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vol. 31 • No. 8 • September 2018
The Authority on Data-Driven Engagement & Operations
The changing landscape of consumer insights ❱ 10
Moving to tapping customer relationships also may help market legalized cannabis
HARNESS the POWER of mobility analytics
From Marketing Potential To Marketing Performance
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Vol. 31 | No. 8 | September 2018
The changing landscape of consumer insights
EDITOR Brendan Read - brendan@dmn.ca PRESIDENT Steve Lloyd - steve@dmn.ca
Moving to tapping customer relationships also may help market legalized cannabis
DESIGN / PRODUCTION Jennifer O’Neill - jennifer@dmn.ca Advertising Sales Mark Henry - mark@dmn.ca CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Kelly Koelliker Seamus Barton Derek Lackey Karim Chabane Paige Pace Matt Chong Jim Rembach Allen Davidov Drew Tremblay Jeff Furst Jeff Tomlin Scott Kendrick LLOYDMEDIA INC. HEAD OFFICE / SUBSCRIPTIONS / PRODUCTION:
Excellent Execution
Customer Centricity
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Defeating SMB customer churn
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National Bank of Canada’s customer-first digital transactions
Dimensional/High value direct mail
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Contact Management
Phone: 905.201.6600 Fax: 905.201.6601 Toll-free: 800.668.1838 home@dmn.ca www.dmn.ca EDITORIAL CONTACT: Direct Marketing is published monthly by Lloydmedia Inc. plus the annual DM Industry Guide. Direct Marketing may be obtained through paid subscription. Rates: Canada 1 year (12 issues $48) 2 years (24 issues $70) U.S. 1 year (12 issues $60) 2 years (24 issues $100) Direct Marketing is an independently-produced publication not affiliated in any way with any association or organized group nor with any publication produced either in Canada or the United States. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome. However unused manuscripts will not be returned unless accompanied by sufficient postage. Occasionally Direct Marketing provides its subscriber mailing list to other companies whose product or service may be of value to readers. If you do not want to receive information this way simply send your subscriber mailing label with this notice to: Lloydmedia Inc. 302-137 Main Street North Markham ON L3P 1Y2 Canada. POSTMASTER: Please send all address changes and return all undeliverable copies to: Lloydmedia Inc. 302-137 Main Street North Markham ON L3P 1Y2 Canada Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement No. 40050803
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Dimensional mail: marketing’s buffet lobster
Ending the contact centre “tug of war”
Why high value direct mail is like good seafood
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Direct mail still best way to reach customers
Flexibility, empowerment are keys to success
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A miracle (marketing) cure How tailored direct mail and telemarketing revived Mackenzie Health Foundation’s donor programme
Feature Twitter: @DMNewsCanada
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The marketing time bomb Interactive digital customer engagement lit the fuse September 2018
Keeping contact centre employees engaged
Eight steps to improve agent performance
❯❯ 5 How to optimize agent hiring and retention
❯❯ 6 The blueprint for accelerated supervisor success DMN.ca ❰
Customer Centricity
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Defeating SMB customer churn C
Jeff Tomlin is a cofounder and CMO of
Vendasta, a white-label software platform built to help B2B marketing agencies and other companies provide solutions to local businesses. To download the full churn study, visit www.vendasta.com/content-library/ guides/client-churn-study.
hurn is a killer. It can be a painful part of doing business, financially and emotionally. It can stop growth in its tracks. Worse yet, it’s a common problem that organizations are not effectively solving. Small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) provide opportunities for marketing agencies and software companies. SMBs are moving parts of their business online according to the study The Full-Stack, Tech-First Future of the SMB Market commissioned by Vendasta. They are also consolidating vendors. The growing complexity of marketing stacks and sheer number of suppliers today are big reasons why SMB customers are churning. But it also represents a big opportunity for agencies and vendors to bring new clients on board and more importantly, keep the ones they have. The “churn formula” pursuit Vendasta produces software that serves SMB needs. I’m the chief marketing officer (CMO) and have a vested interest in ensuring our partners (Vendasta customers) see results. It’s what led our company to commission The Full-Stack and conduct an internal study called Why Your Clients Churn. The latter sorts out the core of why customers cut ties with their marketing or ad agencies in order to better understand how they may retain the next customers. We used the wealth of SMB data stored within the software platform to produce the paper. It assesses businesses’ product adoption as well as agency engagement to better understand what others might be able to do to improve—and extend—client/agency relationships.
The growing complexity of marketing stacks and sheer number of suppliers today are big reasons why SMB customers are churning The research uncovered valuable insights into product adoption by—and critical touch points with—SMBs. For example, companies that work with SMBs can increase retention by identifying needs and providing solutions to those needs, solving problems with more dependencies, producing rock-solid onboarding processes and partaking in frequent engagement. Also, being attentive to clients’ needs and engaging early can lead to long-lasting relationships. It’s the difference between fast sales and forward success. Be problem solvers Let’s look a little deeper into the findings. Needs-based selling doesn’t end with the initial conversations. It’s about identifying clients’ problems and solving the most acute issues first. Agencies that concentrate on ❱ DMN.ca
identifying specific needs for prospective clients and then tailor plans to meet those needs increase client retention by 30%. Further, higher product adoption leads to greater retention. The study found that selling an SMB: ❯❯ Only one product results in a 30% retention after two years; ❯❯ An additional product increases retention to nearly 50%; and ❯❯ Four solutions grows retention to 80%. It’s important, then, that agencies focus on solving for their clients’ biggest problems and finding new opportunities as a relationship grow. In any relationship needs may change and it’s important to keep an ear to them. We noticed that agencies that touched base often had the best success of keeping customers. Moreover, there is a specific time frame after purchasing a solution when upselling works best, which is at the end of the first three months of a customer relationship. Setting time aside to re-evaluate the results and respond to new acute client needs will result in higher product engagement and more sales. The needs-based approach is not a start gate conversation. Instead it is a benchmark that should be revisited frequently. Engage often Selling is just the start. Vendasta recently surveyed agencies and learned that selling solutions isn’t the key problem. Instead, it is retaining clients. Automated needs assessment reports and strategic sales plans that focus on prospects’ needs will get people in the doors, but engagements will give them seats at the dinner tables. Once an agency makes the sale it’s important to get the client onboarded and engaging with their new plan early. The study found that doing so can result in a 20% spike in client/customer retention and clients that engage weekly have a 26% higher retention rate than those who do not. Adopt the cloud, defeat churn As Baby Boomers move toward retirement and more tech-adoptive owners grab the reins of local shops, SMB-focused software solutions will become even more prevalent than they already are. Agencies will have ample opportunity to grab hold of new business, but they must be prepared to provide more solutions in order to become single-source providers. With cloud-based service demand on the rise many vendors offer advanced integration options. Cloud delivery is a must particularly for SMBs because it is scalable, entails less IT costs and is pay-as-you-go. There is a wealth of vendor-partnership opportunities to provide everything under one roof without building it all in-house. Identifying acute needs, providing solutions, bringing clients up to speed as soon as possible, providing consistent touchpoints and upselling at the three-month mark is a recipe for success in ending churn. September 2018
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Dimensional / high value direct Mail
Dimensional mail: marketing’s buffet lobster Why high value direct mail is like good seafood
By Seamus Barton
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magine that you are a fly in a buffet. After weaving through swats from annoyed diners you start to notice patterns as they scoop up whatever piques the appetites. People circle about, holding white plates like gold pans as they sift for something special. From pepperoni pizza to fried rice and raspberry sorbet, the abundance can be overwhelming. For seafood lovers, choosing what to eat gets much easier if there is lobster. But guests who enjoy it are faced with crucial time sensitivity as each tray quickly dulls down to a few broken shell bits. Since fresh lobster is expensive fare for any restaurant there is often no knowing when it will be refilled once it is finished. As eyes dart across a spread of options, a tray of lobster is what marketers hope to have. This buttery crustacean has the advantage of getting noticed first and valued highest. Within the mailbox where competitors poke at the same prospects’ palates, the question is how do marketers ensure their pieces gets engaged with immediately, like a buffet lobster would? Making direct mail appetizing The answer is simple and perhaps more easily backed by a fishing analogy. In order to get the most bites, your mail pieces need to be the most appetizing. When it comes to the visual and tactile competencies of direct mail, ❱ DMN.ca
