Siddiqui and Rabia Garib. There is an interesting introductory twist that Sameerah put us through but we were so inspired, we decided to play along and make it the extended introduction to the episode! Just watch the episode and see for yourself.
But Event-based marketing is all about targeting specific strategies to specific consumers at specific incidents or events – take a listen to the discussion and see for yourself.
Oh – and be sure and post your comments and questions here so we can keep the discussion going..
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by rabiagarib and Salma. Salma said: Listening to Sameerah & Rabia on Ep 2 of StrategizeHER > http://bit.ly/o8yFK [...]
Very interesting!
This is turning out to be a fantastic discussion! Its great to hear about other ‘íssues’ in the practical field other than my own experiences – keep it flowing!!
@Rabia, I guess each company has its share of good and bad customers – even in some of the largest Telco’s; there is a HUGE difference in how they deal/speak with their vendors. The old scchool thinking of “Might is right/Scream louder and it will get done faster” is still sadly prevalent. These are the type of people who dont want to speak to the CCA (Call Center Agent), only a manager can solve their problem. In order to free up the CCA, they patch the call over to the manager who is probably also a therapist or a marriage councellor because only they can listen to someone rant on and on and not lose their cool!!!
Now if this was a call directly to the Account Manager, and he/she can’t handle the situation ( like in the earlier example)you have to think about delegating – a word not familiar to many AM’s beccause they feel that they’ll lose he customer if the customer is asked to speak to someone else..
However this raises an interesting issue of ‘sharing information’. I remember in one of my jobs, we had a 30 minute debriefing session to discuss issues raised the day before, so in case I wasn’t availble and my colleague had to take the call, he had an inkling of the customers issue – both sides were kept happy, the customer realised that his cconcern was being dealt with on a corporate level and I kept my relationship.
I think complaints should also be treated as ‘events’ but rather than upsell, these are opportunities to prevent churn or attrition.
BTW, I’m having keyboard issues so if you see a double stroke, its not my fault!
@Sameerah Siddiqui, Hmmm… but in the example, then the customer was the idiot. So my follow up question to you, Sameerah, is, can the most strategic CRM satisfy the most immature customers? Let’s face it – we can bend over backwards for some and they’ll still call up and whine like little girls… And while creating strategies, we put the responsibility on the designation rather than the individual, if the Account Manager wouldn’t have resolved the issue, the customer would have ensured a divorce!
But then if we’re place responsibilities on the designations, then do we need so many account managers?
Do tell!
You know…All these posts brought to mind an incident that I’d like to share as perceived customer services..
It was at a CRM conference in Karachi 2 years ago, where the Customer Services Manager of a cerain Telco was citing an example of excellent customer services…apparantly an accouunt manager received an irate call (one of the 20%) on the day of the AM’s wedding, and while he was in the midst of his nuptials..he managed to solve the customers problem and thereby save the day.
Now while the Manager thought this was a great example of what an account manager should do for his customers, I think this is an example of BAD use of CRM. Customer management should be seemless, it shouldn’t matter who I speak to, they should ALL know who I am and what my worth is to the company. If they dont embracce the tools they have – we will be thrown back to the time where the customer list was the only asset a company had and once a person leaves an organization – the customer usually followed suit.
So @Salma, I completely agree with you, but will add that when you have the right tools, the numbers shouldn’t matter. Its not like someone is there looking at the spikes in spending etc., its all automated..its just a matter of taking out the time to read emails how much simpler do companies want it??
@Sameerah Siddiqui,
sameerah, While I love to call myself an entrepreneur, it’ll be a while (and some million dollars later) before I’ll feel qualified enough to give advice!
But rest assured I’ve already made (and learned from) two huge blunders in my short stint running a business and I think they’ll make great case studies at some point in the future
Salma.
@rabia garib,
rabia: If you’re a single person running an organization, there’s only so much of “you” that can do things. So sometimes certain birthday or anniversary or goodwill wishes will slip off the radar. maybe you’ll just get to it when you get to it. The problem with large corporations, on the other hand, is that once you’re so big, your customer relationship management is not up to you (the owner) anymore, but rather delegated to people on the front line, such as salespeople or customer service agents, etc. So then it becomes a matter of training and keeping tabs on them.
Let me move away from the telcos and banks and airlines to give you an example of an ISP and a baby shop
Back in the day when I worked for a software firm, I helped train CSR agents to use CRM software developed by my firm-it was designed to log in user details the first time and to pop those details every subsequent time, eventually building a very thorough customer profile. I thought the agents (who worked for an ISP) would be super-excited to use such a tool. The reality? They were bummed out at having to learn yet another software and to do all the work of reading whats on their screens instead of being able to act like drones and let the caller do all the work. So go figure…!
The second example is my personal experience with a baby shop, when it opened here in Karachi. I was really happy they were here and went maternity shopping there. Oh the horror stories I have to relate about that experience. But suffice it to say that they have no idea what a customer means much less what event marketing is – they took every opportunity to sell more to me and converted it into a distasteful romp out of their store.
