MultichannelRetail and Customer Retention

Kieron Smith

1. Consistency, Price and Personalisation

2. Personalise or customise

3. Integration, integration, integration

4. Why is the customer never happy?

5. The 360 experience

6. Different channels for different folks

7. Don’t be lazy

8. Conclusions

Agenda

Consistency

Within a commodity market, price often becomes the determining factor of whether

a relationship will continue.

Your price is…

Getting value from contact

Nunes and Kimbal where by ‘personalisation’ online consisted of a poor recommendation of a book, whereas customisation involved asking the

customer to approve any suggested customisations e.g. “we notice you visit this page often, would you like to have a direct

here on the homepage when you return next?”

IntegrationIntegrationIntegration

Why the customer is never happy

The famous 1967 Stanley Milgram study which showed there were at most “six degrees of separation”

between any two people in America

Despite the increase in population the number has now fallen to 4.6

Customers bad experiences spread faster than ever before

The Economist 21 01 06

Bombarded, cynical & informed

“We now have a far moreinformed but far more cynicalconsumer.”Siemon Scamell-Katz

Average of 3,500 dailymessages 99% have noimpact

The Guardian 19 11 05

Expose your guts

… or the customers will

Hack-Your-Own

Our experience of the informed customer on a mission

Different channels still work better for different purchase experiences

CRM is not an excuse to be lazy

"The problem is that companies are trying to avoid the risks of creating new markets in a more dynamic sense...Rather than really develop exciting new products and services, and pumping more resources into radical innovation, there is an attempt to get the customer excited about a better quality service, a re-branding initiative, or a bland brand extension."

The Timid Corporation Benjamin Hunt

Conclusion• Leverage internal tools and relationships to

mitigate commoditisation & price effects.• Customisation that works involves asking the

customer to approve ‘personalisation’• Integrate promotions, relations – EVERYTHING!• The networked customer is cynical and

bombarded – target well and work with them or they will work around you.

• CRM is not an excuse to be lazy