Happy Holidays from NACCM's Customers 1st!

We're going to be taking a much needed break from the world of design to celebrate the holidays with our family and friends. A huge "Thank You" to you, our loyal readers for your insight, news and communication about our shared design experience. We look forward to 2009 and all of its glorious opportunity!

Thanks again and have a very joyous holiday season.

Customers 1st in 2008

As the year draws to a close, lets look back at some of the most popular posts from NACCM Customers 1st in 2008!

Most came to us live from NACCM. Even if you weren't in Anaheim to experience the Customers 1st event, you could still be in touch with everything that was going on at the event. Enjoy the top posts of the year!

NACCM 2008: We Are All Storytellers

NACCM 2008: What's Your Red Ball

Day 1 Keynotes - It's all about people!

Speaker Profile: Frank Capek

Service Innovation

At Customer Experience Crossroads, the recently talked about a new customer service innovation. The CAA came to replace a car battery in a timely manner at the customers house, instead of the customer having to wait for hours inline at a store. Services like this gains trust from

Service innovation: Save your customers time. Save them hassle. Take the service to them. Result: Induce loyalty. Provide a new service that makes money. Earn unpaid media.

Cultivate your current customers

Robert G. Howard at CustomersThink recently wrote an article on cultivating your current customers. Often times, they're lost in the focus to attract new customers. If a company focuses on them, then the revenues generated from the existing customer can lead to a higher lifetime value at your company.

He related several ways you can do this for your customers:

1. Relate: Relate with your customers through regular and meaningful contact, observations, and ongoing interactions.
2. Retain: Retain your customers by creating barriers to switching to a competitor and create an atmosphere of exclusivity.
3. Expand: Expand your relationship with your customers by offering complimentary products and services on an ongoing basis.
4. Innovate: Keep your customers excited and engaged by surprising them with new product innovations or special bundles that are tailored just for them.
5. Analyze: Analyze your customer behaviors and cultivation activities to predict and anticipate future wants and needs.

Dell begins to charge for American customer service

In a recent article in the Washington Post, the reveal that Dell is instituting a new customer service policy. For customers who buy a new PC, they have the option of paying $12.95 a month or $99 a year to receive a North American customer service representative as well as less than a two minute wait time. However, if customers choose not to pay this fee, they'll receive customer service representatives from India or the Philippines.

What do you think about this? Don Reisinger shared his opinion here. Should consumers have to pay for customer service? Or is Dell defining the line between technical support and customer service?

Abercrombie not following the market

We've written a lot recently on this blog about keeping your customers by giving them great customer service, and avoiding slashing your prices. One company has decided to do this. According to Customers Think, Abercrombie and Fitch will not lower their prices. They want to take the lower sales volume for a higher profit, and maintain the reputation of upscale clothing. Read more about this story at the Wall Street Journal.

Sprint to cut call centers

KansasCity.com reports that Sprint CSO Bob Johnson could be planning to close as many as 20 call centers in 2009. They are expecting a 20% drop in calls about billing and handsets due to improvement in Sprint service. Johnson also cites that customers call Sprint at a very high rate, more than any of their competitors.

What do you think about moves like this? Although Sprint has improved their service, do you think taking away their customer care continue to affect the reality of the situation in a positive light?

Good customer service can go a long way

This morning, I came across this story about a great customer service experience with Dice Electronics. Dan Kusnetzky, blogger at ZDNet, was having problems with his GPS/XM Satellite radio output device. He called customer service, and they instantly replaced the device with no troubles at all. Now, not only do they have a happy customer, but thanks to social media, thousands of other potential customers have now heard how about their excellent customer service.

Value from CRM, even in today's economy

William Brand recently posted six ways for you to derive value from your CRM in the coming year, even with the current state of the economy.

1) Emergence of the social customer
2) The imperative that CRM strategies deliver business value
3) The requirement to fully cost justify CRM investments
4) The necessity to reduce risk of CRM initiatives
5) The need to get more value from customer information
6) The battle to redefine vendor pricing and licensing agreements

Build your company on culture

Russ Vernon recently contributed a piece to the Ohio Journal that examined how you can focus keeping loyal customers throughout this hard time. It's important that you stay relevant to your customer base, and keep your focus on your customer. You need to seek gaps that are in your market, in addition to you hiring processes, training and great customer service. So use all of these things not only to sell a product to your customer, but value as well.

Customer profitability today

At Customers Think, they've addressed a common issue -- why does customer profitability decrease as sales revenue increases? In today's current economic environment, companies are trying to keep up sales, which often leads to special buying programs, prizes, rebates, and quality purchase discounts to sell to more customers. The customers who buy at this time are the customers who only buy when the prices are low, and rarely lead to a consistent profit. The price slashing cycle leads to the same number of products sold, but a decreased amount of revenue, creating a vicious cycle. Attracting new customers is necessary, but customers who do not turn a profit are problematic.

