1to1 Magazine Demo

hot topics SALES | MARKETING | DATABASE/ANALYTICS | CUSTOMER SERVICE across the enterprise, as well as from marketing and IT not co-owning the projects, he says. For companies to conduct a deep-dive analysis also requires a long-term commitment. “Many of us at public companies live and die by quarterly earnings. When you do these long-term analyses, you have to do them on a long-term basis,” Acxiom’s Cohn says. “It requires marketers and analysts to be really committed.” Looking at data in a deeper context is revolutionizing the way marketers can improve their outreach and offers, and in turn improve customers’ experiences. > Mila D’Antonio Customer Service Wiki technology allows collaboration among Remember Encyclopedia Britannica, or even Microsoft Encarta? Today they’ve been all but replaced by Wikipedia, which is powered by the same wiki technology that’s replacing some companies’ knowledge management systems. The contents of everything from support manuals to company policies, previously created by a handful of “experts,” are now fluid documents created through collaboration among all employees, and even customers. “Companies that limit who can update their knowledge base are guaranteed to learn only a tiny slice of what they can,” says David Kay, principal at DB Kay & Associates. CUSTOMER SERVICE Scotts Gets to the Root of the Problem Executives at Scotts Miracle-Gro saw the potential of capturing the data from the company’s 1 million contact center calls per year and started acting on the information a few years ago. Ed Billmaier, senior director of relationship and interactive marketing for the provider of lawn and garden products, says Scotts established a system of coding that scores every piece of data—for example, it scores against 1,600 “reason” codes to track issues, such as regions, varmints, and plant diseases. The goal of the scoring was to enable Scotts to leverage the data strategically. According to Billmaier, the company began by creating a consumer insights alerts (CIA) group. The marketing department operates CIA, which includes a fulltime analyst examining opportunities in the coded data. Scotts then started analyzing and acting on one particular code—infestations. For example, if the analyst notices an increase in calls in Florida about fire ants, CIA creates a presentation and pushes it to the sales force. The sales team from the affected area assembles materials, such as a map that depicts the intensity of the ants, and then takes them to the retailers in the area to show the infestation’s proximity. The result? The most recent project yielded a $400,000 increase in sales in two weeks. “The whole secret was we collected this analyzed data and served it up to [sales] on a silver platter,” Billmaier says. “We didn’t need a whole IT group.” In addition, Scotts shares the data with a major home improvement retailer (Scotts declines to mention the name), so the retailer can stock products based on approaching infestations. Joe Sanda, president and CEO of Astute Solutions, which provides the system that powers Scotts’ business intelligence solution, says it’s important for companies to act quickly without involving IT. “It often takes a lot of time to be responsive to a market. It’s imperative to have information on the fly.” To support the targeted sales initiative, Scotts has developed an email reminder service to customers in affected areas to tell them how they should treat the particular infestations. Currently 750,000 people are registered for the emails. Future plans include launching a public service announcement via radio broadcast next year to warn customers of approaching infestations and (like the emails) to offer treatment advice. Beyond radio, Scotts is looking at the potential of leveraging mobile marketing to send alerts and encourage customers to download RSS feeds. Also, its website will eventually offer automatic infestation alerts tailored to customers’ plant purchases. If, for example, a customer grows roses and lives in New York and there’s an infestation headed her way, she receives an alert when she logs on to Scotts’ website. It only takes one bug to destroy a customer’s hard work, so for Scott’s, the decision to become more analytical made perfect sense, both for customers and the company’s bottom line. “It all comes down to realizing that the guy at the top doesn’t have to be a bottleneck for sharing information.” According to Forrester Research, most companies are familiar with wikis, but not necessarily how the technology can help their business. Even so, in the firm’s most recent Web 2.0 survey, 25 percent of executives considered wikis a priority. The survey, “2007 United States Web 2.0 Online Survey,” found that wikis are most often used internally for knowledge management, followed by collaborative document creation, says Forrester senior analyst Gil Yehuda. He says that few have used wikis for external-facing processes like service, support, and CRM, but that’s a trend he says will change. “The challenge in the call center in particular is that companies want their agents to have a strong sense of ‘the truth,’ and believe a traditional system with reviewed steps is most suited for that need,” Yehuda says. “Unfortunately, that falls short when situations arise that aren’t accounted for beforehand. That’s why we’re seeing some growing interest.” While many social media tools are embraced by smaller companies first, wikis 42 1to1 magazine www.1to1media.com http://www.1to1media.com

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1to1 Magazine Demo Contents 1to1media.com Editor's Note Feedback Putting Care in Patients' Hands Loyalty at Work Redefining the Contact Center Agent Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Cigna Dental Drills for Loyal Customers On the Beat 19 Ways to Succeed Miami Heat Schools Its Staff on Sales and Service Marketing Lends a Helping Hand More Than Meets the Eye Customer Service by Committiee Textron's Business Soars by Tracking Customer Loyalty Resources Contact Center Agent as Trusted Advisor Mastering Global CRM Face to Face with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

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