Remember when marketing was measured by response rates, traffic, pipeline, CPM, leads, new customers, repeat customers, etc? Those were simpler times. These days, if real profits are elusive, marketing budgets get slashed. Just making the "best offer to the best channel at the best time" and then measuring results after the fact doesn’t cut it anymore.

All of this is driven by customers who now have unprecedented perspective – and expectations – about companies with whom they do business. The Internet has given consumers real control and confidence. If the story from marketing does not represent the entire experience, there is no place to hide from their ire. The customer buys, keeps buying, tells others, and pays more because of their complete experience with a product or service provider ... not just marketing or sales. For marketing’s investment to really pay off, it can no longer hand off a perfectly good new customer and hope for the best. Instead, it has to integrate marketing activities with all other customer interactions. And, consequently, the channel becomes an instrumental determinant of how marketing succeeds.

• A top ten cable MSO (multi systems operator) is asking us to help with the integration of real-time customer analytics, behavioral data integration, offer-management and CSR automation. The goal? To drive intelligently optimized customer retention and cross-sell.
  
  
• A major amateur sports association is considering the benefits of seamless real-time integration between their member marketing database and their e-commerce platform. Their objective is to present a single, consistent, personalized and profit-maximizing face to their customers.

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For more insight from our experts, visit our blog InsightIQ.

Customer Experience Boosts Revenue

Forrester’s previous research has shown a high correlation between customer experience and three key elements of loyal behavior: willingness to buy more, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend.

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Do your plans for 2010 reflect a commitment to increasing customer engagement and enhancing customer experience?

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