What do you think? Have you come across this in your customer base?

The next generation's customer service

I found this article at Business Week which addresses how PNC Bank is attracting new customers daily. They're attracting 130 new customers a day for their simplistic new checking account called "The Virtual Wallet." They've spoken to the Generation Y by giving them a simplistic way manage their money online, with three simple options Spend, Reserve, and Growth. They've also limited the number of checks they can write in a month, and charge for transferring money over the phone.

Do you see this as the customer service of the future? PNC Bank has created a system where the only way they interact with their customer is through a website, but it's very popular with the young consumer, who will domoinate the market in 20 years. What do you think?

What the Mind Believes

This is posted on behalf of JoAnna Brandi. It is co-posted on the Customers 1^st Blog and JoAnna Brandi blogs.

Last week I had the honor to chair the North American Conference on Customer Management’s Customer First conference in Anaheim, CA at Disneyland. What a treat. (You can read more about it in this week’s tip)

One of the several speakers I had the honor to introduce was Robert Stephens, the founder of the Geek Squad.

http://customers1st.blogspot.com/search?q=robert+stephens

http://www.geeksquad.com/

I was so happy to have a chance to spend a few quiet moments with Stephen in the ballroom before the sessions began. I’ve been talking about Robert for years in my speeches and retelling a story I heard a famous speaker tell years ago. I wanted to hear Robert tell the story and add a few details.

I was shocked (not to mention embarrassed) to find out that I have been “lying” about the origins of the Geek Squad for years. Robert was gracious about it and shared a few moments with me before it was time to introduce him. I was thrilled to talk to him personally, so I didn’t read the printed introduction that was given to me in my chairperson pack.

Up I go to the stage with my printed introduction in hand. He’s an impressive guy and so I decided to read some of his interesting credentials before adding in my personal thoughts. Right there on the paper it said, “In 2002, The Geek Squad acquired Best Buy and opened Geek Squad precincts in all Best Buy US and Canadian stores.”

I saw it on the page, but before opening my mouth, my mind decided this could not be so and so I said, “Best Buy acquired the Geek Squad” instead, figuring it must be wrong. Nope, it was right and I was wrong.

Later in the day, after I had made a personal apology to Robert, I apologized to the entire audience, explaining what I thought happened.

Because it seemed so impossible to me that a midsize service company could possibly buy a “big box” store, I assumed that what I saw on the page was incorrect. Talk about the old adage - when we assume it makes an “ass” out of “u” and “me”. I’m still embarrased.

Because I wondered if this was happening to others as well as me, I asked the audience how many of them thought that Best Buy had bought the Geek Squad rather than the other way around - half the audience did.

It’s a great example of seeing what we want to see. When our belief system is strong it simply won’t let in information to the contrary.

I am truly humbled by the experience.

Robert taught us that what we need to create today is an “Authentic Experience” and I’ll tell you - my embarrassment was an authentic as it gets. Yikes.

Robert, I learned so many valuable lessons from you last week - the most important of which were those I learned about myself.

If you’d like to see more of Joanna Brandi’s blogs, visit JoAnna Brandi’s Blogs. You can also find out more by visiting her Customer Care Coach website. Joanna Brandi was a keynote speaker and conference chair at this year’s North American Conference on Customer Management, and has already been profiled on our Customer 1^st blog. Stay tuned for her posts on the Customers 1^st blog!

Customer loyatly goes a long way

In a recent article at The Motley Fool, they look at how some stores have made it their goal to focus on the customer, and as a result are having an easier time with the current recession. They also state that over the course of five years, companies lose 1/2 their customers, and of those 2/3 claim that customer service is their reason for leaving.

Some companies realize the value of keeping customers, and are reponsible for such statistics as increasing customer loyalty by 5% can increase your profits by 25%. These stores include Best Buy, Nordstrom, Amazon, and LL Bean.

Customer service help? $15 please

With a struggling economy, many companies are trying to find the extra dollars to keep going. At The Consumerist, they tell about the latest fee at Mervyn's, a department store that's currently closing all its locations. One customer called to pay her bill over the phone, and was informed that she'd have to pay $15 for any service over the phone, whether or not she was calling to pay her bill or addressing another issue.

Even though the company is going out of business, they're still not treating their customers with much respect. What other ways have you seen customer service falter due to the current economic situation?

What may be stopping you from customer centricity

At the Top Marketing Blog, they recently looked into why some companies who are looking to develop customer centricity may be failing.

-They may be failing to understand the customer. Who is your customer? Do you realize that 20% of your customer base generates 80% of your profit?
-They may be failing to support an external customer centric strategy by not having an internal customer centric strategy. It's important to have your employees at the center of your company first so they can then turn into the face of your customer-centric company.
- They may be failing to identify the moment of truth. Companies may have problems measuring their customer service strategies.