Steve Jobs, de man achter Apple en Pixar en achter de vele innovatieve producten die veel markten opnieuw definieerden, is op 56 jarige leeftijd overleden. Zijn familie heeft het volgende statement uit doen gaan over zijn overlijden, thuis:“Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family. In his public life, Steve was known as a visionary; in his private life, he cherished his family. We are thankful to the many people who have shared their wishes and prayers during the last year of Steve’s illness; a website will be provided for those who wish to offer tributes and memories.

We are grateful for the support and kindness of those who share our feelings for Steve. We know many of you will mourn with us, and we ask that you respect our privacy during our time of grief.”

Met zijn overlijden neemt de wereld afscheid van een icoon, die voor velen – ook voor ons – een voorbeeld is van innovatief ondernemerschap en volharding.

(Bron: CBC Live, 6 oktober 2011)

Hoe ontwikkel je klantsensitiviteit en beweeg je mee met de wensen van je klant?

Customer Centrics is specialist in Customer Centric Business Building. We zijn een onafhankelijk netwerkbureau van klantgeorienteerde specialisten, dat u op een praktische manier ondersteunt bij het (her-)ontwikkelen van uw bedrijf vanuit klantkennis. Van strategie tot en met operatie; van communciatie tot en met formule-DNA. Lees meer over ons: klik hierboven op de buttons. Of lees actueel nieuws hieronder. Of bel/mail ons voor maatwerk-informatie: klik hier!

Onafhankelijk netwerkbureau

Customer Centrics is en blijft een klein bureau met louter klantgedreven specialisten en klantgedreven diensten en oplossingen. Alles wat we doen en bieden is dus klantgecentreerd: Customer Centric. En dat is in het belang van uw klanten, want ze krijgen de beste producten, diensten en ervaringen. En dat is daarmee ook in uw belang.

De disciplines en specialismen die we daarbij nodig hebben, kennen we en hebben we ervaring mee, maar we halen ze bewust niet allemaal in huis; we vinden ze in ons selecte netwerk van vakspecialisten. Zo bieden we u de beste oplossing van ervaren vakspecialisten die wij vertrouwen en zijn we erg flexibel in het samenstellen van het team dat u het beste kan helpen.

Laat van u horen!

Op deze site vindt u wat Customer Centrics u kan bieden: kijk en klik op uw gemak rond. Mocht u meer willen weten over onze diensten en werkwijze, of heeft u een vraag of opmerking, dan horen we graag van u. Neem gerust contact met ons op.

Het Nederlandse QRID komt volgende week met een nieuwe betaaltoepassing voor fysieke winkeliers en verkopers op afstand. Hiermee betalen klanten door een QR code te scannen met hun gsm. De dienst is gebouwd op de mobiele portemonnee van de Rabobank, MiniTix, waardoor het potentiële bereik zeer groot is. MiniTix kan onafhankelijk van iemands bank of mobiele telefoonprovider worden gebruikt. “Daardoor kan iedereen met een smartphone toegang krijgen tot het betaalsysteem”, aldus Rens de Groot van QRID. De Groot zegt tegenover Twinkle gebruik te maken van de impasse tussen mobiele providers en banken op het gebied van mobiel afrekenen. “KPN, T- Mobile, Vodafone, ABN Amro, ING en Rabobank tekenden een jaar gelden een intentieverklaring om contactloos mobiel betalen te introduceren via near field communication (nfc) maar dit blijft vooralsnog redelijk stil.”

Het afrekenen via QR codes heeft een aantal voordelen boven nfc-betalingen, zo meent De Groot. Zo hoeven gebruikers geen chip in hun telefoon te hebben die de betaalwijze ondersteunt en kan de methode ook voor verkopen op afstand worden gebruikt, zoals in webwinkels.

(Bron: Retailnews.nl, 30 augustus 2011)

Door Ingeborg van Beusekom op Business2Community

A personal brand is truly an aggregated representation of online activity. Can you build a personal brand by interacting on only one social service? You can, but it’s incomplete. It’s impossible to gain a true picture of who you are simply by looking at your photos on Flickr, or just reading your blog.

In terms of measuring online influence, the stronger your personal brand, the more influence you have online. The most important component of online influence is trust. Trust is defined as creating a consistent expectation that a person will always act in your best interest when given information.

