Customer Centric Business Strategies Blog

Apr 12 2013

Now Is the Time for Big Data Analysis & Insight

Making More Informed Decisions

by Barton Goldenberg, Founder & President, ISM

I received a lot of inquiries about Big Data Analysis & Insight as a result of my April column in CRM Magazine, The Future Is Now for Data Analytics. This increasing interest in “Big Data” is—I believe—because more and more best-in-class companies see data-driven decision-making as the way to make more informed decisions.

Many of us doing business in the 1980’s and 1990’s remember ‘predictive modeling’ and ‘data marts’ promoted as the Next Big Thing. Now touted as Big Data, many companies are successfully using data analytics and predictive modeling. But data-driven decision-making is not, as I noted in my column, a “slam dunk”.

The big challenge is in successfully handling the all-important step analyzing raw data through to informed decision-making. Here are the top issues: (1) getting clean, complete data, (2) the complexity of existing data analysis tools, and (3) the availability of data subject matter experts who can present insights coming from data analytics and insight tools to sales, marketing, and customer service executives. These top issues, I predict, will be successfully solved this year.

We are helping many of our clients address data-driven decision-making, with some very impressive results, but be aware that this cannot be a one-off event. With several customers we are into second, third, or even fourth-generation data models that use both quantitative (transactional) and qualitative (from customer interviews and surveys) data to provide continually deeper customer insights.

I see the job of the executive as twofold: to guide the data we want our computers to crunch and to play an active role in interpreting data insights so that enhanced decisions can be made.

I would like to get your opinion on this increasingly important business tool so please add your comment below. For you who are interested in ISM’s Big Data Insight & Analysis services, please contact thoston@ismguide.com to set up a call. While Big Data has big challenges, the rewards are astounding!

Posted by - jennifermq @ 9:55 am

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Mar 21 2013

The New Trend of of Gamification in the CRM Marketplace Webinar Highlights

Summarized by John Chan, ISM Software Lab Director

On March 12, 2013, Barton Goldenberg, president of ISM, along with Giles House (VP of Marketing Communications and Products at CallidusCloud) and Barry Givens (Director of Product Management at Avanade) presented a Webinar titled “The New Trend of Gamification in the CRM ”. Highlights of the Webinar follow:

The Gartner Group predicts that: By 2015, 50% of Fortune 200 companies will have a gamification application…

Gamification is defined as:

• The use of applying game-like elements to non-game environments to influence behavior.
• The integration of game mechanics into a website, campaign or application in order to drive engagement.

The Gamification Deployment Options are:

• Gamification Platform: e.g., Foursquare
• Gamification Service: e.g., Samsung Nation
• Gamification Custom App: e.g., EpicMix

The Core Components of Gamification are: Interactive game features, Rewards and Status.

Gamification has undergone explosive growth: 2010, businesses spent $100 million on gamification and,in 2016, that figure is estimated to reach $2.8 billion. In 2010 there were 500 results for Google searches for “Gamification”. Today there are 9.95 million results. Gartner further predicts that by 2014, a gamification service for consumer goods marketing and consumer retention will be as important as Facebook, eBay and Amazon.

Key gamification business results:

Engagement
• 40% increase in page views
• 85% increase in user-generated content
• 60% increase in time spent on site

Loyalty
• 70% increase in repeat visits
• 150% increase in sign-ups
• 120% increase in social sharing

Commerce
• 40% increase in add-to-cart
• 15% increase in conversations
• 25% increase in referrals

For Gamification in a CRM solution, there will be a need for:

Real Time feedback to enable fast decision making,
Integration across knowledge management and collaboration.
Incentive design to ensure ongoing health of the rewards system.

The Value of Gamification in Service includes:

Clarity
• Real time feedback
• Inline with task flow
• Relevant coaching

Job Satisfaction
• Clear goals
• Rewards matching behavior
• Lack of ambiguity in performance

Lower Turn-over
• Greater connection to team mates
• Reduced stress

One should beware of possible crimes against gamification such as trivialized incentives, inflation, game management and narrow measurement.

In preparation for gamification, here are three key principles that ISM recommends each organization examine:

• Look at what you are doing to drive quota attainment or CSR performance (e.g., CRM systems, new sales/service processes) and apply gamification principles today
• Need to be smart about what you are measuring – quality as much as quantity
• Be sure to have your gamification strategy and roadmap in place!