dimensional mail is highly tempting. As a Canada Post Special Handling category designed for thicker pieces, dimensional mail stands out first due to its size. Some direct mail marketers refer to certain kinds of dimensional mail as “lumpies”, when the pieces contain items that gives them a chunky appearance. The important question is what gets scooped up first, something flat or something lumpy. Since lumpies often contain product samples or small gifts, they elicit a tang of intrigue that transcends the familiarity of traditional mail and its mild dimensions. The praised lobster-ness of dimensional mail is not meant to suggest that marketers should abandon traditional forms of direct mail. Since dimensional mail is often the most expensive item on the menu, your budget may not allow for frequent dimensional campaigns. Marketers can add dimensional mail to the marketing mix when the opportunity arises. While cooking up a creative or interactive package increases visibility, creating this powerful high value campaign can be challenging before it is rewarding. South African example Marketers in other countries have feasted on dimensional mail. A recent campaign by South Africa’s popular radio station Cape Talk Radio is a perfect testament to its robust flavours. With an objective to increase the station’s reach and relevance, Cape Talk
Radio created a children’s toy named Princessaurus, Slayer of Prehistoric Stereotypes. Packaged as a princess doll riding on a tyrannosaurus, Princessaurus was mailed to big-name toy retailers and to a family psychologist to initiate a larger discussion on gender representations in children’s toys. Cape Talk Radio invited Princessaurus’ recipients to its show, hosting a debate that tackled gender stereotypes and encouraged companies and families to rethink how children’s toys are branded. A key success factor of the Princessaurus campaign was its ability to optimize the dimensions of direct mail. Rather than producing stickers or a comic strip, Cape Talk Radio chose to engage the tactile appetite in a way that was thick and memorable with high-value interaction. Princessaurus satisfied a couple major cravings: new toys and food for thought. While challenging its audience’s views, the station also challenged itself by connecting top dimensional features with a top of mind conversation. The Princessaurus example does not mean that only the most expensive campaign will succeed. While Cape Talk Radio served an obvious buffet lobster, the process of manufacturing toys for a single marketing effort is cumbersome for most businesses. Instead Princessaurus demonstrates that direct mail marketing, much like a buffet, opens a trove of possibilities. Some other forms of
dimensional mail include hockey pucks, goggles, bars of soap, cosmetic samplers and virtually anything within the dimensional thickness range. There are still new ways to get people talking. Satisfying consumers’ hunger When people talk about “junk mail”, perhaps they are just on a stricter diet. Marketers are expected to break beyond simple snacks and efforts that consumers feel are insignificant to them. As a buffet puts up glass to protect its food from sneezes, people also use guards to shield themselves from sloppy choices and purchases. We live in a marketing savvy world where most consumers run each offer through magnifiers before sampling. Regardless of whether or not you like lobster, it is important to be a fly on the wall and pay attention to what consumers are hungry for. The next time your creative juices run dry, try throwing some lobster on it. As some undone top buttons and loosened elastic waistbands will confess, there’s always room for more. Seamus Barton is business development manager, Troi Mailing Services Inc., www.troimail.com an accredited Smartmail Marketing Expert Partner with over 25 years of direct mail experience. As the proud recipient of Canada Post Top Performer Awards in Program Participation and New Business Acquisition, Troi cheers on the future of direct marketing with a motto of “We Can Print It, We Can Mail It!”
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Dimensional / high value direct Mail
Direct mail still best way to reach out to customers By Drew Tremblay
O
ver the past few years online technology has had an effect on how we connect in our everyday lives. Whether in communicating with others, buying products and services, banking or being entertained it has changed our thinking. Think about it. We all have monthly payments that come out automatically from our accounts; there is no need to write cheques anymore. We can check our bank balances, apply for credit cards or loans online and we can chat with automated virtual assistants. We can shop through our computers and phones and have the items delivered the next day. Online technology drawbacks Many companies have been moving to online to reduce the amount of paper-based communications mainly for immediacy, especially when we are connected all the time. Yet in some ways online technology has made connecting to customers much more complicated. What about reaching out for new business? Banner ads that pop up on your laptop or phone can be ignored: you can get an app to block them completely. What about contacting your existing customers? But too often this outreach gets lost in the daily email deluge or trapped in spam filters and the customers might not take action on what you have to offer.
Digital and mail facts That’s where direct mail come in. This method of marketing is targeted to the customers you want to reach. Here’s some other facts: 1. Is digital really green? Companies are also framing their rationales to moving to online for environmental reasons, namely to save trees and have lower carbon footprints. But the reality is the paper-based communications have one-time environmental impacts. Yes, paper is made from trees, but forests are renewable and sustainably managed in North America. Paper companies produce their own energy as by-products of the pulping process, which means its green energy in that lowers their footprint. And yes, paper is recyclable. In contrast every time you go online you consume energy. Big data like for targeted customer marketing consumes big energy. Look at the new huge data server farms that are springing up and the massive power lines feeding them. Even green energy can be controversial with people opposed to big solar and wind farms and large hydro dams that flood open space. I could go on, but you get the picture. 2. Ability to reach customers. Direct mail reaches customers physically and emotionally. They touch, open, read and act on it. It can be creative and make people smile. The U.S. Postal Service did a study called The Mail Moment
and it showed that 77% of people sort through their mail right away. I do and have acted on it, like an offer to bundle my service from my telecom carrier. If the mail piece is personally addressed you will be more likely to open and read it, possibly putting it away and going back to it later. Receiving mail with your name on it is a pleasure; it’s that extra added touch. 3. Value and urgency. Like receiving your credit card bill in the mail. You can see your purchases, take action, file it for a later date or pay right away. You can pin it or tape it to your refrigerator door to remind you of the due date. The constant reminder that there will make you take action and attend to it sooner. And you don’t have to remember (or forget) complicated passwords. In contrast people who get bills by email can easily forget or pay them late. One reason, besides the email deluge mentioned before is that you have to take many more steps to act on them when you get them online. You have to open, review, act and file the online bill, it goes in the cloud and then to look at it again you have to open the device and go through the same process. And you might have to print it. Moreover, if you miss your payments companies will make past due phone calls to remind you. 4. Greater security. Mail statements are secure; no one
Attend. Learn. Engage. At the
Content Marketing Congress
September 2018
goes through your mail anymore to get your identity, instead they can try and get into your computer or smartphone. You can shred or better yet tear up your statements and put them in your compost or with your smelliest garbage. No one will go through them to get your identity. 5. Message retention. Many studies have shown that reading direct mail has greater information retention than reading online content. For example, Canada Post’s study, A Bias For Action, published in July 2015, showed that participants had a much higher recall of the brand i.e. company name of an advertisement they had just seen from a direct mail piece than from a digital ad. A web banner or an email cannot compete with the creativity of a wonderfully designed direct mail piece. Direct mail +online While online is convenient and immediate direct mail gets noticed. The best approach is using them in tandem, like printing a web site URL or email on a mail piece or paper bill to help customers track their spending and usage. Done well the customer and business (and our environment) wins. Drew Tremblay is principal, AKT Sustainability
Strategies, specializing in forestry and environmental non-government organization and stakeholder engagement. He a director of the Forest Stewardship Council. Drew can be reached at andrewtremblay@sympatico.ca.
October 25, 2018 8:30 am to 5 pm National Club, 303 Bay Street, Toronto, ON. For more information and speaking proposals contact Brendan Read, brendan@dmn.ca 905-201-6600 x227 For sponsorships contact Mark Henry mark@dmn.ca 905-201-6600 x223 DMN.ca ❰
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Dimensional / high value direct Mail
A miracle (marketing) cure How tailored direct mail and telemarketing revived Mackenzie Health Foundation’s donor programme By Allen Davidov
T
he Mackenzie Health Foundation, which raises funds for Mackenzie Health, the Toronto, Ontario area’s York Region health care provider, was faced with a challenge. Its one-size-fits-all fundraising strategy wasn’t clicking with the community: its annual donor base had shrunk by 35% over the span of two years. This scenario would be unnerving for any charitable organization, but more so for the Mackenzie Health Foundation. It was planning a $250 million fundraising campaign, the largest community hospital fundraising campaign in Canadian history, to support the development of the new Mackenzie Vaughan Hospital: Canada’s first “smart” hospital and
❱ DMN.ca
needed to attract more high-profile donations. The Foundation had reason to hope as it serves a diverse, wealthy and fast-growing population on the northern edge of Toronto that is very generous in terms of their charitable giving. Engaging current donors key As daunting as these challenges seemed, Foundation president and CEO Ingrid Perry and director of advancement Dwayne DiPasquale, had faced similar issues at other hospital foundations and saw a way to turn things around. They felt that if they could see what engaged their current donors they might be able to apply those lessons to attract more people like them. Perry and DiPasquale quickly came up with a plan to analyze the Foundation’s donor base.