Expertise is another core component of influence. You can gain knowledge on a specific topic, but expertise is a title that can only be given by your loyal trusted followers. This does not happen overnight, you need to start building your network, listen and engage. It’s all about building your network.

Measuring influence
The most basic measurements in social media are:

• Number of friends on Facebook
• Your followers on Twitter
• Your connections on LinkedIn

But you can “influence” these numbers if you want. You can invite everyone and follow everyone… but to my opinion it’s not the quanitity, but the quality that counts.

There are lots of tools out there for social media measurement. I will elaborate on a few free tools that I use.

Most famous is Klout
This tool uses its own algorithm to determine your influence. It’s not about he basic numbers. But rather about how you use the following you’ve amassed. And, more importantly, what your followers do or don’t do with your thoughts and ideas.

The second one you should sign up for is PeerIndex.
Similar to Klout, PeerIndex uses a proprietary method to determine what they call your social capital. Suggesting, of course, that all your hard work online actually is building value for you. Value that you can “spend” someday.

TweepsKey visualizes the importance of your Tweeps (followers in Twitter)
Still a Beta version, but it gives you a nice graph with coloured dots in which you can see who is important and who is just another follower. Look for the dots that are BIG and Green and on the rigth side! The bigger the circle, the more followers the tweep has. The more green the color, the better is the ratio followers/following.

TweetReach provides detailed metrics on the impact of Twitter conversations
It’s a dead simple way to measure how many accounts received your tweets, how far your message has traveled, and who is influencing the conversation about your brand or product.

(Bron: Ingeborg van Beusekom, 29 augustus 2011 op Business2Community)

Door Steve Olenski van Business2Community – 3 juni 2011

Using personalized marketing, especially in mediums such as direct mail, has always been highly effective. However in the digital space, personalization may not always be a good thing.

Ok, ok I know, anytime anyone uses the words “good” and “bad” in the title of pretty much anything (blog post, article, etc), we’ve become conditioned to also seeing the word “ugly” right behind them as an homage to the classic Clint Eastwood movie: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly.

Sorry… there’s nothing really “ugly” about personalized marketing unless of course you refer to someone by their wrong name or worse, their wrong gender. But you would never do that, right?

Today I came across two articles re: personalized marketing.

One on hand you have the article in eMarketer titled “Personalized Marketing Brings Rewards and Challenges.”

And on the other hand you have the Media Post article titled “MIT: Personalized Ads Don’t Always Work.”

The Good…

According to the eMarketer article, 34% US marketers consider personalized campaigns to be “highly effective and measurable” while “more than two-thirds of US marketers planned to use personalization in their campaigns within the next 6 to 12 months.”

The Bad…

Researchers at MIT have found that being uber-personalized it is not necessarily a good thing, at least not in the digital space.

Here’s what their research found:

Let’s say I’m interested in buying a new TV. I’m on an online review site to see what others are saying. I only go as far as the TV category page, I do not click on any one specific brand

If Mr. and Mrs. Advertiser start hitting me with personalized ads for TVs based on the fact that I was on the TV category section of a given site… I’m not going to like it and the ad will not be effective.

However, if I do in fact click through to a specific brand of TV then by all means hit me a personalized ad because then I will be more responsive to it.

Make sense?

It does to me…

Catherine Tucker, the MIT professor who conducted the study along with a colleague was dead on in saying “…just because you have the data to personalize, it doesn’t mean you always should.”

So, the morale is to use your best judgment when it comes to using all that personalized data your collecting. People are already up in arms about how much of their online usage is being tracked.

Don’t add to their anxiety needlessly.

Sources: eMarketer.com, MediaPost.com, Google Images, Original Post

A Chinese proverb advises, “Don’t open a shop unless you like to smile.” For millennia, business owners have appreciated the power of a smile to improve sales. Allow me to take some liberty with ancient wisdom and add to that, “Don’t work in customer service if you don’t enjoy making other people smile.” Employees that truly care about delivering smile-worthy experiences radiate genuine happiness at work; their natural enthusiasm attracts new customers and engages long-term customers. We call these employees Brand Ambassadors. In addition to flashing authentic smiles at every customer they meet, Brand Ambassadors provide unparalleled service— the kind that can only be delivered by someone who truly cares about a customer’s happiness, the kind that leaves customers raving and sales figures booming.