In closing, ISM can confidently state that gamification is “here today” as we are simply applying a social technology to time-tested, motivational methods, Prepare for gamification as incentives are critical (e.g., pay-for-performance, individual versus team-based). Determine how best to preserve, record, and share learned information using gamification. Lastly, badges for gamification results are good for recognition, but must be complemented by meaningful rewards.

During the Webinar, participants answered five polling questions. Results are:

1. My organization is actively pursuing one or more gamification projects at this time?

Yes – 24%; No – 47%; On the drawing board: 29%

2. Do you believe that your sales teams are solely motivated by money?

Strongly agree – 44%; Somewhat Agree – 44%; Disagree: 12%

3. Do you see businesses adopting performance-based compensation and incentives in customer service operations?

Happening Now – 24%; Next 2 – 5 years – 47%; Never: 29%

To comment, please post your comments on the ISM Blog.

To access an archived recording of this ISM’s Webinar, click here and scroll down to the “The New Trend of Gamification in the CRM Marketplace” Webinar listing.

Posted by - jennifermq @ 10:33 am

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Feb 27 2013

“The Customer of the Future” Webinar Highlights

Summarized by John Chan, ISM Software Lab Director

On February 20, 2013, Barton Goldenberg, president of ISM, presented a Webinar titled “The Customer of the Future: How to Prepare for Success”. Highlights of the Webinar follow:

The keys to succeed in selling and marketing to the Customer of the Future (Generation Y) are:

• Every organization needs to have in place an integrated Social CRM strategy that leverages both public and private social communities to drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.
• Mobility and gamification must be a part of that strategy.
• Business value must be identified from the outset of your Social CRM initiative; it cannot be an afterthought.
• Getting the people/process/technology mix right for Social CRM is a new and complex challenge.

The Digital Client

At present, the Digital Client is Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation, those born early 1980s to the early 2000s. Generation Y have only known digital technology in their lives. They number 80 million in US, 1.7 billion globally (3 billion by 2015) and will be 45% of world population by 2015. On the average, Generation Y spends 11 hours/day digitally connected (53 hrs/week). A survey of Generation Y found that 90% regularly research and 50% purchase items on Web.

Digital Client’s Impact on Mobility and Gamification

The digital client influence is being felt in the mobile device market. Currently, there are 1.3 billion cell phones sold annually. Forecasters predict that smart phone penetration will be greater than 50% by 2015. The number of mobile subscribers worldwide will reach 8.9 billion in 2017 and the number of application downloads worldwide will reach 98 billion in 2015.

With the growing impact of Generation Y, another leading trend will be increased spending on gamification (the use of game mechanics and game design techniques in non-game contexts). Forecasts are that spending on gamification by the digital client generation will grow from 10% in 2013 to 31% in 2016.

Integrated Social CRM Strategy

ISM recommends the Hub and Spoke model as a method of gaining value from Social Media efforts within an organization. The real question is, “What does an organization want people to do?”. If the organization wants people to buy products, the goal of the Social Media effort should be leading people to the organization’s eCommerce Website. If the organization wants people to sign up for a service/offering to provide information for marketing purposes, the key goal should be to drive customers to a fill-in form on the organization’s Website. The goal of Social Media tools such as Facebook and Twitter is to drive traffic to the organization’s Website, eCommerce Website, database, private community, etc., and bring the relevant information to the organization’s CRM system for storage and analysis.

Today, organizations need tools that pull and filter relevant information from Social Media Websites using massive listening capabilities using free-text data analysis capabilities and conduct effective marketing programs using real-time analysis within a CRM system, to make effective decisions within the Social CRM arena.

A leading CRM vendor, Infor, has an excellent outbound marketing capability module for marketing campaigns and has a Social Media channel with effective email and event management functionality. Infor additionally has a vehicle to take information that comes from the social community, which will allow an organization to create a marketing campaign with key messages for certain segments. Infor also has a real-time interactive advisor that looks at how people are responding to marketing experiments, scores the marketing responses and determines the likelihood of the success of a product.

During the Webinar, participants answered five polling questions. Results are:

1. My organization currently uses Social Media to interact with our customers/prospects?

Yes – 75%; No – 0%; Work in Progress: 25%

2. My organization currently integrates Social Media community insight into our CRM system?

Yes – 18%; No – 64%; Work in Progress: 18%

To comment on Barton’s key highlights concerning the Customer of the Future Webinar, please post your comments on the ISM Blog.

To access an archived recording of this ISM’s Webinar, click here and scroll down to the “The Customer of the Future” Webinar listing.

