Customer-centric approach: definition and 3 strategic axes
Customer-centric approaches put the customer at the center of all business decisions. This means designing activities and processes to achieve maximum customer satisfaction in marketing. These strategies proved particularly successful for brands: our B2C statistics support this. In this article, we come back to the concept of customer-centric brands. Finally, we present 3 effective strategic axes, all summarized in our summary table....
Lead scoring: its 4 benefits on sales performance
Lead scoring proposes a different approach to customer acquisition. This method detects the proximity of a brand’s prospects to the act of buying. It focuses on the “best” potential customers: this classification greatly simplifies lead management. Thanks to recognized scientific sources, we clearly define lead scoring. We also explain the 4 reasons why this concept boosts your sales performance. Contact us for your...
Account-based marketing: 3 advantages and 3 strategies to adopt
Account-based marketing is an alternative way of targeting customers. Rather than designing campaigns for the majority, it prefers to base itself on key customers. Thus, it is a process that takes the personalization of the marketing message to the extreme. This has several advantages: prospects are more easily converted and feel fully understood and satisfied. But how to implement a good account-based marketing strategy? At the end...
Marketing automation: definition, advantages, and platforms [Guide 2023]
Marketing automation simplifies the life of brands. Its ability to relieve and strengthen companies’ marketing and sales teams makes this process a must in sales prospecting. You need to use the right marketing automation platforms to implement it properly. MailChimp and GetResponse are two good examples. This article aims to define the boundaries of the concept before explaining its 3 main advantages. Contact us to measure the...
Netflix Preview Club: a private panel for Netflix market research
The Wall Street Journal just revealed that Netflix may increase the size of its “Netflix Preview Club” to tens of thousands of test customers from 2,000 today. These privileged customers see the movies in preview. Their scores help to improve them substantially, like market research that would be conducted on a product still in the prototype stage. This research aims to be as close as possible to subscribers’...
Trigger marketing: definition, advantages and strategy [Guide 2023]
Trigger marketing is a branch of automated marketing. It follows the customer experience from A to Z, with messages designed to attract, convert and retain customers. It has many benefits, as it encourages purchases and amplifies brand notoriety. What are its advantages? How to set up a trigger marketing strategy? This article aims to clarify any grey area around this theme, which is essential to online retailers. Contact us to...
Customer satisfaction: issues and challenges in the post-covid era
What are the challenges of customer satisfaction? Can we still build customer loyalty? This is a reasonable question to ask. Indeed, we can observe a return of transactional marketing to the detriment of relational marketing, prevalent since the 90s. With the erasure of human relationships announced by automated stores and Facebook’s metaverses, what will be left in the future to build customer loyalty? If you only have 30...
Customer Loyalty: how Nespresso takes advantage of this with a single click
How to sell more with your e-shop? How to build customer loyalty? These are questions that many traditional retailers are asking themselves when customers are converting massively to e-commerce. In this article, we present a system developed by Nespresso and strangely forgotten by conventional retailers. Yet, it makes customer loyalty a driving force for business growth. Introduction 80% of the purchases we make in supermarkets are...
France’s best craftsman does everything to ensure customer satisfaction [video]
In this 19th (and last) episode of “The Business World with Pierre-Raffaele“, our star presenter goes to meet Philippe Rhéau, Best Craftsman of France (MOF). Philippe Rhéau is a craftsman with a passion for products, respect for taste but also a tireless pursuit of customer satisfaction. In this episode, after overcoming the stress of the camera, Philippe reveals himself as a professional who has at heart to enhance the...
8 factors influencing customer loyalty after a complaint
Good customer complaint management has proven its effectiveness in increasing customer loyalty for decades. Recent market research, published in September 2020 provides insight into how this efficiency varies according to your business sector. This is the first research to understand the economic, sectorial and relational effects on customer loyalty after a complaint has been processed. The authors study the differences between...
Rethinking the customer experience in museums with (Big) data
How can Big Data help museums reinvent themselves? How can data collection techniques be used to understand visitors better? How can data be used to build visitor loyalty? In this article, we propose a series of reflections on current and future museographic devices and on “data” initiatives that can be put in place to improve the customer experience and increase visitor loyalty. Summary Introduction Museums in the Age of...
[Podcast] Philippe Rhéau, the Best Craftsman of France … in Belgium
Philippe Rhéau is Best Craftsman of France, at the head of a pastry shop … in Belgium. He is a character who makes an impression. Tall, strong, imposing, he has his passion for pastry pegged to his heart. Quiet, his interview was not the easiest to do. But as the minutes went by, we discovered a real entrepreneur and a lucid manager. He is also a man steeped in values, convictions, love of work and customer satisfaction. He is...
How can small stores counter the giants of e-commerce?