In this era of scripted customer service, it’s natural to be cynical. Aren’t today’s customers too savvy to fall for that old “service with a smile” schtick? As it turns out, no. Our research shows that, through stand-out service, Brand Ambassadors endear customers, thereby growing customer engagement, which, in turn, is connected to a slew of bottom-line indicators including share-of-wallet and ROI.

What distinguishes the kind of service that Brand Ambassadors provide? Our research into the brands with the highest Customer Engagement levels reveals that Brand Ambassadors:

• Demonstrate high Emotional IQ. They tune into the customer’s emotional state, respond appropriately, and discover solutions that benefit both the customer and the company.
• Treat customers like friends or even family. A Brand Ambassador greets customers by name and remembers details that may have come up in previous interactions.
• Provide Authentic Service. Customers can spot a fake smile a mile away. A genuine smile is a rare thing these days—it’s something that customers will remember and return for.

As an example, consider Steve Wynn’s story about an amazing bellman at one of Wynn’s Vegas resort casinos. As an older couple was checking in, they realized they’d forgotten their medication at home. Because the husband was diabetic, missing their medication would mean ending their vacation. After making arrangements with and reassuring the couple, the bellman actually drove back to their house (a four-hour drive!), picked up the medication, and had it back at the casino in time for their 7am required doses. You can bet that couple will be extremely loyal customers going forward. And they probably shared their story with plenty of friends, attracting new business. But the Brand Amabassador bellman’s influence didn’t stop there. His dilligence spread through the rest of the organization, inspiring his fellow employees to seek out their own opportunities to help casino guests.

In the end, today’s customers are looking for more than the best product at the lowest price. They have plenty of choices when it comes to finding inexpensive, functional products and services. That’s why the modern key differentiator is the customer experience. Brand Ambassadors create an exceptional experience that exceeds customers’ emotional and functional needs.

Every company has Brand Ambassadors. The problem is that so many fail to find them and unleash their potential.  Recognizing and learning from these individuals can set the standard for customer experiences. When employees are encouraged to imitate the best, excellence becomes contagious in the organization – an imperative for anyone concerned with building a truly customer-centric culture.  As more and more employees become full-fledged Brand Ambassadors, Customer Engagement rises, and business outcomes improve.

The challenge is that no two company’s Brand Ambassadors look alike. Every company is unique; there is no “one size fits all” solution as far as the customer experience is concerned, but your Brand Ambassadors know how to deliver the perfect experience for your customers. A Voice of the Customer solution is the best way to spot the people in your company building valuable customer relationships.  Imitating the employees that customers love  guarantees that your steps toward customer-centricity will align perfectly with what your customer wants.

PeopleMetrics’ Voice of the Customer solution sends a special Recognition Alert when a customer praises an employee by name. Too often, companies only notice what employees are doing wrong, and fail to capitalize on the excellent work of Brand Ambassadors. PeopleMetrics’ Recognition Alert is a good indicator that you may have a Brand Ambassador on your hands—and once you’ve identified Brand Ambassadors, you can study their performance , train other employees accordingly and make excellent customer service contagious in your organization.

(Bron: Kate Feather op B2C.com, 31 mei 2011)

Uit onderzoek van Adobe Scene 7 blijkt dat reclame op social media, mobiel en interactieve catalogi de belangrijke online trends zijn binnen retail.

Onderzoek
Het rapport “2011 Survey: Customer Experience in the Next Digital Decade” is gebaseerd op een onderzoek onder 1.941 respondenten. Het onderzoek is wereldwijd uitgevoerd.Website aanpassingen
82% van de bedrijven is van plan het komend jaar hun websites te verbeteren of het website ontwerp aan te passen.

Bekende oplossingen
55% van de bedrijven maakt inmiddels gebruik van website analytics en 26% van campaign analytics.
40% heeft branded social media pagina’s, en 34% heeft een blog of is actief op micro-blogs.

Nieuwe kanalen en mogelijkheden
27% heeft implementatie van een iPhone app ingepland.
27% wil investeren in interactieve catalogi en brochures.
25% heeft plannen om op social media te gaan adverteren.

