Customer Success

Here’s the big fact: 98% of all dissatisfied customers were not dissatisfied because of a quality problem with the product or service purchased. In 98% of the cases their dissatisfaction was related to their perception of how they were treated by the people they dealt with.

McDonald’s Restaurants notes that over 70% of the complaints that were serious enough to be escalated to a manager where “the clerk was rude, uncommunicative or would not listen to me.” These complaints had nothing to do with the quality of the food or the speed it was delivered.

Marketing Research Chart: Channels tracked by marketers

SUMMARY: In this week’s chart, we learn about the types of channels marketers track and analyze to make improvements to their marketing efforts. Be sure to share your own analysis of this chart in the MarketingSherpa LinkedIn Group for a chance to be published in a future blog post.    

When selecting email marketing metrics, identifying what to measure and understanding a metric’s purpose are the first steps. Selected metrics should be actionable, helping organizations consistently make improvements and gain necessary budget approvals.

We asked marketers … 

Relationship Intensity and ROI Measurement

I had the honour, last week, of joining many insightful and intelligent people at the eMetrics conference in Toronto. Self-defined: eMetrics is “big data for Marketers; this is a comprehensive event dedicated to digital analytics and marketing optimization”.

Some very smart speakers sharing case studies, tools and exposés on best practices, tools and, of course, metrics to ensure your business is successful. Attending (and speaking) at this conference reinforces my belief that: without ROI, no business can survive. And, it is critically important for business operators to understand what they are measuring, and to have the skills and ability to draw a path between metrics and business profit. I have no doubt that the conference attendees were introduced to some fantastic tools and methods to help them have further success, and more importantly: measure it.

B2B Marketing & Sales Insights from Lori Wizdo of Forrester Research

I had the great the opportunity to interview Lori Wizdo, B2B marketing analyst at Forrester Research. Lori is a senior analyst with extensive marketing, sales, and operation experience in the information systems and software industries.

In our discussion, Lori shared key insights into the B2B buyer's journey as well as marketing and sales alignment.

There's a lot of discussion in the marketplace about articles you've written, including "The Lead-Nurturing Payoff For The Tech Industry." In that article and elsewhere, you've suggested that many buyers get as far as 70 percent through the sales cycle before they find it useful to engage the sales teams. Does that figure depend on the type of solution? Does the complexity of the solution change things?

Τα 5 websites που είναι πρώτα σε κλικ!

Με το Facebook να ηγείται, πέντε ιστοσελίδες κατέλαβαν το 20% του συνόλου των κλικ στις μηχανές αναζήτησης στις ΗΠΑ (Google, Bing, κλπ.), κατά το τέταρτο τρίμηνο του 2012, και περίπου 500 ιστοσελίδες κατέλαβαν σχεδόν το 50% των κλικ αναζήτησης, σύμφωνα με μια νέα έκθεση από την Experian Hitwise.

The Internet, Social Web and Human Media: An Opportunity for Change

The internet has entailed a paradigm shift in our lives, not only professionally but also personally. Suddenly, a new world of professional opportunities opened up to us while we looked on at what was going on in disbelief. From a personal perspective, the internet provided a tool with which to express ourselves to the world; we began having a voice. This sent shivers to the status quo, as it threatened its existence.

System Interruption

The Benefits of Advertising with the Yahoo! | Bing Network

Since the announcement of their partnership back in September of last year, the newly formed Yahoo! | Bing Network has been growing with every passing quarter. If you haven’t considered search advertising through the Yahoo! | Bing Network, then take into account that nearly a third of Internet traffic comes from these two search engines, in addition to their extended network of partnered sites. With that in mind, there’s no doubt that the benefits of advertising on the Yahoo! | Bing Network are increasing every month.

Benefits of Search Advertising on the Yahoo! | Bing Network.

Facebook drives most social B2B traffic, but Twitter is top for conversions: report

Despite the huge attention lavished on social media, it still accounts for only a fraction of the traffic and leads for US B2B websites according to a new report from Optify.

Overall, social accounts for 1.9% of traffic compared to 41% for organic search, however there is potential for it to become a more important and effective channel.

This is a topic we touched on recently in a post about how to use social media to widen your sphere of influence in B2B and in an infographic looking at how B2B companies are currently using social.

Optify’s report found that companies that actively manage social media campaigns (as measured by companies who had more than one lead from social or more than 10 visits per month) have seen comparatively high conversion and engagement rates.