They enlisted Environics Analytics to develop an in-depth understanding of the communities they serve, who lives where, what they like and want and what messages they respond to. It turns out the high level of diversity in the community was having an even greater impact on the one-sizefits-all approach than what you typically find. “My president knew that we were serving a diverse community and we realized that one message would not reach everyone,” said DiPasquale. “We needed to put a plug in the dam.” Tailoring the communications strategy The Environics Analytics research supported his thesis that the Mackenzie Health Foundation
had to tailor its communications strategy for its Annual Giving Direct Mail and Telemarketing Campaign. The organization would also use this same approach to identify a select group of highvalue prospect donors, capable of contributing $10,000 or more to the cause. It was an interesting challenge. Almost 50% of the York Region’s 1.2 million residents are immigrants and approximately 30% of residents speak a nonofficial language at home. But the Foundation’s struggles demonstrate that simply knowing what percentage of a region is densely populated by immigrants or ethnic minorities isn’t enough to develop a targeted campaign, since the concentrations of various ethnic groups can vary widely
September 2018
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Dimensional / high value direct Mail within the community. To develop a more nuanced view of the demographic landscape, the Foundation profiled its existing donor database using PRIZM5, Environics Analytics’ proprietary segmentation system. Once these profiles were created, the target groups were even more refined. Using databases like SocialValues, DemoStats and Opticks by Vividata the Foundation was able to understand their psychographic and donor behavioural tendencies and then use that information to develop tailored messages to reach each group. “By looking at our donors through the lens of PRIZM5 and SocialValues, we were able to see the types of donors who shared our values and were most likely to be responsive, as well as where to find them,” said DiPasquale. “With this information we were able to tailor our messaging and approach to improve our engagement with them.”
segments would be most responsive to specific stories while others aligned with the history and organizational values that the Foundation stood for. Many of the high-potential donors identified by the data appeared to be greatly motivated by creating family legacies and having positive impacts on their community. The work also revealed that direct mail and e-blasts would be some of the more effective ways to engage donors. Every postal code and home telephone number belonging to a target group was highlighted, providing an opportunity for tailored communications and targeted mail distribution. The insights derived from the SocialValues database helped the Foundation understand what messages would resonate with each target group, which allowed it to develop targeted telephone scripts and direct mail to engage different parts of the community.
Targeting the messaging The data showed that certain
Shot in the arm results Equipped with phone numbers,
September 2018
mailing addresses and tailored messaging, the Mackenzie Health Foundation rolled out the Annual Giving Direct Mail and Telemarketing Campaign. The data driven response rates far exceeded even the best-case scenario, with overall annual response rates jumping by 62% while mailing 30% fewer packages and raising 11% more revenue. The success of this initiative led the Foundation to apply this approach to other programs, such as Planned Giving. Like the data-driven annual giving campaign, the planned giving campaign enjoyed a similar boost when it started targeting its prospective donors. Notably, the donor-to-planned giver conversion rate surpassed 30% after the first campaign, which at the time was 20% greater than the industry standard for hospital campaigns. The Foundation has been able to sustain these results. The donorto-planned giver conversion rate remains strong at 26%, factoring in test panels. High value potential donors that were identified by
Environics Analytics profiling were converting at a rate of 40%, with a response rate of almost 12%: double the results of the test panels featuring typical planned giving donor criteria segmentation. By appealing to donors’ desires to leave legacies, the Foundation generated 80 positive responses to leaving Mackenzie Health in their wills, with a projected overall weighted value of more than $1 million in potential bequests from just two small planned giving campaigns. The Foundation is currently using the data to segment its donors across all giving portfolios as it prepares to launch the public phase of the campaign to support the new hospital. While high levels of diversity within community can complicate a communication strategy, it is the perfect environment to demonstrate how effective tailored messages can be. After all, every community is diverse, even if you can’t see it. Allen Davidov is a director of business consulting at Environics Analytics.
DMN.ca ❰
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Consumer Insights
The changing landscape of consumer insights Moving to tapping customer relationships also may help market legalized cannabis
By Matt Chong
W
e live in an era where consumer data and insights are among the most valuable commodities possessed by ourselves as modern marketers. As technology has evolved we now have far more access to customer intelligence than ever before, ranging from primary research and big data to social media listening tools and chatbots. The question is, which tools are the right ones that will truly help marketers to better understand their customers? Long-form versus consumer insights communities In 2000 Vision Critical pioneered the technology behind the modern consumer insight community. The company’s premise was that ❱ DMN.ca
instead of engaging in lengthy primary research that consisted of long-form research, such as phone interviews and/or focus groups, brands should be continuously engaging their customers in ongoing dialogues. Vision Critical’s solution was an online cloud-based platform that would allow brands to build communities of their customers to engage in real-time two-way dialogues. Brands would then be able to innovate in real-time and stay on the pulse of consumer behaviour. If you were a big brand such as Nike and you had an insight community of 100,000 customers, you would be able to tap into this robust audience on an ongoing basis to better inform your decision-making. Since then companies such
as the Angus Reid Forum and Research Now have built similar online panels that allow marketers to access large groups of known respondents, typically representative of Canadian and U.S. census populations to participate in online quantitative and qualitative research. These services provide marketers with real-time access to consumers across every conceivable demographic and psychographic makeup. I sat down recently with American Marketing Association Toronto chapter vice president strategy and insights Christopher Stathousis. He had this to say about research in the role of gathering insights: “Traditional research methodologies based on waterfall
thinking with long planning, launch and measurement cycles don’t work in the new world of human-centered innovation. In today’s fast-paced world of marketing innovation, organizations no longer have the luxury of time for long planning and testing cycles and the risk–tolerance of slower traditional qualitative and quantitative survey research approaches.” Coming from the market research world I see the value of online research as a way of validating decisions and understanding consumer behaviour. However, I believe that true consumer insight comes from developing and engaging in one to one relationships with your customers. This is most apparent with communities and media September 2018
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Consumer Insights that cater specifically to niche audiences that quite literally live and breathe the attributes of these segments. The Coke experience There are many examples of brands that invest a tremendous amount of resources to better understand and engage their customers. Take Coca-Cola for example. Coke is investing in innovation labs in order to better understand their consumers and keep a pulse on changing trends and tastes. I would imagine that Coca-Cola launched their innovation lab to avoid one of their spectacular failures in product launches: New Coke. New Coke was launched in 1985 as a response to the Pepsi Taste Challenge. At this point, Pepsi had been performing better in consumer taste tests due to the sweeter nature of the product. As an effort to rejuvenate the brand to compete against Pepsi’s increasing popularity among the younger generation through the Pepsi Taste Challenge, Coke launched a sweeter version of
their classic product to replace the original under the assumption that consumers would love the product. But as history tells us, New Coke was an absolute disaster with many consumers boycotting the product and brand due to their affinity to the original formula. The learning from New Coke tells us that marketing leaders are continuously evolving their organizations to gather insights from their consumers on a regular basis1. Human-centred-design Global design company IDEO has been championing the idea of human-centred design. It rapidly gained popularity as many marketers were drawn to its pure simplicity. Using behavioural data, IDEO consults with organizations to create more agile and effective products and environments. Its secret sauce is its ability to gather insights through the eyes of their target audiences by using qualitative research to develop solutions that are quite literally
built from their own shared experiences. This humanized approach to gathering insights has become a model to marketers across the world. Applying insights to cannabis marketing In Canada, one of the most topical industry discussions is around the legalization of the sale of cannabis that takes effect October 17, 2018. While other marketers are focused on licensed producers and retailers, I’m fascinated by how data and consumer insights will affect this new space. Lift & Co, self-proclaimed as the “Trip Advisor” for cannabis, specializes in aggregating consumer reviews of cannabis products. Its focus differs from most companies in the cannabis space as it is investing in data and technology to better understand consumers’ usage of cannabis products. Upon legalization it will also be launching the “Cannabis Concierge”, which will allow retailers to use this crowdsourced consumer data to help individuals
understand which cannabis products are right for them. With the launch of new industry in Canada, this type of data and insight will be absolutely essential for cannabis brands to understand how to market to a brand-new audience. Marketers today have a wide variety of tools to tap into from consumer research and crowdsourced data to social media listening tools. That being said, I believe that one of the most valuable tools that marketers can tap into are specialized communities where relationships are engrained through always on engagement. Matt Chong is vice president, strategic development and partnerships at Notable Life. As a seasoned strategist and consultant, Matt works with brands and agencies to help them better understand the young professional millennial audience in Canada. Matt is also the current sitting president of the Toronto Chapter of the American Marketing Association and founder of e-commerce startup Chong Tea Co. 1 Ellie Kennedy, “New Coke: A Classic Brand Failure”, case study, Inform, University of Reading, July 11, 2016.