Bron: bericht op InternetRetailing.net, 31 mei geciteerd op het klantinteractiekenniscentrum

(Bron: Tara DeMarco/Business2Community)

“The customer is always right.” Cliché, right? But put that image in your head of a ranting shopper in the product returns line on pause.

Business2Community often blogs about the selling power of customers’ words, but many brands find even more value in the customer intelligence this feedback can offer. These stories from their clients illustrate how companies that actively pull insights from feedback quickly find that the customer is always right about……what products to sell. High sales with very low return rates showed an inexpensive ice cream maker to be a popular favorite among customers for QVC UK. But reviews revealed that the poorly made product was damaging customers’ confidence in ordering from the retailer, and buyers weren’t returning the product because it was so inexpensive. QVC UK stopped carrying the ice cream maker, saving their shoppers from future dissatisfaction.

Customer feedback is also powerful intelligence in negotiations between retailers and manufacturers. “There is nothing more powerful than going back to supplier with a fistful of bad reviews and saying, ‘We would like our money back and our customers agree with us,’” says Steve Fuller, Senior Vice President and CMO of L.L.Bean.

…what products other shoppers should buy. Customer feedback doesn’t just help shoppers buy – it sets realistic product expectations while helping shoppers find the right products for their specific needs. This increases customer satisfaction and reduces return rates. Customer Q&A reduced returns 23% in one case. PETCO found that products with reviews have a 20.4% lower return rate than those without reviews.

…what to say in product copy. After analyzing customer Q&A, UK cycling retailer Evans Cycles noticed that bike weight is an important factor for shoppers, but wasn’t available on their site. They now weigh all bikes before listing, and include this information in product descriptions.

L.L.Bean estimates that 75% of their negative reviews are the result of inaccurate product descriptions or marketing copy. Customer feedback helps companies catch these simple fixes, which can have a big impact. Samsung, for example, sells a refrigerator that must be plugged in for 6 hours before the ice machine works. Investigating the fridge’s high return rates, Samsung noticed through reviews that many customers thought the machine was broken. The product manager filmed a short video explaining the ice machine feature and distributed it throughout stores. Return rates decreased.

…what to say in advertising. L.L.Bean’s top performing non-sale email had a customer-generated headline: “I am in love with this doormat. Is it really wrong to love a doormat?” USAA also saw a 32x increase in acquisition for banner ad with review content, compared to ads without reviews. And Rubbermaid saw a 10% lift in coupon redemption rate when they included reviews in a print ad.

…what products to improve, and how. Land of Nod thought their customers loved their art clips – the $5 product had excellent sales rates. After launching reviews, they were surprised that the clips had such low ratings. Customer feedback revealed that the clips fell off the wall when customers tried to hang their work from them. Land of Nod redesigned the product, responded to negative reviewers to let them know their feedback had led to a change, and even sent these customers replacement products for free – turning a negative experience into a delightful one.

Dell’s product teams evaluate every product based on customer ratings and reviews. If any product’s rating drops below 3.5 stars, the product team has a set number of weeks to improve the rating before Dell kills the product. Rather than guessing what to improve about the product, the teams use insights from social media and customer reviews – specific suggestions like “more USB ports” or “louder max volume” based on trends found in customer feedback.

Stop guessing. Listen to your customers, gather insights from their feedback, and use these insights to improve your offering. When it comes to deciding what customers want…. well, you know the cliché.

Note: QVC UK, L.L.Bean, PETCO, Evans Cycles, Samsung, USAA, Rubbermaid, Land of Nod, and Dell are Bazaarvoice clients.

Aanbevolen event voor iedereen die met de reisindustrie te maken heeft en benieuwd is wat online en mobile voor impact (gaan) hebben: Emerce eTravel. eTravel biedt u op 9 juni 2011 een uitgebreid programma met diverse keynote speakers, parallelsessies en vipsessies, geheel in het teken van de laatste online innovaties en ontwikkelingen. Specialisten demonstreren de diverse mogelijkheden op het gebied van online marketing, affiliate sales en mobile.

Klik hier voor meer informatie.

(Bron: Emerce)