Posted by - jennifermq @ 11:48 am

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Feb 07 2013

I Don’t Like Predictions BUT….

By Jean Young, Vice President, ISM

I’m not a big fan of New Year predictions – or the next big thing. But, here I go. Based on ISM’s clients – a number of global best-in-class organizations – and the insights of the company’s founder and president, Barton Goldenberg, there are a number of “trends” that have become or are becoming institutionalized.

And, the “we are here to stay” winners are:

Social Media’s Impact on marketing, sales, customer service, product development and more is two-way, immediate and here-to-stay. Social media’s many iterations will continue to be integrated into daily business practices. This includes Social CRM, in which companies harvest “social insight” directly into their sales and marketing efforts, to “social” mobile devices increasing efficiencies at work and shopping and to just having fun. Speaking of fun, now gamification is increasingly becoming an incentive for adopting sales and marketing applications.

“Big Data” Analysis & Insight: In the old days, we called it predictive modeling but let’s face it, Big Data sounds, well, bigger. And, it is. With more customer data flowing into every organization (thank you social media), and with the advent of new data analysis tools, Big Data is “big” because it consists of all private and public data available about your customers/prospects from ERP and CRM systems; social insights harvested from public and private social communities; and from third party sources and more. As Barton says, “At the end of the day, all that counts is your organization’s ability to use this data to make more informed business decisions.”

eCommerce On the Go: I am always nervous with anything with an “e” in front of it but the term eCommerce has endured. And, so has the concept: when you can buy efficiently and save money, customers usually come a running. The statistics for online retail sales are daunting. Global e-commerce sales are predicted to top $1.25 trillion for 2013. The real drama is in the B2B world, which has relied more on traditional “relationship” sales. ISM is working with a number of B2B businesses, which want sales and marketing to go online ASAP. Watch for major inroads in that marketplace.

OK, we’ll do a “review” at year’s end. Until then, you better get onboard.

Tags: Data Analysis, eCommerce, social mediaPosted by - jennifermq @ 9:41 am

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Jan 22 2013

“Why a CRM Assessment is a Necessity?” Webinar Highlights

Summarized by John Chan, ISM Software Lab Director

On January 15, 2013, Barton Goldenberg, president of ISM, presented a Webinar titled “Why a CRM Assessment is a Necessity?” Highlights of the Webinar follow:
‘
In starting a CRM Assessment, critique your organization’s existing CRM initiative and answer these questions:

• Is CRM still in lock-step with your organization’s strategic directions?
• Is your CRM application able to deliver your organization’s functional and technical needs?
• If your CRM technology cannot deliver these needs, can other more innovative tools fulfill these needs?
• In addition to technology issues, are there relevant CRM “process” and/or “people” issues that need to be resolved to secure maximum benefit from your CRM system?

The CRM Assessment Components include:

• Strategic linkage review – Review/critique your existing CRM Roadmap and answer two questions:

- Do you have a CRM Roadmap and does it tightly align with your organization’s strategic & business direction?
- How can your CRM Roadmap be improved to achieve tighter alignment?

• Organizational Readiness Assessment – Dig into cultural issues including user adoption and examine whether your organization has reached a “tipping point” Design, implement and analyze a web-based User Adoption Survey to identify areas that require improvement.

• Business Process Assessment – Ask how well does your current CRM system address your organization’s key business processes. Document your top five “as-is” business processes and determine if users feel it is easy to implement key business processes and document findings (business process and application-related).

• Technology Assessment – Review current CRM applications to answer relevant technology assessment questions and document findings.

The CRM Assessment is a cost-effective way to identify and resolve issues that may be hampering both user adoption and payback from your CRM investment.

During the Webinar, participants answered five polling questions. Results are:

1. When was the last time your organization did a CRM assessment?

Within last 12 months – 18%; Within last 24 months – 9%; Last 36 months – 18%; We have not done a CRM Assessment – 55%

2. Our organization’s CRM system is tightly linked to our business strategy?

Yes – 30%; Kind Of – 20%; Work in Progress: 50%

3. User adoption for our CRM system is strong?

Yes – 13%; Kind Of – 25%; Work in Progress: 63%

4. Our organization’s CRM system effectively supports our organization’s core business processes?

Yes – 18%; Kind Of – 18%; Work in Progress: 64%

5. Our organization’s CRM system incorporates the latest technologies (e.g., mobile, social media integration, gamification)?