Do you make decisions about your marketing operations? Are you responsible for customer acquisition, retention or loyalty? Is your department in charge of fulfilling orders or customer service?
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September 2018
DMN.ca ❰
DIRECT MARKETING Vol. 21 • No. 1 • MAY 2008
CANADA’S PUBLICATION ABOUT INTERACTIVE MARKETING AND SALES
Editor’s Letter
Direct Marketing News has morphed into Direct Marketing. Here’s what we did, what the changes are all about, and why we did it
»
Directives Guest columnist Canadian Marketing Association President and CEO John Gustavson sees a bright future ahead for direct marketers but identifies the top 10 issues they face in the next three years.
»
CMA Convention Showcase Here is full conference program for all three days of the show with a synopsis of all concurrent sessions and their times.
»
Trade Show Exhibitors Here is alphabetical listing of trade show exhibitors with booth numbers
How to avoid Meatball Sundae
» »
Author Seth Godin outlines 14 key trends that are changing businesses forever. His speech and all other CMA convention keynote speakers and addresses are described here
PRINTED ON 100% RECYCLED PAPER
❱ RETAIL CATALOGUE REPORT
Reader Poll
Dispelling coupon redemption myths
In The Mail: German engineer admits Japanese make better car
We asked direct marketers and DM agencies “What was one of your most effective direct marketing campaigns in 2007 and why?”
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It seemed German engineer was confessing to the supremacy of Japanese auto making when recipients got this 2008 Subaru Impreza mailing
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Misconceptions are common among marketers about coupon popularity and redemption rates. Here are 10 of the most prevalent myths and the real facts.
Canadian email system helps Obama fundraising
O
BY PETER MEYERS verall coupon redemption rates are in decline in Canada and the U.S. in recent years. It’s the prevailing perception of many marketers these days. But much of the conventional coupon wisdom is just simply wrong. This unequivocal assertion is based on redemption trends derived from a 20-year database ICOM Information & Communications constructed. The database was built in the course of designing 6,300 targeted direct mail programs and issuing 425 million coupons to 28 million Canadian and U.S. households that voluntarily provide information about their purchasing preferences. ICOM’s database uniquely differentiates redemption behaviour between current, competitive and new users of products. As North American marketers search for answers to help them cut through the clutter arising from a proliferation of offers, the time has come to re-examine some of the conventional wisdom on couponing. Following are the top 10 myths about coupon redemption and the real facts. Myth #1: Short-term expirations drive immediate sales. Fact: Consumers need more time. A short expiry often cuts redemption far more than any increase in value can make up. Myth #2: Higher value always equals higher redemption. Fact: Value alone isn’t enough. Maximum redemption comes from an optimal valueexpiration sweet spot. Myth #3: Store brand users aren’t worth See COUPON MYTHS, page 6
Want to boost response rates?
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama relies on Canadian email system as backbone for an email fundraising campaign. Focus on Fundraising starts here
»
2008 Summit & Fundraising Day The programs for two upcoming conferences of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) of Greater Toronto are presented here
»
Direct & Personal
In this article Peter Meyers, vice-president of marketing at ICOM Information & Communications, sets out to clip the myths surrounding coupon redemptions. He feels the time has to re-examine conventional coupon wisdom.-Photo by Gary Tannyan
MORE RETAIL/CATALOGUE REPORT STORIES
FAST� forward
Sears may restore Eaton’s catalogue pg 4 Sears Canada is seriously considering resurrecting the Eaton’s catalogue for the second time. Road to right decisions pg 6 Joan Wilson tells how the road to right decisions is paved with good, integrated data and accurate reports Making made to order catalogues pg 7 How you can increase your print catalogue’s response rate by 15 percent or more
It’s no surprise that Duke Smith is enjoying great success with his new fundraising agency. He is proof it’s possible to overcome cruellest tragedies even those that strike at early age.
»
Dairy Farmers Weight program includes direct street approach When Dairy Farmers of Canada launched Healthy Weight Program, one way it reached Canadian women was through street teams handing out flowers
Getting more attention in the mailbox just got easier. Now you can use Repositionable Notes on the outside of your direct mail.
Make your message stand out. Call 1 866 511-3133 or visit canadapost.ca/bigimpact today.
YEARS OF PUBLISHING
OCTOBER 2018
Help us celebrate three decades of serving the DM industry. We’re publishing a special edition in October which highlights our evolution, and yours. Check our website www.dmn.ca for details.
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Feature
The marketing time bomb Interactive digital customer engagement lit the fuse By Derek Lackey
T
here’s a massive problem brewing, and we marketers had better wake up because, like it or not: marketing is broken. Last year the Harvard Business Review published a piece titled Why CMOs Never Last1 citing an all-time low trust score between CEOs and chief marketing officers (CMOs). Moreover, CMOs have the shortest tenure of any C-level executive. Add to that the very powerful evidence found elsewhere: 1. A contributed Forbes article found “only 32% of brand marketers believe they’re executing an effective digital strategy2”. 2. Accenture Digital discovered only 45% of business executives interviewed believe their digital programmes will achieve business objectives3. 3. Sapient uncovered that nearly 50% of brands have switched marketing agencies (or plan to in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired additional digital specialists to handle digital work, reported marketing consultant Jay Baer4. 4. P&G significantly cut back on digital marketing, citing it as “ineffective” while simultaneously claiming no negative impact to its growth5. One directional marketing Perhaps we marketers have kept our heads in the sand for too long: by over 100 years. In 1905 the University of Pennsylvania launched marketing into the realms of academia through its course: “The Marketing of Products”. From that point forward marketing thought evolved and gave birth to the classic “4 Ps” (Product, Price, Promotion, Place, developed by E. Jerome McCarthy). Print, radio, TV, guerrilla, direct marketing and integrated marketing communications all came and went. But each these tactics or channels were one September 2018
directional as we were trained to use the media of the day to talk AT the audience. Consumers listened to radio, watched TV and read print. So, when digital showed up we quickly jumped at this new media/ channel opportunity, like we had done with the others. Yet we missed the entire point. The digital difference That is this: digital is NOT a one-way street. Digital involves customer engagement. But the failure of marketers to understand this strategic shift in approach, away from one-directional promotion means that the future of marketing is getting worse, not better. As consumers’ digital usage patterns increased marketers’ appetite for opportunity also grew. As per a Forrester study reported by Ironpaper 2018 will see over $94 billion in U.S. digital marketing spending, climbing to over $103 billion by 20196. In harmony tech suppliers flocked to digital. According to Chiefmartec. com in 2004 there were only five main digital marketing options whereas in 2015, there are over 2,000 marketing tools, products and systems available to reach the rapidly growing market. That number has now climbed to nearly 7,000 vendors in 20187. At first glance all was well with digital. There were growing consumer demand, financial investment and tech options. Not so fast. Back in 2015, Forrester conducted a social media benchmark study evaluating nearly 12 million consumer-brand interactions of the top 50 global brands8. The study had three main data sets: 1. Investment in digital. 2. Consumer followers. 3. Engagement rates. As anticipated, the study showed the top brands were investing heavily in digital marketing. On average, they were posting 18.3 times per week on Twitter, 6.5 times per week on Facebook and 4.9 times per week on Instagram.
