Comments on: MPlanet 2009: Back to the Basics

By: Toby

Toby — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:31:08 +0000

Susan – Nice to meet you at Mplanet. I really enjoyed your recap; “listening” to customers was a theme that seemed to run through many of the presentations .. and that was a very good thing!

By: Becky Carroll

Becky Carroll — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:09:07 +0000

Suzanne, it was great to meet you at the Mplanet conference this week! Great follow-up post.
Focusing on existing customers is one of the best way to grow a company organically – especially in this economy. Cementing these relationships will also position a company for success as we come out of the “slump”.
When I worked for Peppers and Rogers Group, we looked at the definition of “Best Customers” as those that not only had some of the highest spend with us, but also based on the cost to serve those customers (this part is often hard to determine). Companies should also look to those customers that have a lot of potential to become “best customers”!

By: Susanne Sicilian

Susanne Sicilian — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:00:35 +0000

Thank you all for your thoughts and feedback…and it is an interesting point…how are companies defining their best customers.

By: Susan Oakes

Susan Oakes — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 05:14:09 +0000

I think it is great that companies large and small are actually starting to realise the worth of retaining key customers instead of just focusing on attracting new customers.
Regarding best customers or as we call it key customers I think there are 8 factors involved which includes profitability. You can easily model these to work out the value of each customer or groups of customers to a company.

By: Kevin Clancy

Kevin Clancy — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 18:31:22 +0000

I’m very happy to hear marketers talking about tuning into their customers needs, so your post was quite welcome. It’s quite heartening to hear the management and marketing heads of leading brands advocating this kind of approach.
Many of the speakers, it sounds like, brought up focusing on your “best customers.” In my experience, very often the folks companies believe are their “best customers” are not the most profitable for the firm. Sure, they may buy a lot–they are the so-called “heavy users” or “heavy buyers”–but they are price conscious and deal prone. They aren’t all that brand loyal either.
As far as developing marketing programs and new products and services goes, heavy buyers usually don’t have much in common with each other. As a result, coming up with a motivating brand message and new products to appeal to everyone in the group is pretty challenging and certainly doesn’t yield an impressive return on investment.
We’d absolutely agree that listening to your “best customers” is critical to financial and brand success, we’d just encourage marketers to define the “best” by profitability first.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:23:17 +0000

Susanne, as you rightly point out too many companies –and people for that matter, are talking. We push, push, push until the typical 2% (response rate) actually return our messages. Then we call it success.
Listening–and active listening–are lost art forms. Oftentimes, in the name of action, we’re tagged to “do something” when in fact, the better course most times is to observe, listen and then analyze.

By: Debra Ellis

Debra Ellis — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:20:50 +0000

Great post. Challenging economic times presents the best opportunities to grow your business. More than likely your competition is scaling back leaving an open path to additional marketshare.
The trick is to be smart with your resources. Instead of idling, use down time to revise your strategic plan, eliminate unnecessary processes and bottlenecks, and improve your connection with your customer.
I am amazed at how many “buy now, great sale” emails I receive from companies I patronize. And, how few “Thank you for being a customer. We noticed that you like (fill in the blank). Have you seen our new selection?” emails.
If they would spend some time creating targeted emails based on customer buying patterns, I guarantee they would see a bump in sales.
Sending emails to everyone in your housefile because it is relatively inexpensive is lazy marketing.
Thank you for a great post. Have a great day!
Debra