Yes – 30%; Kind Of – 40%; Work in Progress: 30%

If you would like to comment on Barton’s key highlights concerning the necessity of a CRM Assessment, please post your comments on the ISM Blog.

To access an archived recording of this ISM’s Webinar, click here and scroll down to the “Why a CRM Assessment is a Necessity” Webinar listing.

Tags: CRM AssessmentPosted by - jennifermq @ 1:28 pm

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Dec 21 2012

Happy Holidays!

As 2012 draws to a close, all of us at ISM want to wish you and your families a happy and safe holiday season. We also want to thank you for your friendship and business during this past year.

2012 has turned out to be a banner year for ISM, including CRM, Social CRM and Social Media engagements with 10 new clients as discussed on this ISM press release as well as additional business from 4 long-term clients – ExxonMobil, Kraft Foods, Mechosystems, and Universal Forest Products. ISM continues our pioneering work in the area of Social CRM including the design and implementation of private Social Media communities for several of our clients, which integrate ‘social insights’ from their community into the customer profiles contained within their CRM system. We have also moved aggressively into the digital marketing and data analytics space including several new engagements in the areas of customer segmentation, customer experience, and customer journey mapping, the output of which gets integrated into their CRM system. Thanks for letting us know if you feel we can be of assistance to you in any of these areas.

In this blog post, ISM is also announcing the topics for our new Social CRM webinar series covering the January – June 2013 timeframe. Based on participant feedback, you will not want to miss these events! Our new series includes entirely new webinars on gamification and mobility, and enhanced webinars on the Customer of the Future, Digital Marketing and Social CRM. If you are not able to attend a webinar, please remember that we archive each webinar for 90 days upon completion of the event at this Weblink.

I have had the pleasure of being a keynote speaker at a number of significant venues, including the Gartner Customer 360 Summit in Orlando; Selling Power’s Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conferences in Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco; and sales luncheons for Infor in Chicago and Dallas. Audiences are eager to know more about readying for the Customer of the Future in today’s mobile, social media focused world. If you would like more information, please go to this Weblink.

Best wishes,

Barton Goldenberg
President and founder

Tags: 2013 ISM Webinars; Customer of the FuturePosted by - jennifermq @ 9:45 am

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Nov 26 2012

“Building a Social Media Community” Webinar Highlights

Attendee polling questions show that for most organizations social media communities are a work-in-progress.

By Kathy Barton, Senior VP of Social CRM

On November 13, 2012, Kathy Barton, Senior Vice-President of ISM, presented a Webinar titled “Building a Social Media Community: Who is Just as Important as What”. Highlights follow:

To get started in building a Social Media Community, ISM recommends you:

- Determine the objective
- Define the audience
- Create the governance structure
- Assemble the team
- Decide on the strategy
- Build the plan
- Execute

Tools such as Facebook and Twitter are great for building brand and driving people to specific landing pages. However, if you want use social media to increase customer intimacy and support specific corporate goals, you need a private social community, where you own the data and have some control over content. It is important to keep in mind that people want to have conversations with other people, not corporations. Organizations need to create a community personality, and understand how that relates to their brand. In understanding your audience, ISM recommends knowing the answers to these four questions:

1. What purpose does your social media community serve for community members?
2. Which constituency should we be targeting?
3. What do they care about? (e.g., Interaction, Access, Deals)
4. What are their techno-graphic profiles?

During the Webinar, participants answered four polling questions. As you can see below, two-thirds of participants either had their own community or were planning one:

1. Does your organization currently have its own private community?

Yes, for clients – 21%; Yes, for employees – 26%; In the planning stage – 16%; No – 37%

Despite this, only a third felt that their organization was culturally ready for a more open, engaged relationship with their customers, and very interesting disconnect:

2. Do you think your organization is culturally ready for this type of relationship with your customer?

Yes – 30%; No -30%; Getting there – 40%

Another interesting data point concerns the number of companies that have a social media policy, or guidelines, for the employees, the lowest number yet:

3. Does your organization have a Social Media Policy for employees?

Yes – 27%; No – 47%; Work in progress – 27%

This feedback seems to indicate that although a over 60% of participants have or are planning a private community, far less than that have the governance structure and cultural readiness to properly support these communities.

4. Does your organization monitor or ban social media networking at work?

Yes – 13%; No – 60%; Some restrictions – 27%

This feedback seems to indicate that social media networking monitoring/policies is still in the infancy stage and with the growth of social media networking, organizations will have to develop policies regarding social media networking in the near future.