Likewise, consumers are clearly looking to engage with brands via digital channels. Follower counts, according to Forrester, have skyrocketed with top brands averaging 18.1 million Facebook fans, over 1 million on Instagram and followers have nearly doubled on Twitter and Google+. But although brands are increasingly digitally-focused and subsequently escalating their digital spend rates and although consumers want to engage with those brands online, actual brand-
consumer engagement rates have been plummeting. The Forrester study showed that: 1. Instagram’s interaction rate fell by 50% (barely half of what it was in the previous year); 2. Per-follower interaction rates on Twitter were down 10%; and 3. Per-follower interaction rates on Google+ fell by 35%. The Forrester report showed that Facebook’s interaction rates had Continued on page 16
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Feature Continued from page 13
been climbing, based on paid advertising, but most recently it has fallen by 20%9. Digital, spend and followers up. Return on investment (ROI) down. What’s going wrong? Marketing’s fundamental goal is to build trust relationships between brands and consumers to encourage positive changes in behaviour. Namely buy and endorse something and do
something different. Brands also trusted their marketers to deliver programmes of engagement within the emerging digital-first trends. They would meet the real and powerful market needs of consumers wanting to connect. But we didn’t stop and think. We chased the digital opportunities the best way we knew how: with a mass marketing mindset. We’re now faced with some serious and troubling questions: 1. Are marketers simply using old pre-digital one-way
strategies within a digital-first marketplace? 2. Do marketers really know how to truly identify digital consumer wants and needs? 3. Do marketers know how to build trust relationships over time to change behaviour? Don’t blame technology. It is how we’ve been using the tools to connect and help grow our respective markets that awkwardly points the blame back at us marketers. See the time bomb now? Our status quo comfort zone of 4P thinking has brewed the perfect storm of massive self-confidence, massive revenue opportunities and failing results at all levels. The enthusiasm in the market around digital and digital transformation is keeping marketers focused on revenue potential and marketing operations and not on their primary responsibility of knowing consumer behaviours and forming brand-consumer relationships. And we’re now bearing the consequence of this approach: poor ROI, consumers not trusting brands and CEOs no longer have faith in marketing. The grandfather of marketing, Peter Drucker tried to teach us well, but we’ve simply failed to listen. “Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two—and only two—basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business10.” “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.11” Can we defuse the bomb? The digital world we live and work in is so different than 100 or even 15 years ago. The consumer has radically changed the way they shop, interact, work, bank and live. Marketing must step back and recalibrate the way brands are addressed. Failure to handle the issues of effectiveness, engagement and our collective diminishing ROI will lead to a tipping-point
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where brands will walk away from digital—just like P&G did—citing it as ineffective. A host of significant consequences will follow, including the disappearance of countless digital marketing solution providers and marketing agencies and departments. Don’t think it can’t happen? Failure to address core issues practically blew up telemarketing. Email was only rescued by antispam legislation, but if these laws and regulations become ineffective then it and its vendors will suffer a similar fate. And let’s not forget, businesses will lose millions in revenue potential as a direct result of marginal and misaligned digital engagement marketing efforts. Unless brands overhaul established marketing practices and embrace the real needs and digitally-driven motives of consumers (placing consumers and not their own brands at the centres of their activity) they will not deliver real consumer engagement (ROI) in a digital world. So, will marketers pull up their heads, take must-do action or will we all experience the digital time bomb explode and witness the end of marketing as we know it? The DMAC Digital Marketing Strategist (DMS) designation certification programme is a great place to start. Sign up today and get started down a path of digital marketing success. At the very least, let’s do what marketers do best and get back to asking “WHY?” Derek Lackey is president of the Direct
Marketing Association of Canada (DMAC) www.directmac.org. He is also managing partner, Newport Thomson. 1 Kimberly A. Whitler and Neil Morgan, “Why CMOs Never Last”, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2017. 2 Acxiom, “Speed to Insight, Accelerating Dynamic Customer Engagement”, Forbes Insights, May 2016. 3 Accenture Digital, “Content: The H2O of Marketing”, report, 2015. 4 Jay Baer, “The 10 Strengths of the Agency of the Future”, Convince & Convert, web site. 5 Rebecca Stewart, “P&G’s multimillion dollar cutback on ‘ineffective’ digital ads hasn’t hampered its growth”, The Drum, July 28, 2017. 6 Ironpaper, “Digital Marketing Spending Trends in the US and Globally”, article, October 18, 2016. 7 Scott Brinker, “Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (2018): Martech 5000”, Chiefmartec. com, April 2018. 8 Nate Elliott, “How Does Your Brand Stack Up On Facebook, Twitter, And Instagram?”, blog, Forrester September 15, 2015. 9 Simon Kemp, “Facebook’s ad interactions drop 20% — here’s everything you need to know”, The Next Web, July 25,2018. 10 Jenny Cheung, “Drucker on Marketing”, book review, The Marketing Journal, March 16, 2016. 11 “Peter Drucker Quotes “, Brainyquote.com.
September 2018
THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MAGAZINE ISSUE 3 • 2018
The People Issue ❯❯Ending the contact centre “tug of war” ❯❯Keeping contact centre employees engaged ❯❯Eight steps to improve agent performance ❯❯How to optimize agent hiring and retention ❯❯The blueprint for accelerated supervisor success
The People Issue
Ending the contact centre “tug of war” By Karim Chabane
A
s more organizations adopt a customer-first approach to doing business, the role of contact centre agents, who are on the front lines of customer and organizational profitability, is changing along with their expectations. The newest entrants into the workforce may want it all, i.e. independence in a collaborative environment and the latest technology, combined with face-time and career progression without the need for job-hopping. All this can lead to a tug of war when operations wants one thing and agents want another, which is bad for contact centres and for the businesses. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Enabling a meeting of the minds Agents may well be the gateway to customers, but they are also a great source of operational information. Contact centre leaders should take note of this to achieve a true meeting of minds that combines business needs with employee engagement. Here are three tips to help steer you in the right direction: 1. Keep talking. Conduct employee surveys and act on the results, good and bad. Hold weekly drop-ins for agents and invite the planning team to attend. Focus on the hot topics that matter for agents and share your own to promote interactive and constructive discussions. Develop focus groups where agents can raise customer pain points and share learning with other parts of the business to help boost self-esteem and elevate the status of the contact centre. 2. Keep things clear and transparent. Work processes should be clear, transparent and supplemented with easy-to-understand documentation. The same applies to learning: communicate individual and team goals effectively and develop meaningful career paths that release the full potential of agents and make the whole contact centre shine. 3. Keep staff happy. Remember your agents are your customers and need to be kept on side. Everyone wants to feel involved, so create a work environment where agents feel part of everything ranging from the company mission to their fellow team members and to the customers they serve. Actively gain their feedback for important decision-making. Having a ready-made pool of agent champions makes it so much easier to instigate cultural change and introduce new ways of working.
Utilizing WFM Workforce management (WFM) can be seen by agents as a controlling “big brother” application. Instead it should be viewed as a powerful tool that enables the meeting of the minds with collaborative thinking, working and results. Here are five ways how: 2 | Contact management
1. Boost scheduling through agent self-service. Get agents more involved by having them enter their preferred shifts, select breaks and lunches, swap shifts and request time off with immediate manager feedback. Understand what works and what doesn’t for agents. Some prefer to start late and work later while others may be earlybirds or like split-shifts. 2. Minimize stress. Nothing is worse than overwork and stress, like asking agents to work extra hours, which risks making them churn. Maximize the latest forecasting technology to right-size your contact centre. Run “what if’ scenarios to help predict staffing needs for regular fluctuations such as public holidays or for new marketing campaigns. Use staffing methods such as empowering agent self-servicing by having a pool of flexible part-time agents who will fill in the gaps. Forecasting also provides the analytical evidence required to work effectively with outsourcing agencies to supplement your in-house resources during busy periods, while avoiding unnecessary staffing costs during quieter periods. 3. Re-invigorate the learning programme. Utilize WFM to schedule offline interactive activities, such as weekly huddles and feedback sessions that give agents opportunities to air key issues and discuss potential solutions. Tap into the virtual library of agents’ skills, knowledge and qualifications provided by today’s WFM solutions. Identify missing competencies and build tailored training programmes that challenge and fulfill agents while supporting the needs of the contact centre. The core data capabilities of WFM can be boosted with
dedicated training functionality that streamlines scheduling and ensures lessons are learnt from regular wrap-up sessions. Just be sure to develop a portfolio of different learning styles and a mixture of traditional inclassroom training and online or virtual sessions to meet the needs of a multi-generational team. Today’s “Snapchat Generation” appreciates a mix of technology and face-to-face contact, so consider exploiting different chat apps such as WhatsApp and Messenger to appeal to this highly visual and growing sector of the workforce. 4. Foster staff motivation. Make the most of advanced WFM reporting and dashboards to provide real-time snapshots of employee and team performance against specific contact centre key performance indicators (KPIs) or service level agreements (SLAs) fairly and transparently. Introduce the latest gamification features to motivate employees, provide a forum for sharing top tips, encourage healthy competition and reward individual and team performance in a fun environment. Don’t shy away from using catchy names i.e. “Game of Phones” for gamification campaigns: small things can have tremendous impacts on team spirit as well as on agents’ motivation and performance. 5. Automate simple tasks. Invest in artificial intelligence (AI) technology and blend it with your WFM and scheduling processes so that agents have more time to devote to brainengaging activities rather than be resigned to handling routine enquiries such as brochure fulfilment and utilities’ meter readings. When agents are Continued on page CM 7
Issue 3 • 2018
The People Issue
Keeping contact centre employees engaged Flexibility, empowerment are keys to success By Kelly Koelliker
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ith the growth of consumer preference for self-service transactions—and the technology that enables them—many service issues don’t reach the contact centre at all. While this is a great development for the customer experience (CX) and efficiency the issues that do reach the contact centre now are much more complex. As a result, it has become harder for your agents to find answers to customers’ questions as they often lack the modern tools needed to respond quickly and accurately. In fact, a study by the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) found that 74% of customer service leaders acknowledge they don’t fully empower their agents to provide the best customer experience1. It’s a shame, because empowering technologies are available today to engage contact centre agents in a whole new way. Add to this there is a new class of job opportunities for employees that didn’t exist a decade ago, such as Uber, Postmates and Amazon. People, especially those between the ages of 22 to 37 (the Millennials) are finding new ways to make money that provide the kind of flexibility they crave. Couple these factors to a strong economy with more employers seeking workers and you have a recipe for churn. As a contact centre manager how do you find and retain the right workers in the face of these challenges?
