Manish Grover's Blog, page 3

Banking has ZERO threat from the digital disruption

The media is full of reports on how banks are under threat from upstart and technology companies that are disrupting the banking model. Thrown into the mix are Millenials, the mobile revolution, branch efficiency, P2P payment companies, and many others. Terms like digital disruption and customer experience are sprinkled liberally to drive home the analyses. However, we need to take a step back and try to understand where the threat to banking actually is. At the most simplistic level, a banking P&L comprises of: 1. Payments revenue 2. Lending revenue 3. Fee revenue There is no doubt that payments revenue is undergoing significant transition due to digital disruption – but only when credit and debit card transactions are supplanted by other means of payments – most notably direct debits or virtual currencies. The virtual currency model has the potential to replace a bank but that doesn’t really fall under the purview of the digital disruption & payments upstarts under discussion. In other cases, when a private network card is used for transactions (such as many store cards), the payments model suffers but not the bank itself. The money still comes and goes into a bank account. The payments related revenue is also threatened by cash and direct debit (ACH) transactions. But it can be argued that the total money supply and transactions base has potential to increase because of these developments. Lending revenue is really a function of what a bank does with the money it has. So we don’t need to talk about it except when we speak of […]

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Our banking habits – Why we bank where we do?

All of us have bank accounts and credit cards. And banks are always sending us offers and asking us to switch. What makes us stick to what we have? After all, as customers, we are looking for value, convenience and belonging. Take this poll to see what others are thinking: Results are available immediately Be sure to provide your email address so we can send you results when more votes have been received. We’ll send you the updated results after every 50 responses If you’d like, you can edit your response 1 minute after voting      

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Benchmarking your loyalty program

How do we think of loyalty beyond the well known (and always on) promotions and discounts? Every business needs loyal customers – customers who come back time after again because they had a great experience, found great deals, just liked what they see or any other reason. Loyalty is about several strategic issues. In today’s post I wanted to outline 3 key aspects of how an effective loyalty program can be structured. A few years ago, working with one of the best loyalty teams in the world, I learnt that loyalty is about 3 basic things: Aspiration: Can we set goals that our customers would aspire or journey towards as they engage with us? (e.g. the coveted platinum gold club membership, the trip to the Bahamas, status on the web community as “The Social Citizen” etc. – I made the last one up but I’m sure it’s coming). Its about long term engagement. Just like the airline miles cause people to plan and re-plan around their miles. the reward need not be monetary but something that gets people to desire either for own sake or even better, for someone else’s sake. Experiential value: Do your customers feel differentiated and can they brag about it to their peers? (e.g. the free valet parking, the reserved corner table for dinner, early access to concert tickets, the red carpet to board the flight). Bragging rights is a great form of feeling great about the brand, especially when we’re working towards a larger goal as well. Gratification: This is where […]

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The pursuit of long term customer engagement

Discussions on customer experience and customer engagement are everywhere. Technology vendors as well as service providers and consultants are all jumping on the bandwagon with the promise of targeted and contextual experience for customers. Consider these targeting scenarios: Following up on website visits with an email with an offer on the products that were browsed Sending mobile coupons on the same products when a customer is close to a retail store Showing in-store displays about the same products Adapting website content (of products and offers) based on what the customer is browsing Tracking the customer behavior and modifying the promotions or content shown These (with some variations) is what everyone is talking about. And we are mixing in terms such as big data, social media and analytics. There is no doubt that these are important tactics for driving commerce. When a customer is in, you want to do everything in your power to make them buy, and buy more. And we want to use social and other media to drive customers to a transaction. But presenting personalized and targeted content, offers and promotions is only one step – although a crucial one – in the long term courtship with customers. In other words a customer engagement strategy is supported by a targeted experience, not the other way around. So what is meant by creating a long term customer engagement? The answer is simple – its about addressing peoples motivations and dreams to realize the purpose behind your product. And its something that is increasingly being lost in […]

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The best fit – mobile in retail

  How should we arrive at the best match for mobile in retail? How are customers using their mobile phones, and are we gearing up to meet their expectations? In the frenzy of the digital revolution, we’ve all probably heard about the concept of retail clienteling . The world is abuzz with meeting retail customers where they are, interacting with them on social, providing location based coupons and many other such capabilities.  Product vendors and consultants are leading the charge as they try to be in front of this retail revolution. Meanwhile, study after study shows that the consumers just want a convenient and contextual shopping experience. A study by Nurun (now Publicis) says that “retailers need to get smarter about how to use mobile to their advantage by rethinking the offline shopping experience to meet the needs of mobile-empowered shoppers”. Another study by McKinsey states that retailers “should stop and ask what consumers really want”. If we follow the most common customer journey, the following needs come to the fore: 1. Providing product and fitment search online It’s well known that customer journeys are increasingly starting online instead of in a store. However, assuming that because a customer is pinning your product on Pinterest or adding it to their shopping cart means they will make a trip to your store to try it on is a little premature. Yes, they may, but not before they are able to review other choices as well. Studies also show that a mobile app is adopted only when sticky and really useful capabilities are […]

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Is the digital scramble hurting customer engagement?

