CRM blog archives
August 2009 (2)
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CRM vs Social CRM – What is the difference?
Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 09 July 2010 / 12:09 PM : 0 
Just looking at the terms, Customer Relationship Management and Social Customer Relationship Management are sharing the same roots; Social CRM is either a limitation to or an enhancement of (traditional) CRM – or is it something entirely different?
Let me take a brief view at what CRM and Social CRM are and are not and then come to a conclusion.
CRM – Customer Relationship Management – is a business strategy. If you do research on the web you will find many definitions with their own tweaks. What most of them have in common is that they all say that the strategy is about the customer and about how to engage a customer so that the company applying the strategy
Tagged: CRM Multi-Channel Retail Social Networking
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How to increase loyalty program participation?
Dr. Nicole Wieberneit, Senior CRM Consultant : 14 January 2010 / 4:05 PM : 1
Increasing the participation in a loyalty program is like building a stable house that can be extended step by step in the future.
The foundation of every successful loyalty program is an attractive value proposition for the consumer and integrated loyalty analytics. It is more and more important for companies to have very special rewards, so called WOW!-Factors. These rewards shall not only encourage customers to stay engaged, but to spend more money more often just to reach the once-in-a-lifetime experience, premium merchandise or lifestyle-themed reward that appeal to a member dream. Further elements in successful reward designs are soft benefits and personalized rewards. Soft benefits like special access and unique privileges are an important factor for di...
Tagged: Business Value CRM IT Strategy IT Value Multi-Channel Retail Social Networking
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A Way towards Nirvana - Embracing Social CRM is Key
Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 30 November 2009 / 11:46 AM : 0
We trust those sources most, who are like us.
“A company like me”, as Paul Greenberg dubbed it last year in an article for destinationCRM, is a vision that depicts a trustworthy, almost human, company; maybe this vision is not an achievable one, but it still is a very good one since easily related to and understood. It clearly shows the path to the ultimate goal of each company: To get more loyal customers by being trustworthy.
Having more loyal customers directly translates into an improved bottom line since loyal customers have a higher value than irregular customers. Loyal customers furthermore often act as ambassadors f...
Tagged: CPG CRM Multi-Channel Retail Social Networking Twitter
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What is the state-of-the-art of loyalty management in the retail sector?
Dr. Nicole Wieberneit, Senior CRM Consultant : 18 November 2009 / 9:30 AM : 0
The retail industry is one of the biggest loyalty players after the airline industry and financial services. The airline industry has the most sophisticated loyalty and customer strategies and technology support. Where do we see loyalty management within the retail industry?
First of all in the worldwide retail market environment we can find three different distinct loyalty models - Everyday low price (EDLP), classic loyalty models and hybrid models.
Within the EDLP model a retailer is relentlessly focusing on the lowest category prices. This leads to low customer service, low in-store experience and unimportance of customer relationships. Unfortunately just one retailer can have the lowest prices within one category and therefore going down this pa...
Tagged: CRM IT Strategy IT to Business Alignment IT Value Multi-Channel Retail
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CRM Done Right
Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 16 November 2009 / 4:37 PM : 0
After some blogs on the buzzing topic of social CRM I recently came to thinking about the way to make CRM projects successful.
An initiator to this thinking was the opportunity to speak at an SAP user group meeting.
As a part of this thought process I came across the most recent Chaos Report of the Standish Group, which got released in April 2009. It shows that the success of projects is on the decline again with the project failure rate soaring since 2004.
While the project success criteria used by the Standish Group are not optimal since they are defining success if a project is on time, on budget and delivers the required fun...
Tagged: Agile CRM IT to Business Alignment Project Management Project Methodology Risk management
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Loyalty Management within the Retail Business
Dr. Nicole Wieberneit, Senior CRM Consultant : 04 November 2009 / 12:29 PM : 0
Nowadays nearly everyone has one or more loyalty cards in their pocket. Even in the current world wide recession consumer participation in loyalty programs has increased. Not only is the airline industry heavily depending on their loyalty programs, but also the retail business.
Loyalty management is seen differently between consumers and companies and even within experts. Several definitions can be found in the internet or in literature. In general companies are working under the assumption that a loyal customer is someone who is shopping more and more frequently in their shops. Consumers are thinking differently. For them someone is loyal if he shops at a single exclusive retailer in a particular category or at a particular retailer frequently.
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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 27 October 2009 / 8:24 AM : 1 Customers are increasingly voicing their troubles with products and companies in the web, using social media sites and communities to get answers to issues they have; sometimes they just launch a rant.
The good news for customers is that they regularly get solutions for their problems from within their enhanced social networks.
The good news for companies is that these sites and this behavioural pattern of their customers open up the opportunity to improve customer satisfaction and with that ultimately customer loyalty by offering innovative customer service. This happens by following the principle of being where the customers are instead of asking the customers to be where the company is.
But wait: There is a catch to it: Is there... Tagged: Business Architecture Business Intelligence Business Modeling Business Value CRM IT Strategy Social Networking Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 21 September 2009 / 11:17 AM : 0 Today’s customer is better informed than ever. People – customers – are informing themselves about products they are interested in everywhere, not only on the web site of its producer. As in the “real world” our customers get their information from trusted sources – their social network. Social networks extend into the internet, most notably with platforms like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace but also via opinion sites like Epinions and many more. As a matter of fact people trust their networks, more than they trust statements voiced by companies. For a while now companies are taking first steps into social networking by providing social networking tools like forums, blogs and surveys on their own, branded, web sites. While this is a step into the right direction it defini... Tagged: Business Architecture CPG CRM Multi-Channel Social Networking Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 28 August 2009 / 11:29 AM : 1 For the reasons brought forward before, building a valuable customer relationship and developing customer loyalty is a top priority in business today — but it is a priority that can be difficult to execute without the right approach.
Perceptions of businesses are created, positive or negative, during every interaction the customer has with the business. Leading businesses therefore collect and analyse relevant information about all interactions very effectively and apply this knowledge about their customers to develop and improve each customer’s experience. These businesses concentrate on their most valuable customers – the customers with the highest lifetime value.
They know that being a leader in knowing their customers translates i... Tagged: CIO CRM Retail Social Networking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thomas Wieberneit, National Manager CRM Practice : 17 August 2009 / 8:46 AM : 0 There is no doubt that the global economy is in a serious downturn. New Zealand in particular is officially in a state of recession that has lasted now for more than 5 quarters.
Across all industries, particularly within retail, companies have experienced lower sales due to customers spending less. This requires cost cuts, leading to a reduction of available funds for ongoing or planned projects.
What has been observed in the majority of companies is that in order to maintain a positive bottom line in a reduced revenue environment, cost cuts have been introduced across the board which lead to a reduction of funding for ongoing or planned projects. Some of these projects and initiatives remain crucial for a company’s future, despite the expense. ... Tagged: Business Intelligence CIO CRM Multi-Channel Retail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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