Flexibility is key In 2011 a well-known study of employee engagement in the Canadian workplace pointed to senior leaders and managers as bearing the primary responsibility for keeping employees engaged. Namely how clearly they communicate expectations, listen to employees’ opinions, give recognition and provide learning and development opportunities2. Those things are still important, of course. But flexibility in the workplace has gained equal standing to the motivational capabilities of management. In a 2018 study of more than 36,000 consumers across 18 countries by Opinium Research LLP and Verint, 66% said that as technology improves, they expect workplaces to be more flexible to suit employee preferences3. Having flexibility is the way Millennials want to work today. Smart contact centre managers are making appropriate changes to suit their preferences. For example, an agent is out with her friends for the evening and they want to make plans to attend an upcoming concert together. The employee checks her smartphone and sees that she is scheduled to work on that date, but quickly submits a request to swap shifts with someone else and it is approved. She can enjoy the rest of her evening knowing her employer lets her work the way she wants to and has reasonable control over her own schedule at her fingertips. Issue 3 • 2018
Workforce management tools that extend across mobile platforms enable agents to accomplish such tasks wherever they are. These applications not only give agents a sense of empowerment in that they can easily manage their own schedules and maintain work-life balance but they also give them a sense that their company is a modern one: accessed with the same technology they use in their personal lives. This last point is critical. Let’s face it: if your employees have the feeling they’re stepping back in time when they go to work, forget it. Technology that is more difficult, cumbersome or confining than the sophisticated tools they use at home can be a dealbreaker in the hiring world. The “bring your own device” to work trend that started a few years ago has evolved into an environment in which work and personal life are blended 24/7, all driven by similar kinds of empowering tools.
Knowledge is empowerment This then leaves the question of how agents can best handle complex questions, often covering such a broad range of topics and rapidly changing issues, so much so that it’s virtually impossible for organizations to provide their employees with enough training to cover everything. The answer is automated knowledge management technology powered by speech analytics. Realtime speech analytics listens to customer conversations as they happen. When certain words are heard the agents’ desktops shows the next best actions. They can be reminders to complete compliance steps, excerpt from articles or specific processes. With this capability agents no longer need to spend time searching for the right actions to take, thereby improving efficiency and reducing mistakes. Easy to use, this automated technology is an ideal fit for the
Millennial workforce who are accustomed to consulting screens for all the answers they need. The tools are sophisticated enough to highlight the appropriate passages so that it is easy for agents to digest and put the answers in his or her own words. The agents won’t sound like robots, but like real persons with whom the customers feel connections.
Engaged employees deliver better CX There is a compelling business case in providing employees with flexibility and advanced tools to help customers. Gallup’s 2017 State of the American Workforce report found that companies in the top quartile of engagement levels experience 20% higher sales and 21% higher profitability as compared with those in the bottom quartile4. We at Verint see similar signs of success in our work. Here are two of many such examples. An insurance company saw a 32-second savings in average handle time (AHT) and a 20% increase in Net Promoter Scores with new employee engagement solutions like the ones described here. A utility company improved customer satisfaction scores from 85% to 92%, lowered AHT by five minutes and reduced customer attrition by 20%. We know a key component of a successful CX strategy is to be a company that is easy to do business with. But given what we know about the link between employee engagement and CX, another important requirement emerges too: a company should be easy to work for as well. Kelly Koelliker is director of content marketing at Verint (www.verint.com). 1 ICMI, “Designing the Modern Customer Experience”, web site. 2 Shawn Bakker, Psychometrics, “Control, Opportunity & Leadership”, study, 2011. 3 Verint, “Defining the Human Age: A Reflection on Customer Service in 2030”, study, 2018. 4 Gallup, “State of the American Workplace”, study, 2017.
Contact management | 3
The People Issue
Eight steps to improve agent performance By Scott Kendrick
C
ontact centre performance is only as good as the average of its agents. Delighting customers and creating efficient experiences to increase positive outcomes can only be accomplished with a strong staff that is well trained and invested in their roles. Therefore, contact centres must engage in continual and structured plans for improving agent performance if they want to meet and exceed their groups’ goals. Here are eight steps to ensure that agents are committed and involved members of the teams and that customers are pleased with friendly effective and efficient service. 1. Train dynamically and often. Onboarding a new agent means lengthy training sessions on procedures and expectations for their role. Making such training a one-time event is setting up the agent and the business for failure. Training must be more organic and dynamic and include context from multiple areas of the business in order to provide the agent with a well-rounded view of the customers’ pain points. Leveraging speech analytics in agent onboarding can reduce training time and identify continuous and ongoing areas of training needs to pinpoint specific competency deficiencies and strengths for each agent. The goals of the business can change overnight, so contact centre agents have to be informed of such moves and understand the “whys” if they’re going to successfully help customers through transitions or problems. 2. Automate and vastly improve agent scoring. Contact centre supervisors “listening in” to a few agent calls a month is an antiquated and ineffective way to gauge performance. Speech analytics software that captures every word of agent-to-customer interactions provides managers with unparalleled and accurate insights into agents’ behaviours and the responses they elicit from customers. Such technology can give agents immediate scoring feedback, so they can adjust their tactics in real time.
Speech analytics can optimize agent efficiency, reducing silence and average handle time. 4 | Contact management
3. Streamline information access. Businesses that haven’t performed data centralization and sharing improvements will present contact centre staff with myriad disconnected platforms. Managing different pools of customer information from sales data, CRM platforms and knowledge centres takes up too much time and do not give agents the whole picture. A positive customer experience is impossible if it’s not efficiently managed, and agents moving between multiple tools simply cannot meet customers’ needs. Merging the needed data into a single solution therefore improves agents’ access to information and ability to handle inquiries. 4. Embrace agent flexibility. Working from home and enjoying flex hours are a growing trend within many corporate sectors and they should extend deeper into the contact centre ranks. Such arrangements are popular for Millennials, almost to the point of being cliché but they also provide benefits to individuals of all ages. The opportunity to build flexible schedules with full or partial work-at-home privileges gives staff more ownership over their schedules to help them achieve better work/life balances. Giving staff members the opportunity to fulfill their hours in ways that works best for them (and the business) can also boost employee morale, thus reducing expensive attrition while driving them to improve their performance for your customers. 5. Staff appropriately. Long wait times are the nemesis of contact centre managers that are trying to hit performance metrics. Customers waiting on
hold is often simply a function of the number of available agents. Contact centres can fix this problem by using advanced analytics to spot trends in contact volumes. Predictive insights about contact volume gleaned from the data can influence staffing decisions and further increase the need for a flexible workforce that’s essentially “on demand.” Speech analytics can optimize agent efficiency, reducing silence and average handle time. Additionally, it can identify opportunities for call deflection to channels such as self-service, thereby increasing service levels. 6. Use a reliable IVR. Interactive voice response (IVR) is valuable when it’s used correctly. It should capture a minimal amount of information that’s sufficient for the agent to pull the customer’s history so they can immediately jump into problem resolution mode. Asking for this initial information adds some structure to the calls and if done properly (and the agent can also access centralized data), will result in a better customer experience. 7. Make informed data-driven decisions. A massive error by contact centre managers is to invest time and money into analytics software solutions and to then not act on the resulting insights. The toptier analytics tools can spot trends and predict issues before they become widespread, and management must use this information to immediately inform staff and related department heads. Analytics can also uncover which agents are best suited to answering Continued on page CM 7 Issue 3 • 2018
The People Issue
How to optimize agent hiring and retention By Jeff Furst
C
ontact centre hiring managers are facing stiff challenges in ensuring their centres are fully staffed. Low unemployment, competition with other industries that are expanding and pay rate pressures are making it difficult for them to meet fill rate targets. Not surprisingly contact centre agent turnover continues to be a challenge. The variable cost of losing one contact centre employee is between $4,000 and $5,000. So, what should a contact centre hiring manager do? Based on our work with contact centres across Canada and globally we recommend they employ analytical tools to understand their sourcing strategies and quality of hires while reviewing their candidates’ experiences to determine ways to drive candidate engagement.
