Comments on: Building A Customer Relationship Infrastructure

By: CFO: Managing The CIO « A Dime a Dozen Small Business, Tech and Talk

CFO: Managing The CIO « A Dime a Dozen Small Business, Tech and Talk — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:38:54 +0000

[...] you may not know is that option ‘A’ is leveraging all your existing, (and amortized) infrastructure investments, and is also leveraging existing skill sets. Option ‘B’ requires new infrastructure, [...]

By: reflections on emergent commerce and technology » Payments, Software & Technology – January 7, 2010

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 23:54:13 +0000

[...] Tea Party by Ron Shevlin – Building A Customer Relationship InfrastructureJanuary 7, 2010 – [...]

By: CU Water Cooler » Blog Archive » CU Water Cooler – 1/7

CU Water Cooler » Blog Archive » CU Water Cooler – 1/7 — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:31:12 +0000

[...] • Building A Customer Relationship Infrastructure « Marketing Tea Party by Ron Shevlin [...]

By: ContentKeith

ContentKeith — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 04:19:48 +0000

Ron: terrific post! I’m in the process of co-authoring a whitepaper on Engagement, and several points you’ve alluded to above complement our position, including: “…measuring engagement and trust will become important…the benefits will have to be measured in terms in improvements in engagement and trust.” We’ve found Engagement to relate directly back to marketing objectives across each stage of the Customer Journey. Measuring engagement means measuring engagement’s (varying) impact on each objective.

And you’re right: site visits and the amount of time on site DON’T measure engagement. More concrete behaviors are required to serve as engagement metrics, not to mention beliefs/feelings which are especially important early in the Customer Journey before any transaction takes place.

As the old joke punchline goes, “I like the way you think.” Hope to share my thoughts on Engagement soon with you. Thanks!

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:36:38 +0000

@Doug: Damn. Serves me right for not thinking through my example more carefully. Because the point I think you’re raising is that, while the customer might not be developing a personal relationship with that person behind the counter, s/he may very well be in the process of developing a relationship with DD.

Here’s the thing about “engagement”: I believe that the definition is “Repeated — and satisfying — interactions that strengthen the emotional connection a consumer has with a brand (or product, or company.”

While ordering a coffee is (usually) not a very emotional process, repeated, positive (or not negative) interactions over time help to build this engagement/trust. A single interaction has to be pretty emotional in order to be on the path to engagement (e.g., you’ll love your fire department if they rush out to your house and save your cat in the tree, even just once).

But going into DD 1000 times and experiencing a flawless process — no long lines, no screwed up orders, etc. — builds engagement and trust.

Which means that investing in that flawless process — e.g., appropriate staffing levels, technology, supplies — is critical to building the relationship infrastructure.

Note that investing in the flawless process may not be the lowest cost way to operate. You could hire 5 less people and not train them (resulting in longer wait times and more screwed up orders). But if my premise is correct, then that prohibits the building of the relationship infrastructure, and the short-term gain in lower process costs is wiped out by the longer term loss in loyalty.

By: Doug Brockway

Doug Brockway — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 15:42:47 +0000

Ron -

Not being a marketing careerist I’ll wade in in any case.

I wanted to disagree with your vignette about the person at Dunkin’ Donuts. Not as an individual but as a personal manifestation of the Dunkin’ “brand.”

Can you write something on the role of brand in this instance, the relationship of “brand” with your “engagement of trust” and the role of branding in creating the Customer Relation Infrastructure?

Doug