90% of purchases are made in actual stores, only 10% online. Yet the end of small business is predicted almost daily. How can we resist giants like Amazon, Bol.com? That’s what Pierre-Raffaele wanted to know when he invited an entrepreneur to his studio, and who was not short of answers: Marc Filipson. He runs Filigranes, the world’s largest one-storey bookstore. In this 10th episode of “The World of Business...
Customer loyalty: 5 brands that create unforgettable customer experiences
Every brand wants to be remembered. They all want their customers to come back. But how do you make sure your brand is remembered and how do you increase customer loyalty? There are a lot of factors that influence consumer behaviour. I have reviewed my own experiences and identified 2 essential ingredients. Summary Introduction The 2 essential ingredients to make your brand unforgettable 5 brands that create unforgettable shopping...
[Podcast] Emna Everard revolutionises the organic market with Kazidomi
The organic food market is growing steadily. Between 2008 and 2018, household expenditure on organic products more than tripled. In Belgium, it has gone from +/- 220€ per year in 2008 to more than 750€ in 2018. It is in this buoyant context that Emna Everard launched her start-up Kazidomi. A recent graduate of Solvay Business School, she started her company without any previous professional experience and has just raised €1m to...
25 million customers to satisfy per year: the mission of Veronique Vergeynst
Satisfy 25 million passengers a year. If this sounds like an impossible mission at first glance, Veronique Vergeynst is the right person for you. The Head of Corporate Marketing at Brussels National Airport was voted French-speaking marketeer of the year in 2019. The challenges are immense and multiple: managing and measuring customer satisfaction, creating a memorable customer experience, customer loyalty as well as innovation. In...
A study demonstrates the effect of design on customer loyalty
Here is some marketing research that will be of interest to more than one of you. A trio of German researchers has just proved, thanks to four successive studies, that the design of an object has a positive impact on customer loyalty. In other words, an attractive object encourages its owner to use it more often and to remain committed to it afterwards when it is time to replace it. In this article, we explain the results of this...
Advertising: how to make your company more visible right from the start?
How do you make your business visible right from the start? Are there several advertising methods? What exactly is advertising? All these questions (and many others) are at the heart of the questions asked by Pierre-Raffaele, a 10-year-old future entrepreneur. To help him build his business project, he receives Karim Debbah, an advertising specialist. With him, he not only retraces the history of advertising but also discusses the...
To increase customer loyalty, Nespresso launches a subscription offer
Three years ago, Nespresso launched the Prodigio, a connected appliance. The latter, under the guise of a few “gadget” features, actually controlled your coffee consumption and prepared the automation of orders. Since this marketer’s dream did not come true, Nespresso opted for a more user-friendly solution and has just launched a subscription-based package. What has changed? Not much. In today’s article, we...
PayLead: A new wave of loyalty in the world of banking
PayLead is redefining banking loyalty by offering consumers the opportunity to be compensated in proportion to their purchases from their business partners. In this article, we return to the initiative launched by Charles de Gastines and Jacquelin Becheau La Fonta nearly three years ago. Summary Presentation of the company Genesis and history The fields of application How does it work? The future and key figures Presentation of the...
Customer satisfaction : Bpost Bank makes basic marketing mistakes
Admittedly, interest rates are at their lowest. Certainly, the savings of Belgians have never been so high. Indeed, the banking sector is under pressure. And yes, bpost is not doing well. But is it really enough to explain that Bpost Bank, the Belgian postal bank 50% owned by Bpost and 50% owned by BNP Paribas, is making such gross marketing errors by unilaterally and in the shadows deciding to make its customers pay their cash...
Should customer satisfaction always be a priority?
Should customer satisfaction always be a priority? Not when satisfying customers has a negative impact on your profitability. That’s what an Amazon’s customer, Nir Nissim, recently discovered when he was banned from the e-commerce platform because he had made too many returns. His escalation to Jeff Bezos eventually allowed him to be brought back in the big family of Amazon customers. Yet, this kind of experience is likely...
Retailer “la Halle” discovers hidden costs of loyalty cards
Loyalty cards and advantages for customers are costly. I explained many years ago that loyalty should not be “bought” because he destroys so much value and, above all, so much profits. Moreover “buying” your customers’ loyalty is a short-term strategy. It’s not based on deep-rooted customer satisfaction. Just on mere financial benefits. What is really funny is to see how firms react when they...
The next hand-written you’ll get may have been produced by those robots
Is there anything better for customer satisfaction than getting a personal hand-written note? The pleasure of getting one will soon fade away once the secret to thousands of mass produced hand-written notes gets revealed. Why do personal hand-written notes so much drive customer satisfaction ? Every customer wants to be different. Who would like to be treated like everyone else? Getting a hand-written from a company leverages the...