2 Reasons Why Bing Will Lose BILLIONS Without Mobile Devices

The facts from our Paid Search Report: Q4 2012:

• Bing has a lower share of impressions, spend and clicks from smartphone and tablet devices.
• Tablet and smartphone devices are projected to account for 50.3% of spend, 43.8% of impressions and 51.7% of clicks by Q4 2016.
• There are over 2 billion dollars of lost potential revenue at stake if Bing does not figure out how to gain market share in tablet and smartphone devices.

In the 17 billion dollar US paid search market, the Yahoo! Bing Search Network (hereafter referred to as Bing) has been scratching away at Google’s dominant market position. Between Q4 2011 and Q4 2012 Bing gained 4 points of impression share and 1 point of spend share, but the rising tide of tablet use poses the greatest obstacle to Bing’s ability to maintain its share of the search market.

64 Percent Of Digital Marketers Plan To Spend More On Social Ads In 2013 [Report]

Many online marketers love social media marketing because it’s traditionally been a free channel for customer outreach and/or customer service; but, almost two-thirds of those who answered a recent survey say they’ll be spending more on paid social media ads this year.

How 100 retailers responded to a mystery shopper's Contact Us query

How do you respond to the customer enquiries through your Contact Us page?

Do you take them seriously? You may be leaving your customer's money and their goodwill on the table.

A friend of mine has just launched a baby t-shirt product so out of curiosity and solidarity, we arranged that I would contact 100 US and UK baby retailers over the New Year break via their Contact Us page.

The retailers were either bricks-and-mortar stores with an online presence, or pure-play ecommerce merchants.

Οι καταναλωτικές τάσεις το 2013

Το Consumer Lab της Ericsson εντοπίζει μερικές από τις πιο σημαντικές τάσεις των καταναλωτών για τα επόμενα χρόνια.

Δύο από τις κυριότερες τάσεις είναι η διαμόρφωση νέων καταναλωτικών αναγκών λόγω του cloud, και η καθοριστική συμβολή των γυναικών στη μεγέθυνση της αγοράς των smartphone. Η συμπεριφορά των νέων αλλάζει την κοινωνία, ενώ η οικονομική αβεβαιότητα οδηγεί σε νέες χρήσεις του Ίντερνετ

Καθώς το 2012 πλησιάζει προς το τέλος του, το ConsumerLab της Ericsson καταγράφει τις πιο σημαντικές καταναλωτικές τάσεις για το 2013, αλλά και αργότερα. Για περισσότερα από 15 χρόνια το ConsumerLab έχει διενεργήσει ένα μεγάλο αριθμό εκθέσεων αναφορικά με τις αξίες και τη συμπεριφορά του καταναλωτή, αλλά και τους τρόπους με τους οποίους χρησιμοποιεί τα προϊόντα και τις υπηρεσίες πληροφορικής και τηλεπικοινωνιών (ICT).

Ο κ. Michael Björn, Επικεφαλής των Ερευνών στο ConsumerLab, ανέφερε σχετικά: “Το παγκόσμιο ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα του εργαστηρίου βασίζεται σε συνεντεύξεις με περισσότερα από 100.000 άτομα, τις οποίες διενεργούμε κάθε χρόνο σε περισσότερες από 40 χώρες και 15 μεγάλες πόλεις. Με την πάροδο των ετών, έχουμε δημιουργήσει μια τεράστια βάση δεδομένων σε σχέση με τις καταναλωτικές τάσεις, η οποία μας επιτρέπει να διαπιστώσουμε ότι, σήμερα, ο ρυθμός των αλλαγών είναι ταχύτερος από ποτέ. ”

Αυτές είναι οι 10 πιο σημαντικές τάσεις των καταναλωτών:

To 54% των ελληνικών νοικοκυριών είναι online

Στην Ελλάδα, σύνδεση στο Διαδίκτυο υπολογίζεται -σύμφωνα με τα στοιχεία που δημοσιεύει η Eurostat- ότι διαθέτει το 54%.

Η Γαλλία είναι ουραγός στην ανάγνωση εφημερίδων στο διαδίκτυο, μία δραστηριότητα στην οποία επιδίδεται μόλις το 38% των χρηστών του Διαδικτύου στη χώρα, ποσοστό που είναι το μικρότερο μεταξύ των 27 χωρών της ΕΕ, όπως συνάγεται από μελέτη που δημοσίευσε σήμερα το ευρωπαϊκό γραφείο στατιστικών ερευνών Eurostat.

Hot B2B Internet Marketing Tip for 2013

"According to internetworldstats.com, 2.3 billion people worldwide are online. That is a staggering one third of the entire global population! And it is a market that is growing at super nova speed. Building on a growth rate of 528% over the last 11 years, this astounding growth rate is accelerating, thanks to rapid advances in broadband and smartphone technology" explains Terrazas.

