TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty"

[My own comments in brackets]

Steve O’Keefe, Rightnow Technologies
–Three elements drive loyalty [I agree]:
•Superior product/service; [Superior as quality/expectations, as differentiation/personalization…]
•Low cost product/service; [It’s so cheap you won’t mind a few glitches/limitations]
•High quality interactions. [Interesting point there! Specially if you’re talking about complex/long/informed buying decisions such as booking expensive/dream holidays or buying an expensive/dream car…]

TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty" II

[My own comments brackets]

Francesca Ecsery, Cheapflights

–Cheapflights learned by doing that it’s very important (and rewarding) to:
•Be relevant when communicating to customers; [Relevancy drives clicks!]
•Research/ask customers about their preferences in order to be relevant (including frequency of communication); [Don’t send e-mails without being asked to do it…]
•Develop triggered communications (triggered upon customer selected events such as price drops…) [Very interesting and dynamic approach!]

–For Cheapflights relevancy proved to be a successful strategy because it:
•Improved response rate, click rate, open rate and unsubscribe rate (e-mail communication); [RELEVANCY!]

•Saved time (and money). The saved time can be used to research and deliver even more relevant communications which support the results above. [RELEVANCY!]

–[RELEVANCY also applies direclty to webpages (personalized content). Google should know a thing or two about relevance due to their ad placement technology]

TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty" I

[My own comments in brackets]
Xavier Vallée, AVIS UK

–Through research AVIS found out that usually online customers
• Read peer reviews (1/3) and 1/3 of those change their opinion upon reading (which translates roughly into 1/9 of online customers changing their opinion after reading reviews); [Pay attention to reviews!]
•Trust 2 times more in reviews than in official pieces of communication (marketing pieces, website…); [Interesting and disturbing for traditional marketing!]

–AVIS embraced this User Generated Content (UGC)/Social Media “opportunity” by seting up their own corporate blog called We Try Harder.
•Xavier stated they “listen to the customer” and reply when needed and that AVIS uses the feedback from this blog between others (other blogs they monitor and other sources of information) when they make decisions such as renewing their fleet and buy model A or B. [This is an example of how customer feedback can be used as an affordable source for innovation][EMBRACE!].

–[UGC/Social Media shouldn’t be ignored but embraced as an opportunity to develop online conversations with customers].

–[Click here for AVIS case study by market sentinel]

TDS08: My notes about "Monetising Web 2.0 – Who now controls your customer’s online buying behavior?"

[My own comments in brackets]

• Blake Chandlee, Facebook
  –People use Facebook to connect with friends and family. Connecting means sharing (news, reviews, photos…). [And influencing…]
  –People are spending more time in social media websites than e-mail; [Perhaps that’s why Gmail is becoming more and more social…]
  –Number of Facebook users is larger than many countries.

• Daniel Robb, Google UK
  –10% of queries are travel related and of these 16% are hotel related;
  –Google queries [or Hot Trends] can be used to predict demand; [Interesting idea since you can easily get this data.]
  –On average before booking people perform 12 queries and visit 22 websites during 29 days; [Interesting numbers…]

• Ian McCaig, lastminute.com
  –Selling implies someone is willing to buy (be careful when/who you send your marketing message). [I couldn’t agree more.. It’s called relevancy!]
  •Tom Griffiths, gapyear.com
  –Passionate people make web 2.0; [and they influence others]
  –Passion sells products; Web 2.0 elevates “amazing”; [Passionate people tend emphasize extreme feelings like love or hate.]

• Richard Lewis, Dutco Group
  –Customers who wish to share their own comments/suggestions/reviews will post them anywhere. For instance Tripadvisor is just a click away…]
  –If your website enables your customers to post them there perhaps you can manage them better/easily.
  

TDS08: My notes about "Find Out Which Loyalty Marketing Trends and Innovations Are Fuelling Increased Customer Retention"

[My own comments in brackets]

• Rob McDonald, Hilton Hotels Corporation
  –Customers expect rewards and/or recognition from loyalty programs;
  –Loyalty programs should be seen not as a cost but as investment [towards customer retention. On average it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing one].
  –Clear metrics should be defined to measure ROI for loyalty programs;
  –Partnerships help bring new customers.
  

• David Oliver, Hertz Europe
  –Trends: User Generated Content (UGC)/Social Media/Word of Mouth (WOM)/Viral Marketing/Viral games;
  –Important online social media/networks/websites to watch/engage: Bebo (UK), Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, Wikipedia, Tripadvidor, Blagger, Flicker.
  

• Peter Wray, CM4P
  –Trends: customers empowerment = customers in control;
  –Challenges: Card = Community? Customer = Fan?
  –Facts: Coalition loyalty programs enhance rewards and program adoption.