Our next blog will address social media policies for employees as presented in the webinar.

If any readers would like to comment on the key highlights concerning the webinar, please post your comments on the ISM Blog.

To access an archived recording of ISM’s, click here and scroll down to the “Building a Social Media Community: Who is Just as Important as What” Webinar listing.

Tags: social communities, social crm, Social Media community, social media policiesPosted by - jennifermq @ 11:59 am

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Oct 25 2012

The Future of Customer Relationships Keynote Speech Summary

By Barton Goldenberg, President of ISM

Barton Goldenberg spoke October 23rd on The Future of Customer Relationships: How to Prepare for Success at a well-attended Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. A summary follows:

Social Media is all about the ability of individuals to share and connect freely online. ISM defines Social Media as:

• A set of highly interactive technology tools that leverage the fundamental human desire to interact with others.
• A new way for organizations to communicate with and relate to employees, consumers, customers, partners and other stakeholders.

The increasing interplay of Social Media with CRM has created an entirely new marketplace phenomenon, Social CRM, which is forecasted by Gartner to grow to a $1 billion worldwide market by 2013. Social CRM is the intersection between Social Media and CRM. It consists of the ability to: harvest information from Social Media Websites, integrate this information with the customer profile and use the expanded profile to better personalize customer service, marketing messages and sales offers.

At present, a majority of organizations are just gathering information concerning their customers and placing this information in a CRM system. The customer data is usually just fact-based (where this person lives, works, title, etc.).

With Social CRM, an organization can gather information about customers from information placed online by their customers (such as their opinions on a product/service) using Social Media tools. Afterward, relevant customer information can be placed into an organization’s CRM system and added to the appropriate customer profile. Subsequently, the organization can use this information to personalize their customer communications since each customer will only want to see the company communications relevant to them. Understanding what is relevant to an organization’s customers can be a real challenge, but an organization’s staff can use various Social Media analytical tools to determine what is relevant from the customers’ Social Media community profiles and their comments posted on various social communities. Furthermore, with Social Media, an organization’s staff can have an online conversation with their customers/prospects relating to their preferences and their emotional content concerning the organization’s products/services.

By marrying transactional data from your traditional CRM system with sentimental insights by customers from their participation on social sites, you gain a more complete understanding of your customers, which in turn helps you to improve marketing, sales, and service.

Tags: customer relations, customer relationships, social crm, social mediaPosted by - jennifermq @ 10:26 am

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Oct 17 2012

ISM Adds New Clients for Its Customer-Centric Strategic Services

Digital Customer Driving CRM Upgrades and Social Media Offerings

By Jean Young, Vice President, ISM

Good news travels fast. When the ISM team, led by Barton Goldenberg, realized 10 new clients had signed up in six months, it was a confirmation of ISM’s track record and of its drive to look ahead. “Best-in-class companies of all sizes, both B2Cand B2B, are realizing the importance of moving ahead with next-generation CRM systems, leveraging Social CRM to increase customer intimacy, and fostering collaboration and customer outreach with Social Media Communities”, Goldenberg commented in a press release distributed nationwide via PR Web.

ISM’s new clients are diverse, including Zumba Fitness with 14 million folks in 140,000 weekly classes. Goldenberg sees a major change in the marketplace. Seasoned executives of both B2B and B2C companies are moving aggressively to address the digital customer with offerings ranging from eCommerce to Social Media communities. I agree with Barton, true leaders – no matter how traditional – seek more effective ways to drive revenue, reduce costs and achieve a higher level of customer advocacy, loyalty and satisfaction. Today the driver is social media.

Other new clients include: Ferguson, a major supplier of plumbing and heating/cooling supplies and equipment with 17,500 associates; First Command Financial Services, which serves 285,000 families nationwide with investment, insurance and banking products and services; J.D. Irving, with 15,000 employees in Canada and the U.S., provides products to consumers, the forestry industry and shipbuilding; Mainstream Energy, one of the largest solar manufacturers in the U.S.; Pyrotek, offering technical expertise and global resources for aluminum, glass, steel and other industries from 66 locations worldwide; SailTime, operating in five countries through franchises, provides its members sail and power boat usage; Universal Forest Products, the nation’s leading manufacturer and distributor of wood products; and University Federal Credit Union, serving 140,000 members in Galveston and central Texas.

Tags: ISM New Clients, social crmPosted by - jennifermq @ 10:00 am

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