This phenomenal growth of the online market has certainly not escaped the attention of Business to Consumer (B2C) marketers, a fact that is evidenced by global e-commerce sales data from Goldman Sachs, which shows that online sales figures have grown from $572.5 billion in 2010 to $820.5 billion in 2012. And this market is expected to swell to an astounding $963 billion in 2013!
"Within this vast and rapidly growing online market there is a very distinct and lucrative sector that remains largely untapped: the large and constantly growing B2B online market" notes Terrazas.

10 Reasons Brands Fail to Convert Facebook Fans into Paying Customers

According to HubSpot, ninety three percent of adults on the Internet are on Facebook, yet only 1% of a brand’s Facebook fans will ever make their way to the company’s main website. Many blame their low conversion rates on Facebook: “Facebook ads don’t work.” “I have a ton of likes but it doesn’t mean anything because I’m not making money.” “I keep posting things but I’m not getting many views.”  Few, however, look to their own efforts for answers. And even fewer put a strategy in place to convert this highly active audience into highly engaged website visitors.

Τα ψηφιακά μέσα μας κάνουν εξυπνότερους ή όχι;

Η τεχνολογία έχει μπει σε κάθε τομέα της ζωής του ανθρώπου, άλλοτε απλά διευκολύνοντας και άλλοτε αντικαθιστώντας τον προσωπικό του κόπο. Πολλοί είναι αυτοί που λένε ότι η τεχνολογία και τα ψηφιακά μέσα έχουν αρχίσει να αποβλακώνουν την κοινωνία, ενώ άλλοι λένε ότι την κάνουν εξυπνότερη. Οι έρευνες και οι μελέτες όμως δείχνουν συγκεχυμένα αποτελέσματα.
Ο Βίνσεντ είναι 4 ετών και ζει στην Γερμανία με τους γονείς του. Καθώς δεν μπορούσε να παρακολουθήσει το πρόγραμμα του παιδικού σταθμού όπου τον έστελναν οι γονείς του, και πετούσε χώματα στα άλλα παιδιά, εκείνοι τον πήγαν σε έναν ψυχολόγο για να τον εξετάσει. Το αποτέλεσμα ήταν ότι ο Βίνσεντ δεν ήταν χαζός αλλά είχε IQ 133. Αυτό αιτιολόγησε πολλά στους γονείς του: γιατί τους ρωτούσε αντί για τον Γουίνι το αρκουδάκι, για το σύμπαν και την ρομποτική αποστολή στον Άρη. Έτσι τον έχουν γράψει ήδη σε σχολείο για τον επόμενο χρόνο.

Why sales doesn't have its rightful place at the boardroom table?

August 8, 2012 was a milestone for professional salespeople around Australia. Until that day there had been no officially recognised benchmark for professional selling at tertiary level.

Finance, marketing, production, engineering, IT, business administration, research and design, human resources, logistics, procurement and even entrepreneurship – it's a long list – all have recognised tertiary qualifications. Professional business selling is the last role in the value chain to be officially recognised in this space.

Will Mobile Insurance Take Off ?

Despite the growing range and sophistication of leading (US) insurance companies’ mobile offerings, consumer adoption of mobile insurance services is still low. What makes the mobile solution relevant to the customer? Forrester has identified three elements that determine the convenience of a service or product: immediacy, simplicity, and context.

Online and Mobile: The Potential of Personalized Health Information

An average 24 year old will spend more time on Facebook than they will with their doctor in 20 years, according to Razorfish Health. Given this type of reality, how do you unlock the potential prowess of personalized health in online and mobile health strategies? That is the question.

Personalized Medicine vs. Personalized Health

We are in an age of personalized medicine. Personalized medicine refers to therapies that can be tailored to an individuals own genetics and physiology. Some relate this to genomics as a way to bridge the gap between the Human Genome Project to individualized healthcare.  According to a report from the Kaufman Foundation, “personalized medicine” is a part of a broader field called personalized health.

Important New Research on Customer Loyalty

It's devastating when you lose a long-term customer to a competitor. It’s even worse when you’ve been there for them, consistently providing top-notch service for years. You feel betrayed by their lack of loyalty.

Plus, you’re ticked off at your own company too. You did everything possible, but they didn’t give you a good enough price to compete effectively. Or, your offering just wasn’t quite as good as your competitors.

Here’s the deal. You may be seriously deluding yourself about the reasons you lost the business.