It takes a great deal of effort - having the processes in place, hiring the people with the right attitude and training them as well as equipping them with the appropriate customer intelligence at the right time - in order to execute well and provide great customer experiences. I would like to share an unexpectedly positive experience within an industry (airline) and a carrier ( US Airways ) that do not normally come to mind when talking about good customer experiences. I This is a process that engaged the customer and the employee in a virtuous cycle.   MORE >>

Likewise, for the best response to your marketing programs, interactions should be “cooked” according to your customers’ particular preference. It is a challenging task to understand your customers’ behavior and to forecast marketing performance appropriately based upon the potential outcomes of this behavior. Customer interaction analysis demands information about customer behavior, such as how they react to a certain product continuously, how they respond to a marketing campaign program in mail, email and phone, and so on. MORE >>

We all know that there are several big name ecommerce vendors who have a stellar reputation for delivering on their promise of a great online customer experience. They have figured out how to provide offers to me based upon my preferences, get me to enroll in customer loyalty programs and educate me on their offerings. There is obvious technical complexity built into each of the processes I mentioned - from the underlying marketing database, customer segmentation and large-scale marketing automation systems in place. BUT, what happens when the technology fails? MORE >>

If you missed the Neolane Customer Forum in Boston this week, you missed hearing an array of great speakers, interesting topics, free user training, wonderful hospitality and an amazing venue. There are many approach es: The Neolane recently launched a Mobile App Channel as part of their marketing technology suite to enable marketers to leverage your mobile app and automate communications as another channel to engage customers.  Thomas Boudalier facilitated a great session about big data, scalability and how Neolane continues to evolve to meet the needs of all customers.  MORE >>

Everything starts with data, but it must end with customer intelligence for it to be truly meaningful and useful. For that matter, customer intelligence for the sake of customer intelligence can be an equally futile effort, if not done in a thoughtful, systematic and measurable way. You need to focus on what customer intelligence is telling you – does it answer a question, address a need, identify an issue, validate a decision, dictate an action, or guide planning efforts? It doesn’t tell me anything, provide recommendations or even make sense to the naked eye. MORE >>