CRM - February 2009 - (Page 29)

THE Recession ISSUE NuView Systems allows companies to track and measure employee performance. While sales goals are more easily measured, the system also tracks operational efficiency. This requires a reliance on what Lokhandwala calls SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. NuView also determines the potential capacity of each employee, keeping a manager from cutting valuable employees just because they aren’t operationally effective today. NuView also educates managers on etiquette, providing the tools necessary to let someone go while maintaining the possibility of hiring them back after the recession. From conducting the exit interview to providing solid recommendations to helping them search for other jobs, it helps to avoid being the bad guy. IF YOU’VE GOT THE BUDGET For those with the means to be a little more active, Temkin suggests investments in consumer insight or ethnographic research. Consumer needs are constantly shifting—perhaps now more than ever—and only through research can marketers begin to understand them. Companies can also build private online communities for consumers, such as The Playground Community, which toymaker Mattel created in June 2007. The site— which earned the company one of Forrester Research’s 2008 Groundswell Awards— attracted hundreds of concerned parents during the company’s mid-2007 recall of millions of toys that may have contained harmful magnets or toxic paint.Despite the worldwide recall,sales in 2007’s fourth quarter were up six percent,something Forrester credits to the success of the community. And after you’ve created the venue, user-generated content is essentially an excellent source of free brand-building material. Benjamin Wayne, chief executive officer of video-hosting service Fliqz, reports a sales increase of nearly 500 percent since the beginning of 2008 for his company’s end-to-end solution, which costs as little as $99 a month. Once seen as a novelty for entertainment purposes, video is now viewed as necessary, particularly on Web sites (where a Realtor, for example, can provide a video walkthrough). What’s lately become more popular, Wayne notes, is the demand for viral distribution, allowing viewers to share links. “[Viewers] are implicitly endorsing the product or service when they put the video on their blog or MySpace page,” he says, adding that clients report that over one-third of their traffic is coming from places they never had access to before. Moreover, he adds, 75 percent to 80 percent of his clients rely on end users for some, if not all, of their video content. Classroom performance solution provider eInstruction introduced an annual video contest in September 2007. Vying for an eInstruction Classroom Makeover valued at over $25,000, teachers and students created videos demonstrating the use of technology in the classroom. When the contest first launched, Lisa Omasta, the company’s vice president of marketing, had expected roughly 50 submissions. Instead, there were 220. But when the economy was hit hard the following year, Omasta had to decide whether she could justify repeating the investment. “The answer was absolutely yes,” she says. Submissions jumped to nearly 300 in the second year, driving the contest’s cost per lead down to roughly seven dollars, compared to the $200-to$600 cost incurred for each lead generated by eInstruction’s most-expensive marketing channel: the 25 to 30 trade shows it attends each year. The video contest, she says, is “the most cost-effective leadgeneration campaign we’ve run and will continue to run.” In fact, the viral awareness that eInstruction was able to achieve was incredible, Omasta says.“We’ll go into schools now and they’ll say, ‘Oh, you’re the ones that did the video contest.’” While eInstruction hasn’t cut its tradeshow attendance, it has felt the pressure to refine its attack strategy.“Fewer people “In a recession, you don’t have the luxury of making mistakes.” are going to be at these shows, but the right people will be there,” Omasta says. “We need to identify who those people are, making sure we get them to the booth as opposed to just getting volume.” COMING OUT OF THE RECESSION We’re going to come out of this, hopefully soon. When we do, the companies that stayed true to their brands and their targets will come out of it happy. “Consumers can smell fear,” Bloxham says. “Companies that indicate they’re afraid [and that] they’re compromising the integrity of the brand or the relationship with customers? [Consumers] can smell that from a mile away.” Lessons learned and investments made during the recession certainly won’t be in vain. It takes a certain crisis to force companies to recognize the inefficiencies that riddled the company. More importantly, companies that survive will prove that they are not one of the many companies inhibited by what Temkin classifies as “professional management techniques that are devoid of passion and purpose.” While others cut back, those who continue to invest in areas where they see returns will likely have the advantage when the economy rebounds. If every company is able to optimize its performance, all the better, Temkin says, as each one aims to satiate a specific consumer appetite. Those who don’t slack on service will send a vital message to consumers: You’re important all the time, right down to the buzzer. Assistant Editor Jessica Tsai can be reached at jtsai@destinationCRM.com. www.destinationCRM.com CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | FEBRUARY 2009 29 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - February 2009

CRM - February 2009 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Express Service CRM on Twitter Breaking Customer Service Tradition Outsprinted That’s (Not) Entertainment Running on Empty Required Reading Up Against the Downturn The Numbers Tell the Tale Make Marketing Your Megaphone! Hold Onto Your Customers! Spend Your Way Out! Constructing a Virtual Customer Experience Next Customer, Please! It’s Showtime! From A(erospace) to Z(oology) Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - February 2009

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