Attracting the right candidates Contact centre hiring managers should first evaluate the effectiveness of their current talent acquisition processes. In other words, are they (you) successful at attracting the right candidates? Metrics focused on quality of hire, hiring manager satisfaction and average length of employment? (e.g. 90 days, 180 days, 1 year) will help you determine if you have the right candidate population that allows you to hire sufficient numbers of individuals that meet your job requirements. Let’s take quality of hire as an example. Contact centre operations are a wealth of data. This data should be used as part of your hiring process. If it is not then you are missing a valuable opportunity to quantify your hiring process to drive business value. Building a quality of hire metric is based on establishing measurable components throughout your employee lifecycle: • Start with defining the job in measurable competencies; • Determine how you will measure each competency during the selection process; and • Finally, understand how your new hire is evaluated on their job performance. You can then link your hiring process outcomes to actual job performance to determine if a relationship exists between your hiring process and job performance. You may also want to consider using pre-employment assessments. They can identify candidates who have the right traits or qualities to work well within your company. Assessments are therefore viable options to identify qualified candidates who are fits for your specific jobs.
Sourcing channel analysis Now that you have an established measurement of quality of hire you can focus on your sourcing strategy. In our work with contact centres across North America and Asia we Issue 3 • 2018
have found that grouping recruiting sources can be helpful in measuring your sourcing channel effectiveness. As examples, Tier 1: all person to person sources like employee referrals, Tier 2: all web-based recruiting channels, like job boards and Tier 3: traditional sourcing, like newspaper print ads and job fairs. Many contact centres do not have a data-driven understanding of the value their recruiting strategy contributes to their overall hiring process. Sourcing channel analytics fill this gap.
recruiting experience. It can be defined as the process, messaging and time a candidate will experience when applying for a job. Defining it into measurable steps will allow you to understand application completion rates across the process and identify potential issues that may impact your candidate volume.
Mobile hiring The adoption of a mobile-optimized analytics-based candidate hiring process is a significant trend. It seems like an easy choice in helping
A contact centre simulation, based on a computer desktop environment that mimics the job, is a proven method to measure candidates’ skills. You can take a historical assessment of your various sourcing channels and determine which ones sourced your best performing employees. You can then compare overall channel costs, candidate quantity and quality to develop a sourcing channel index. This will allow you to allocate your recruiting dollars to the best performing channels based on your data. For example, FurstPerson data shows that hires sourced from employee referrals tend to have better retention, but hires from Internet sources tend to have slightly better job performance. You should note that tracking sourcing channels can be challenging. Many candidates do not clearly recall how they found you, leading to accuracy issues with self-reported data. You can then incorporate new hire surveys into your sourcing process to help correct for possible errors. Contact centre hiring managers should also focus on the candidate
to recruit sufficient volumes of the right candidates. Almost everyone has a mobile phone, which makes it easy for candidates to reach you and apply any time from anywhere. In fact, FurstPerson’s data shows that candidate volume can increase by 20% to 30% when adopting a mobile driven recruiting process. However, the decision to adopt a 100% mobile-optimized process may require trade-offs. For example, multi-tasking, computer navigation and computer keyboarding are all critical to new hire job performance. FurstPerson data has demonstrated that job candidates that do not meet these job requirements are more likely to churn in the first 90 days. A contact centre simulation, based on a computer desktop environment that mimics the job, is a proven method to measure candidates’ skills. But a mobile-optimized process limits your ability to measure them. These Continued on page CM 7 Contact management | 5
The People Issue
The blueprint for accelerated supervisor success By Jim Rembach
S
ink or swim! That’s been the most common experience for contact centre supervisors when it comes to their skill development. 59% of frontline supervisors come from the agent ranks according to an International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) report, Agent Apathy: The Root Cause of Poor Customer Service1. Yet the skills to lead the front lines, like coaching and managing people are very different from being on the front lines. When I was promoted to supervisor my experience was like so many others. My training consisted of learning about policies, procedures and legal issues to keep my company out of trouble. When it came to being a leader I was given a book, The One Minute Manager and the instruction to teach my people everything I knew. And I was told that would certainly be my pathway to success. But I quickly realized that leading agents in a contact centre was not that simple. I needed much more than a book to experience success. And as I go around to different
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High-performing supervisors essential Sink or swim is not viable. Having high-performing contact centre supervisors is no longer an optional extra for organizations. Consider these points from The Centre for Workplace Leadership at the University of Melbourne (Australia): • Front line managers are no longer the limbs of an organization but the entire muscular-skeletal system; • Front line leadership, when aggregated to the company level, is just as important as senior leadership; and • As economic volatility increases, front line leadership capability can have a greater impact on business outcomes than senior leadership. Therefore, every business needs a supervisor success path to follow based on the competencies of high performers.
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6 | Contact management
industry events I talk with many current and former supervisors and we share the same sink or swim experiences.
The supervisor coaching gap According to the Customer Contact Week Digital CCW Winter Executive Report: Contact Center Priorities for 2018 coaching is the number one priority in contact centres. In many circles the thought of coaching is about supervisors coaching agents2. But when it comes to supervisors most of them go uncoached. They either do not have someone who can coach them or their coaching resources are time-constrained with their own job responsibilities. Yet how can you expect the uncoached to coach? Not surprisingly this leads to several troubling consequences as noted in a Development Dimensions International (DDI) report, Be Better Than Average: A study on the state of frontline leadership: • Only 18% of organizations feel they have a supply of capable employees to fill front line leadership roles; • More than 50% of newly promoted supervisors fail;
• Only 33% of employees say they feel their supervisors are effective; and • 80% of employees leave because of the relationships with their immediate supervisors3. Think about this. If there’s not an ample supply of employees to fill supervisor roles and most supervisors are ineffective and agents leave because of their relationships with their supervisors, this vicious cycle tells us very clearly that the lack of (or ineffective) supervisor skill development is the root cause of this problem. There’s no guessing the solution needed here. High-performing supervisors develop future supervisors. The best leaders develop more (and better) leaders and retain more people.
Supervisors failure is preventable This supervisor development quality issue is totally preventable. Instead of sink or swim give supervisors a learning journey framework and pathway to success. To capture improvements and greater performance quality in supervisor skill development requires two things. First, a continuous, experiential and holistic competencybased skill development approach. Second, the use of tools such as virtual classrooms, micro-learning, videos, blogs, boot camps, podcasts, coaching and professional communities of practice. For organizations that have been able to leverage this approach they are seeing big returns. And the aforementioned DDI research show when organizations develop their front-line leaders adhering to the success path and learning journey framework, development quality increases by more than 90% versus just 9%. Having a plan and pathway to skill development versus just receiving a book, movie or more than just a piece of knowledge should be the common practice. Let’s face it, their success is crucial to your success. Issue 3 • 2018
The People Issue The six core competencies Our research has found that high-performing supervisors need to develop and grow their skills in six core competencies: 1. Staff development. 2. Customer service and sales. 3. Results orientation. 4. Building collaborative relationships. 5. Communication and change management. 6. Business acumen. These core competencies need to be taught, practiced, coached and validated. Merely teaching them in a classroom does not transfer to job performance.
