From the House of the Mouse: Customer Experience Excellence

It's been a while since we posted on customer service excellence, and we're happy to report that this week we were able to sit in on an American Marketing Association webcast featuring Disney and Maritz Research. The webcast was entitled, "Delivering the Ultimate Experience: The Power of Connecting With Customers Through Your Front-line Employees." During the presentation, Maritz talked about how they partnered with Disney to support them in creating the ultimate customer experience at their theme parks.

Through this process, Disney created a value equation that benefits both customers and shareholders:

Leadership Excellence + Cast (their employees) Excellence + Guest Satisfaction = Financial Results and Repeat Business

To most effectively improve customer satisfaction, they first sought to really understand their customers by creating customer profiles, looking at both the demographic and psychographic attributes of their customer base. Once this was accomplished, they sought to identify their customers true needs and wants. They looked at this through an emotional response as well, to really get to the root of what their valued guests needed and wanted to experience every time they visited a Disney theme park.

They didn't stop with the customers . . . they knew that they needed to create a successful customer-centric culture from within their company. They emphasized a care philosophy that encouraged employees to treat each other as well as they treated the guests. Then, they educated all employees on the difference between their individual tasks and their overall purpose.

To explain this difference, they gave the example of a Main Street street-cleaner at the Anaheim theme park. His task was to ensure that Main Street was kept pristine throughout the day and this was a task that this employee definitely took to heart. However, his task never out-shined his purpose . . . which was the same purpose as every other Disney Cast Member: to create happiness. Therefore, this individual could be seen doing things like stopping his work to assist people who were taking pictures, and offering to snap the photo himself so that there wouldn't be a missing family member when they returned home and were looking at their vacation photos. And that's just one example. There were many other real Cast Member stories shared during the webcast where employees went above and beyond to ensure an excellent Guest experence.

The idea that everyone's purpose at Disney is to create happiness is the reason that Disneyland is truly the Happiest Place on Earth. By concentrating on both their customers and their employees, they have created an environment where people love to go with their families to happily spend their hard-earned dollars. And, most go back time and again. Remember that Disney value equation? Obviously, it's working!

For more on the importance of creating customer excellence and how the customer experience itself is one of the major tenets in the actual definition of marketing , take a look at this AskDirectMarketers.com question and answer from earlier today.

And, next time you need a break in the action, go to the happiest place on earth for a positive attitude adjustment. Rest assured that your friends at Disney will ensure that your experience is excellent!

We love the Mouse!

Don't Call Me -- I'll Call You!

Those of us involved in telemarketing as our main channel of direct marketing are extremely familiar with the FTC's Do-Not-Call Database (DNC). It was talked about forever, and seemed to take forever to build . . . well, guess what? It's been almost five years since it's inception and the 70% of Americans who originally signed up on the DNC List, are about to face expiration! Yikes! That is, they may have to re-register their number for it to stay active on the Registry.

At first blush, the FTC thought it may be a good idea to purge the database every five years -- to get rid of disconnected numbers and the like. However, according to today's article in DM News, "the registry also uses a scrubbing program that purges disconnected or reassigned numbers on a monthly basis — leading some policymakers to call the 5-year purge unnecessary." Now, several of our political representatives are introducing bills to get rid of the 5-year purge rule -- and there are even bills that talk about never purging the database, making all registrations permanent.

Let's reflect for a moment on how opinions about this Do-Not-Call Registry have changed over the past five years. Back in 2003, our clients were simply flipping out over the aspect of not getting as many "phones" back to fuel their telemarketing efforts. However, from what we've seen, the 30% of Americans who haven't registered their phones are actually open to a telemarketing call. See, it gets back to the idea of putting the customer in the driver's seat -- the major point behind Customer Experience Management.

The point of focus here is that the 30% of Americans who would rather hear from us via their telephone have stated their preference (well, some of them are just lazy and haven't figured out how to sign up on the DNC registry . . . but still). And, that preference is that they'd like to be contacted via the phone to hear about products and services that they may be interested in purchasing now or in the future. That's good news for those of us who are calling them, right?

As a direct marketer who is consistently trying to find creative ways to increase response and conversion rates, this is music to my ears! I'd much rather contact someone over the phone who wants to hear from me than someone who doesn't.

The whole point of today's post is to remind us that we'll sell more if we listen to our customers. The beauty of direct marketing is that, today more than ever, we have multiple channels in which to reach out to our customers. We need to, whenever possible, give them the ability to tell us how they wish to be communicated with -- then follow those wishes and communicate with them in that fashion.

Again, this is the key driver in the definition of Customer Experience Management. When you let the customer drive your marketing efforts, they become an advocate for your business without even knowing it. As a business, you can learn from these preferences, model from them, and find other customers who may wish to buy from you.

So, go ahead and leave those consumers on the DNC Registry forever. They don't want to talk to us anyway! But, they may like to receive an email . . . or direct mail piece . . . or order from your website . . . or comment on your blog. It's all good!

Customer Experience Management for the Romantically-Inclined

It's fun to see how we, as direct marketers, can impact all kinds of customer experiences. Often-times, we think of our direct marketing efforts as impacting the customer experience of car buyers, loan appliers, catalog shoppers, and the like. However, in a recent article by Earth Times, managing the customer experience for those in search of ultimate romance can be impacted by database marketing tools. Who would have thunk it?

eHarmony has recently entered into a relationship with Tealeaf (who touts itself as the leader in online customer experience management). You have probably seen the eHarmony commercials on TV that show lots of smiling, kissing, and overall happy couples who have met their true soul-mate at the relationship service website. In fact, "on an average day, more than 90 eHarmony members marry as a result of being matched on the site (Harris Interactive, 2005)."

The article goes on to state that "as eHarmony has grown, the company has sought out the most advanced technologies in order to provide an optimum user experience for its members." Hence, their speedy growth.

In fact, Tealeaf VP of Marketing, Geoff Galat, puts it all into perspective. Galat states that through their Tealeaf CX Solution, they enable eHarmony to "optimize its members' experiences, ensuring an exciting journey toward finding true love, and creating a more profitable venture for company stakeholders." So, there you have it . . . romance and profitability.

So, as a group, we direct marketers should be proud -- not only can we help our clients build more profitable customer relationships, but our techniques and theories can actually make love blossom!

Beyond CRM -- Customer Experience Management

Continuing on our theme from yesterday's blog posting of acquiring -- and keeping -- customers, author Bill Porter of Porter Research has written an interesting article on CEM -- Customer Experience Management. According to Porter, "Customer Experience Management is a multi-dimensional phenomenon including both process and product and differs greatly from earlier simplistic movements like customer delight or the magic three questions to ask customers today. On the process side CEM seeks to measure customer expectations all the way from early customer encounters in the buying process – customer identification and customer acquisition - through support help requests and additional purchases of products and services throughout the customer life cycle (or the customer retention phase). On the product side, key factors like partnership and transparency matter a lot while customers traverse the phases above with a supplier or vendor."

As direct marketers, CEM is key to effectively planning campaigns -- whether they are fueling your acquisition or retention efforts. In fact, we would argue that the three key phases of CEM -- as outlined by Porter-- act as a strategic roadmap for your marketing plan. Paying close attention to your customer segments as they move through these phases will allow you to increase the success rate of each direct marketing campaign, and assist you in reaching your profitability goals.

TGIF!