So i think what it boils down to is this:
companies know and acknowledge the need for capitalizing on events in their customer’s life & buying patterns but often fail to make use of it because:
- there are either overwhelmed by no. of customers or
- too far removed from their customers
Please feel free to disagree or agree and let me know why!
oh and about the song, I think you should upload it on youtube
sorry sameerah but I’ll always side with humour and the greater good of mankind 
Salma.
Oh no! Anoher song request (which will hopefully go unheard)!!
You know when you buy a new Play Station action game, you usually get killed 20 times before you learn the ‘çheats’ that take you to he next level. But before learning how to surivive, you want to know how to increase your score – well companies are no better! They tend to focus (in my opinion) in making money rather than realizing that their actual USP are their consumers.
Looking at the Telco market, the phase for customer acquisition is over – the new game is customer retention and the ONLY way to do that is bettering services, yes, but bettering customer service will be the key differentiating factor.
Requesting Rabia to upload the episode which has the song…. Like Latif I bookmarked it for later and now I really miss it. I should have seen it!
@Sameerah
If companies can afford world-class CRM, why isn’t that they invest a little more in understanding & knowing the consumer?
@Sameerah Siddiqui, Why hello there, Madam? Who might you be? I know Salma, Latif, Ghalia and the rest of the people who commented on the previous show – You host a show with me and you don’t know if I have a Car?!?!?! EEEEK!!
We’ve actually already started recording episodes of a show called C-Startups where we’ve invited entrepreneurs to come and talk about what they’ve done right and wrong… Once we have a few more of these done, we’ll release the episodes in a weekly show here.. So watch out for that!
Sameerah? How was THAT for an example of event-based marketing?
Hi there Salma!
The world needs more entrepreneurs! In fact, it would be a great show to hear from people like yourself who have ventured out into the big bad world of self-employment!
Rabia…do you have a car I can wash every day for a year to ensure that clip never re-surfaces?!!
@Salma Jafri, Hey Salma! Good to have you back! See? I welcomed you BACK to the show, rather than acting like I have never seen you before!
More perhaps when you come back, but with things like Facebook and other social networking websites that remind you about people’s upcoming birthdays or anniversaries and the fact that people are so open about updating their status with the announcement of a newborn or a payraise, there is no excuse for even group owners to NOT know what’s ongoing in the life of their groupie!
It’s a whole different debate whether or not you need to spend millions on a CRM solution to intimate you of an event that is personal and has occurred in the life of someone who is announcing it on Facebook. What EVER happened to the personal touch?
Good to know that Dil Ka Quarter brings back so many memories – My only memory is being threatened by Sameerah to haul it off the web, or else!!! How do you think THAT event should be treated?!
@Sameerah Siddiqui, *laffs Well, Sameerah – If there are ENOUGH requests generated from the audience, I think we will have to revert back to the file that HAS the song! You threaten me to remove it, people here are threatening me to put it back on!!
Hello Latif and Ghalia!
The moral of the story is “he/she who logs on immediately gets to see Sameerah sing!”. Realizing that my talents lie elsewhere – I BEGGED Rabia to edit it with the promise that I’ll do as many shows as she wants!
I’m so glad you find the show interesting and thought provoking, considering I always fall in the 80% category – I’m still holding my breath for some A class service!
Whats amusing is that I’m a customer with some companies I KNOW have a state of the art CRM system installed, and yet they speak to me like I’ve called in for the first time!
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!!
awww guys I’m stoked with the thumbs up
thanks!
Don’t have much time right now to leave detailed comments but enjoyed the discussion very much, point taken about using “mini-events” to up-sell, cross-sell, and about keeping your eyes and ears open to such opportunities because they really are everywhere.
p.s. the song is and always will be, hilarious! i grew up listening to Dil Ka Quarter courtesy my mom
Hmmm… seems my cache is emtpy but the video still starts with the discussion rather than the song.. Obviously not as much FUN to watch anymore but well, if you don’t mind my asking = why’d you change the video?
I came by this morning and saw the first 15 minutes or so of the video before I had to rush off for a meeting and I’m not sure, but this clip seems to be a bit different. Could be a problem wit my internet connection but please check? I LOVED the first parts that I saw and bookmarked this just to come back to it in the evening.
A few comments based on what I’ve heard:
- I think Sameerah has touched on a nerve with many telecom companies and financial institutions since NONE of them do this in Pakistan. I think that it’s sheer laziness on the part of our companies since their measure of success if numbers. In 5 service providers, how MUCH of a consumer shift can you possibly have? That’s exactly the kind of thinking that shows how little our companies know about us, and how little they care about us as consumer segments.
- It’s interesting you guys talk about the 80-20 rule. I didn’t think that was something marketing people still knew about! My question is – since it’s never going to be possible to adequately service the 80% of the customers since they ONLY contriibute the 20% of the revenue, why won’t companies just own up and tell everyone what the REAL deal is? Somewhere in an SLA, there has to be SOME Kind of fine print that says, “Beyond the 3rd call for help to our support, please go to hell because you’re not important enough to us!”
SInce comapneis want to cut down on the costs and outsourcing the helpline is one of the ways to make your product appear more brainless than it is, is this something that companies will be able to pay attention to? More importantly, do they care?
Thanks for having a show on a topic that opens up so many discussions that need to be had. I look forward to the other episodes.
Many thanks!
I love the dil ka quarter!