Creating the supervisor success blueprint To develop high-performing supervisors and capture 90% or greater of high-level quality skill development, develop a plan i.e. blueprint with multiple methods of learning: • Training on the six core competencies. Validate knowledge and understanding and break learning into phases of mastery; • Micro-learning. On-demand or just-in-time courses that reinforce and provide greater insight into the six core competencies; • Quick tips. On-demand or just-in-time access to information that targets key learning opportunities and real-world scenarios faced by supervisors; • Questions and answers. Provide a way for supervisors to quickly get answers to questions about supervisortype issues. This is not a company help desk about technical issues but a front-line leadership resource; • Boot camps. Also known as challenge courses they give supervisors ways to learn and practice new success behaviours in short periods of time; • Industry insights. Supervisors are pressed to be more innovative and creative. For this to occur they need exposure to the outside of the organization; and • Communities of practice. Organizations that leverage a community of practice for peers in specific skilled jobs report a massive acceleration in skill development. Constructing a “Supervisor Success Path” focusing on the six core competencies using various learning methods in a framework is how you develop a high-performing frontline supervisor team that actually prevents problems from happening. It is also how you get a coordinated team that engages employees and customers and squashes turnover problems. In conclusion your contact centre supervisors are one of the most important parts of your company’s infrastructure, as they’re responsible for the success of your customer interactions, for the performance of your customer experience efforts and for the overall effectiveness of your agents. Don’t let them drown. Jim Rembach is a former contact centre supervisor and is president of Call Center Coach where it helps front line leaders to rapidly build their skills in the six core competencies of successful contact centre supervisors in less than 90-days. www.callcentercoach.com, jim@callcentercoach.com. 1 ICMI, “Agent Apathy: The Root Cause of Poor Customer Service, “report, April 30, 2015. 2 Customer Contact Week Digital, “CCW Winter Executive Report: Contact Center Priorities for 2018”, report. 3 Bruce Watt, Mark Busine, Samantha York, Development Dimensions International, “Be Better Than Average: A study on the state of frontline leadership”, report, 2013.
Issue 3 • 2018
Ending the contact centre “tug of war” Continued from page CM 2 mentally stretched and positively challenged, they are more likely to go the extra distance and support your own KPIs and SLAs. With just a few simple tweaks and modern WFM practices, you can turn any potential tug of war into a meeting of minds in your contact centre: to everyone’s benefit. Karim Chabane is a WFM consultant at Teleopti. Teleopti is a top, global best of breed provider of WFM software that is sophisticated, localized and easy to use. Teleopti focuses on helping contact centres, back offices and retail stores improve customer service, employee satisfaction and profitability. For more information, visit www.teleopti.com.
element of the job. The very best analytics platform is only valuable if the agents also feel empowered to make decisions and recommendations that will ultimately result in an improved customer experience and higher revenue. Scott Kendrick is vice president of marketing, CallMiner (www.callminer. com). Scott has 20 years’ experience in software product management, design and marketing for everything from shrink-wrap consumer applications to enterprise cloud solutions. Scott holds a BSc in Civil Engineering from Queen’s University and is certified in Pragmatic Marketing and SCRUM.
How to optimize agent hiring and retention Continued from page CM 5
Eight steps to improve agent performance Continued from page CM 4 certain types of problems or handling specific customers. 8. Acknowledge successes and leverage gamification. After implementing these best practices, it’s imperative to trumpet individual and group success. Pick some key metrics that are transparently shared among the group and encourage friendly competition that makes the agents feel appreciated. Motivate performance improvement through competition and use technologies such as speech analytics in combination with gamification platforms to track individual or team rankings. Ask for regular input from the agents about their own user experience with data and any analytics software. Get them involved in their own performance and the work of the entire team. Improving agent performance requires blending together technology tools and the human
trade-offs need to be discussed to balance your top-of-funnel sourcing needs and your quality of hire selection methods. Contact centre hiring managers do have a few options. One option is to use a hybrid approach that combines a fully mobile optimized process with either a desktop or in-centre process. The mobile optimized process is used for the applications and then evaluation of work ability and work motivation. The candidates then complete the work ability section via a simulation, either at home on their desktop computers or in contact centres. A second option is to utilize mobile-optimized simulations. These assessments measure many of the same criteria except for computer navigation and keyboarding. For companies that determines a 100% mobileoptimized process is their best option, simulations optimized for mobile phones will still allow hiring managers to evaluate work ability in a mobile optimized process. Jeff Furst is president and CEO of FurstPerson, Inc. Founded in 1998 FurstPerson www.furstperson.com develops, implements and operates web-based pre-employment assessment solutions designed for the contact centre industry. Its solutions are active in over 200 labour markets globally.
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National Bank of Canada’s customer-first digital transactions D Paige Pace is senior manager, customer
engagement programme at Adobe www.adobe.com.
igital reach enables businesses to connect with customers anywhere. Developing a strong online presence was essential for the National Bank of Canada to engage customers and encourage growth across the country, particularly in areas with low numbers of bricks-and-mortar branches. National Bank deployed Adobe Experience Cloud to help build a digital foundation for expanding its reach. But as Eboni Boicel, its senior director, digital marketing explained, simply having solutions deployed wasn’t enough. “Insights about the customer now drive strategic decisions, whether that means changing the messaging on the web site or expanding mobile accessibility,” said Boicel. “With Adobe’s integrated solutions, we could achieve greater results by transitioning to a datacentric culture.” With Adobe’s guidance, National Bank simplified its implementation, relying on integrations that allow its marketing teams to take advantage of new features and updates from Adobe. Encouraging greater use of data also led to bank staff putting a greater emphasis on enabling customers’ personal preferences. “Working with Adobe was a key aspect of our digital transformation for National Bank,” said Boicel. “Our goal is to continue the digital transformation to bring our knowledge into every area of business and push digital growth to the next level.” Focusing on the customer Combining Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Target and Adobe Analytics, National Bank uses customer behaviours to guide digital optimization. It has rebuilt most of its public sites using Adobe Experience Manager Sites. The nimble Experience Manager Sites capability makes it easy to create and update web pages in both French and English. “Using the integrated Adobe Experience Cloud solutions, we can put fresh content on the web, measure it, optimize it and deliver seamless messaging across marketing channels,” said Boicel. Standardizing on a single content management solution allows digital marketers to quickly create new content for the web. They can also develop variations for testing, from changing the call to action on a new account page to changing banners advertising new services with Adobe Target. “Previously we would build our web sites according to how we wanted to present our products to the public,” explained Boicel. “We’re now using Adobe Experience Cloud to test and build client-focused web sites based on data-centric insights. By changing images and content to personalize the web site experience we can make the customer feel like we understand them and we’re talking directly to them.”
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Adobe Target pulls in real-time data from Adobe Analytics to determine which option better connects with customers and leads to higher conversions. National Bank performed 50 tests in the first year after starting its new digital strategy, enabling it to optimize numerous experiences. “Using Adobe Experience Manager, Target and Analytics we can build tests and measure performance throughout the conversion funnel to pinpoint areas where customers may drop out,” said Boicel. “By understanding why we’re losing customers, we can address issues and improve conversions online.”
Increased conversions, lowered costs through personalization National Bank also pulls data from Adobe Analytics into Adobe Audience Manager, Adobe’s data management platform (DMP), to build unique audience profiles and identify audience segments. The Adobe Marketing Cloud ID (MCID) unifies user behaviour across web sites and platforms to create a 360-degree anonymized view of consumers. By activating these high value segments in Adobe Target, National Bank is personalizing content for customers, whether they’re a Millennial exploring new account options or a startup company trying to find the right services for its growing business. “Introducing Adobe Audience Manager as our DMP has kicked off such a rapid change in our culture,” said Boicel. “Everyone is excited about how we can use audiences and personalization to better reach our customers.” Adobe’s solutions have helped National Bank see dramatically increased conversions. They have also enabled it to reduce costs. It saw a 30% decrease in the cost-per-optimization and lowered development expenses. In one example, the bank created a new partner credit card offering, but it was not available in one jurisdiction. The bank used location-based audience segmentation to create a proof of concept that worked perfectly, rendering an additional $150,000 in development costs unnecessary. National Bank is also using Adobe Advertising Cloud to bring media buying campaigns in-house. Using in-house resources improves agility while decreasing outsourcing costs. “The way that all Adobe solutions work together and share information is a key advantage for us,” said Boicel. “We can use each solution’s strengths to gain a holistic view of our audiences and how we are performing in digital environments. We can even connect Adobe Experience Cloud to third-party systems with ease. We plan to continue expanding our use of data to drive smart decisions and reach customers across Canada.” September 2018
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