Businesses have generated innovative products for decades. The evidence is seen everyday in so many blockbuster products whose sales have shot through the roof, and many brands who have acquired legend status. A lot of this is attributable to ingenuity, creativity, primary research and focus groups, lots of analysis of past trends and consumer behavior among many other practices. However there is almost zero conscious research where customer engagement matters most. And in a digital world, that could be the difference between competing and leading. Are they able to address the long tail of demand? That missing engagement is at the moment of truth, after all the analysis and strategy has been done. 1. How many retailers and brands are able to capture the brand attributes that customers are looking for in real time? Follow the decision making process they are pursuing as they browse your aisles? Sure, the latest line of jackets sold out, but did we also turn away a thousand customers who were looking for a specific color, or pattern?  We are not looking for general insights on mass customer preferences mind you. That level of insight led to the line currently in the aisles, and we already have that. What we are looking for instead is individual customer engagement? Are we turning them away, treating them like an object of mass advertising and pursuit? Is that a fundamental reason why stores are surviving? While we go off talking about Omni-Channel and digital! 2. How many banks capture the needs and demands – often subtle – of the customers who walk […]

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Clienteling is not just about retail

At Dreamforce 2014 (Salesforce.com’s annual event), executives from Louis Vuitton showed how their founder carried a little black book where he captured his client interactions. This diary helped him engage in a personalized and meaningful dialog with customers. Fast forward to today and the talk of “Clienteling” is everywhere. It is possible now to make information available to the store associates which can help them engage and service the customers much better. Everything is fair game – past transactions, social interactions, coupons redeemed, coupons not redeemed, merchandise browsed both online and in the store, among many other things. No doubt, this is ushering in an exciting era of customer service and sales. The premise is that by providing a seamless experience to the customers, and by offering them the right product at the right time, we will not only secure higher sales, but also higher customer satisfaction and stronger loyalty. If we extract the fundamentals of this exciting story line, the most important aspects can be applied not only to other consumer oriented areas such as banking, insurance, travel and hospitality, but also to many other areas that have not yet caught up to the marketing bandwagon. For example, how about the area of investments management, or the business of B2B industrial distribution? These areas don’t look that cool, but as we review case studies of what several firms in these areas are doing, the “Clienteling”  concept really starts to shine. And we come to see that these exciting initiatives are hidden under other topics such as sales process improvements. For each […]

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Preparation 2015 – think right-to-left and meet your goals!

2015 has arrived and I wish everyone a wonderful new year. Time really flies. I hope this year we can all catch a breath and enjoy the scenery as we whiz along. Resolutions are the “in-thing” at this time of the year. Here’s to grit and hope! However, statistics are not on our side. Not many personal resolutions will endure beyond the first week.  How can we be confident of achieving the goals we set? Today I want to talk about the goals we set and the systems we use to achieve them. There is a very significant reason for failing to keep resolutions. Our brain is wired to prioritize. It takes energy (think glucose) to operate the brain. And when the brain is juggling many balls, it prioritizes some tasks over others. For example, when the first week of January kicks in with the pressures at work, the resolution to hit the gym every morning takes a back seat. So resolutions that don’t figure properly in the big scheme of things, are going to be broken first. That’s why we can’t quit smoking. And that’s why we fall for that yummy, delicious cake. Smokers and dieters, think about that. Sounds familiar? One of my clients called systems based thinking as “machine thinking”? It meant that unless the “method” to achieve the goal is defined, the goals themselves are invalid. In addition what was amazing to me was that even though we may achieve our goals, if the goals are not met using the defined “machine”, not only is […]

Solving the issue of context to achieve excellent customer engagement

We are making great strides in connecting with customers and consumers in an Omni Channel fashion. A major part of that evolution is about bringing together a seamless experience over mobile, social media, in-store, online etc.. We are already seeing solutions that help the different channels be aware of each other. Some examples are: 1.  For a contact center representative to be aware of the customers online or in-store history 2. For a consumer to receive mobile offers based on their proximity to a store and what’s on their wish list 3. For an in-store associate to be able to create a better customer experience based on pulling together historical, social and preference information (“In-store clienteling”). However, we should also keep in mind that one of the original challenges with customer relationships still need to be solved. The primary challenge is that of treating the customer as a relationship and harnessing every promotion or campaign as just one incremental step of an overall strategy. Social media and mobile have opened the doors to an exciting new paradigm which primarily consists of moving beyond the traditional “fire and re-energize” marketing. In that old model, every promotion caused a demand spike, which attenuated over a period of time, only to be propped up again by another campaign. We mastered that type of campaign – running analytics to understand customer responses, preempting competitive promotions, devising bundling strategies, sending coupons to lure the customers in and a host of other very effective tactics. But today, we have a choice to dramatically improve upon that […]

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Solving for the Customer Ecosystem

We are making great strides in connecting with customers and consumers in an Omni Channel fashion. A major part of that evolution is about bringing together a seamless experience over mobile, social media, in-store, online etc.. We are already seeing solutions that help the different channels be aware of each other. Some examples are: 1.  For a contact center representative to be aware of the customers online or in-store history 2. For a consumer to receive mobile offers based on their proximity to a store and what’s on their wish list 3. For an in-store associate to be able to create a better customer experience based on pulling together historical, social and preference information (“In-store clienteling”). However, we should also keep in mind that one of the original challenges with customer relationships still need to be solved. The primary challenge is that of treating the customer as a relationship and harnessing every promotion or campaign as just one incremental step of an overall strategy. Social media and mobile have opened the doors to an exciting new paradigm which primarily consists of moving beyond the traditional “fire and re-energize” marketing. In that old model, every promotion caused a demand spike, which attenuated over a period of time, only to be propped up again by another campaign. We mastered that type of campaign – running analytics to understand customer responses, preempting competitive promotions, devising bundling strategies, sending coupons to lure the customers in and a host of other very effective tactics. But today, we have a choice to dramatically improve upon that […]