Sales & Marketing Management - October 2007 - (Page 21)

WHAT HE tively reach out to online customers at the exact moment they need help. “Visiting the Web site of a company the size of Hewlett-Packard can sometimes be overwhelming; we have a fairly wide variety of products so it’s not always easy for customers to figure out how to get to the things they need,” Tuthill says. “So if a customer is sitting in front of a monitor and scratching his head, the technology we’ve developed will notify us. A small box on the visitor’s screen pops up and asks if he would like to be connected immediately to an online customer support representative. If the person says yes, he is able to instant-message with a live HP agent to get the guidance he needs, at the very moment he needs it.” HP’s research shows that about 80% of the people who engage the online chat agents are in the presales stage. In other words, they recognize they have a problem that HP is well suited to address, but they don’t know where to begin. “At this point, it is a very promising—but also very fragile—relationship,” Tuthill says. “Our research shows that if people stayed on a Web page for a certain amount of time without clicking links or scrolling around, it meant they had run into a wall and didn’t know where to go next. Their lack of activity told us that they were confused and losing patience—which meant we were at risk of losing their business.” Tuthill isn’t able to put an exact dollar amount on the value generated by this intuitive customer service technology, but he doesn’t need to know an exact figure to know the payoff has been huge. On average, more than 100,000 visitors per quarter now use the chat tool to engage with a representative on HP’s Web site. “It was killing us to know that a potential customer was on the other side of the screen, looking for help on the Internet … help that we could provide. We and they are in the same place at the same time, separated only by a monitor screen. But if we couldn’t find a way to bridge that gap, we might as well have been on different planets. It is torture for any business to go through that, so we developed a way to anticipate that person’s needs and offer to step in at that crucial moment.” The SMB Printing team also has launched an SMB community wiki (http://expressioncentersmb.wetpaint.com/) where small businesses can showcase www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com HAD TO SAY Scott Tuthill offered several pieces of advice to sales and marketing executives during this interview, which took place in New York on August 28 at the launch of HP’s $310 million “What Do You Have to Say” global marketing campaign: 1) Provide solutions, not products and services, around your offerings. HP was once thought of as a company that produced fine computers, printers, cameras, etc. But it didn’t reach its lofty position by focusing on pieces and parts. “Our true success came when we became a onestop-shop for people in search of solutions. When people say to us, ‘Here is my problem,’ we don’t tell them about our product portfolio. We just find a way to fix it.” Put the customer first. What are their needs today, and equally important, how will those needs change in the future? “If you want to know what you should be doing to be more competitive tomorrow, look at what your customers want to do— but can’t—today.” Envision what could be. Put budget restraints, personnel shortages and technological limitations aside for a moment and think about possibilities. “Ask yourself what the perfect solution might look like and work your way back to the present. Not only does that process help you focus on the goal, it shows you all of the steps you need to take to reach it.” 2) 3) themselves, see additional content and information (blogs, wiki entries, podcasts) that help them better understand how to build a powerful brand, how to showcase and market their business, and how to get advice from community members around other needs for their small business. As part of the Print 2.0 launch, it was key for the SMB unit to really capture how businesses want to relate to and exchange information around HP products, services, solutions and promotions. “Hewlett-Packard has to be able to present itself at the right time, in the right place, in a format that individual customers can relate to,” Tuthill concludes. “Those capabilities are the key to success for all businesses, whether they have one employee or 100,000.” s&mm OCTOBER 2007 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT 21 http://expressioncentersmb.wet-paint.com/ http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Sales & Marketing Management - October 2007

Sales & Marketing Management - October 2007 Contents Editor’s Letter Management Strategies Why Prospecting Gets No Respect Sales Strategy: Spotlight your Services Marketing: A Social Intelligence Primer Management: Steer your Team to Success Motivation/Incentives: The No-Pain Way to Gain Training: Looking for Yesterday’s Learning or Tomorrow’s? Technology: Get Trade Show Satisfaction with the Video Massage Focusing on SMB Solutions The Best Sales Force The Hottest Job Industries Overseas Aggravation Gadgets & Gear: Pen and Ink as an Art Form Books that Improve Strategic Thinking, People Skills and Sales One Foot Out the Door Work/Life: Calling in the Fitness Cavalry. Take-Aways: Bite-size Strategies to Help You Sell More, Market Smarter and Manage Better

Sales & Marketing Management - October 2007

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