Online market research reveals the #1 factor to reduce showrooming
Showrooming is a massive problem for brick-and-mortar retailers. Customers visit stores but eventually make their purchases online. Operating a brick-and-mortar point of sale becomes more and more difficult. A scientific research reveals the #1 thing retailers should do to avoid showrooming. And it’s not about price. Showrooming in context and phygitalisation Showrooming is a symptom of the tug-of-war between the offline and...
Zalando free-returns policy drives customer loyalty up
Online retailer Zalando has announced revenues of €4.5b in 2017, up 23% from the year before. Despite a slight decrease of its Ebit (from 5.9% to 4.7%-4.9%), profits before taxes will be over €200m. This is a very solid result for a company that needed huge economies of scale to be profitable. The logistics and supply-chain costs are indeed a major cost center and the free-returns no-hassle policy of Zalando cost them huge amounts of...
Customer satisfaction : courtesy ensures everlasting emotions
I happen to be very often on business trips to meet clients. One recurrent problem when you travel alone is to find a place for dinner where you’ll feel welcome although you are alone. I was in Amsterdam for a few days (and nights) and had that problem once again. I discovered a small Indonesian restaurant a few meters away from the restaurant. I felt so welcome at restaurant Sama Sebo that I decided to come back 3 days in a...
Customer satisfaction is all about expectations : a real example
My good friend (and former customer) Patrick Mascart is in the photo/video business and has also become an expert in aerial photo and video services. Through his agency he has worked for prestigious clients like the European Commission and many other large organizations. The other day he posted on Facebook the transcript of a phone call he just received. You’ll learn a lot about customer satisfaction. Read further. The story...
3 key principles to follow for your good customer satisfaction surveys
I hear companies claiming they have x% or y% of customer satisfaction, proudly claiming Net Promoter Score (NPS) of so much and that many returning customers. While these figures seem great at first sight, this doesn’t tell us much. Read further to understand why satisfaction and loyalty scores must be interpreted carefully. We will once again use the example of the Belfius bank to illustrate this article. You will in particular...
How Big Data will influence the future of advertising
“What is the impact of Big Data on online advertising” is the question I was asked to answer on the occasion of an EGTA ((European Group of Television Advertising) workshop that took place on 29 and 30 June 2017 in Brussels (my thanks to Yuri Loburets for his kind invitation to speak). Rather than repeating the same clichés about Big Data again and again I chose to put advertising and Big Data back in a historical...
Moncler and DKV don’t care about customer complaints
Who said big companies are customer-centric and focused on customer satisfaction ? Besides firms which tweak their satisfaction surveys to obtain better results (see the example of Belfius), others simply seem to ignore the basic principles that ensure satisfied customers. Handling complaints is one of them. Moncler : how to NOT handle a complain You all know Moncler. It’s one of the most successful high-end leisure fashion...
The single most loyal customer American Airlines wanted to get rid of
Some customers are better than others and need to be very well taken care off. But not Steve Rothstein. For American Airlines this customer was the one to get rid of and American Airlines did spend a lot of efforts to kick that customer out after he had flown 10,000 flights in first class with the airline. Discover this amazing story below. Probably the single most loyal customer Rothstein bought a lifetime AAirpass in 1987 for...
CRM : most strategies are outdated. Is yours too ?
In a keynote speech at the 2017 EMAC conference in Groningen, Michael Haenlein pointed the irrelevance of current CRM (Customer Relationship Management) strategies. Firms still believe that they can keep customers forever, nurturing them and growing their customer base forever. This is obviously not true. Comparing CRM strategies with marriage, Hänlein had this wonderful word about CRM managers : “people try to date today by...
Branding : Vuitton collaborates with Jeff Koons for new line of bags and accessories.
In the field of luxury goods, innovation is sometimes lacking. Marketeers spend a lot of money on creative advertising campaigns, innovative stores and display windows (see those examples of Vuitton display windows : here and there), refined interactions with customers and higher service quality. But what about the products themselves ? The most sought after Hermes handbags have remained the same for decades ; the look of Vuitton...
Customer loyalty : 3 sets of KPI’s that should become your priorities
My good friend Christian Barbaray published an article (in French) where he listed the KPI’s that firms most commonly monitor. He split them in 3 categories (“global”, “asquisition”, “loyalty”) and concluded that firms on average monitor 11 KPI’s. What I find interesting is not so much the number of KPI’s they follow but rather the type of KPI’s they follow. While some of...
Ford builds trust and satisfaction with the Ford video check
Ford is currently rolling out a new digital tool that will help build trust and enhance customer satisfaction : the Ford video check. We tested it and it’s just amazing. Read further to see how Ford is transforming the car maintenance experience into a trust building experience that will eventually improve customer loyalty. Car maintenance and repair : a matter of trust If you have already brought your car for repair, you know...