Wajeez Blog » Worth Reading

Whose Responsibility to Manage “Voice of the Customer”?

Raouf — Sun, 19 May 2013 06:02:08 +0000

ِAccording to a new study by The Economist Intelligence Unit Voice of the customer, titled ‘Whose job is it, anyway?,’ over the next three years, global organizations will make understanding and interacting with the customer their top priority. Yet only 56 percent of respondents to the survey, sponsored by SAS, believe their companies clearly understand the customer today.

In fact, it seems that many companies find it challenging to restructure their businesses around the customer, having been organized traditionally around products or geographies. Only six in ten viewed their companies as customer-centric and just over half report a clear understanding of customers’ tastes and needs.

Whose responsibility will it be?

So whose responsibility will it be to champion the voice of the customer within the organization? And what new skills and capabilities will they need in order to restructure around the customer instead of products? The study reveals a disconnect amongst executives on these questions. Nearly one-quarter of Chief Marketing Officers surveyed want a Chief Customer Officer to take responsibility; another quarter see the onus on themselves. Currently, the CMO is considered the voice of the customer at just 18 percent of organizations, trailing the head of sales (31 percent).

Obstacles for the CMO include the diversity of the CMOs’ current obligations, few of which are currently customer-facing functions. Regardless, whoever aspires to serve as the voice of the customer must draw on customer insights to create an exceptional customer experience that spans all physical and digital channels. The key to the CMO delivering on an organizations’ evolving customer-centric mandate may lie in the rise of web, social and mobile channels that are poised to take on greater significance in customer engagement.

Rise of social and mobile

In the next three years, social and mobile will eclipse e-mail and the corporate website for customer engagement. Few organizations, however, are currently leveraging emerging social and mobile media channels effectively to reach customers. While social media is predicted to become the second most important channel for customer communication, face-to-face interactions will remain the most important customer engagement channel.

[Photo credit]

Survey: Small Business Owners Common Traits

Raouf — Thu, 16 May 2013 10:12:48 +0000

A new survey has found that small business (SMB) owners share several distinct attributes – a sort of unique “DNA” – that help them live their passions while adapting to the shifting economic landscape. Commissioned by Deluxe Corp., a leading provider of marketing services, the study surveyed more than 1,000 SMB owners around the U.S.

The results showed 86 percent of the respondents believe they can do anything they set their minds to, with 77 percent also stating they would rather learn from failure instead of never trying at all. Additionally, study highlights include:

Heredity:
76 percent of SMB owners have a family member who owned a small business.
Leadership tendencies:
More than half (54 percent) of SMB owners wanted to work for themselves or not have a boss. A majority (89 percent) described themselves as leaders, doers (78 percent) and practical (80 percent).
Work-Life Balance:
Women were more likely than men to say they started their businesses for flexible hours (40 vs. 25 percent).
I Can Do That:
Men were more likely than women to say they started their businesses because they believed they could do it better than their competitors (25 vs. 15 percent) and more likely to say they always knew someday they would own their own small businesses (37 vs. 18 percent).
Ability to influence:
SMB owners are more than twice as likely to be asked for their opinions about what to buy, places to visit, or restaurants to try (33 vs. 15 percent). They are also more likely to be good at convincing others to try new products (51 vs. 32 percent).
They do their homework:
A majority (79 vs. 44 percent) of SMB owners research products thoroughly before they purchase.
Demographics:
SMB owners are more likely to be male (53 vs. 47 percent), to have a college or higher degree (73 vs. 37 percent), to be married (69 vs. 52 percent), and to be older (58.2 vs. 46.1 years).

In addition, when asked “What prompted you to start your business?”, the survey respondents tended to fall within one of seven distinct attitudinal clusters:

All Heart:
They are in business for one reason only – they want to do what they love and share it with others.
Encore Career:
Team players who are entering a second phase of their careers and took a risk with starting their own businesses.
Passionately Confident:
Risk-takers who are born to be business owners, enjoy choosing their own paths and are very passionate about their life’s work.
All in the Family:
Traditional-types who inherited their status as SMB owners, accounting for their long tenure and larger business size.
My Way:
Self-motivated owners who started their own businesses for the opportunity to get what they most value – control over their schedules and hours.
Mastering the Niche:
Visionaries who began their businesses because they saw an opportunity and wanted to capitalize on it.
Boss-me-not:
Experienced business professionals who left their for-profit, corporate, and usually entirely unrelated jobs for one reason – to be their own bosses.

The online survey was fielded from March 22 – March 29, 2013 and 1,011 surveys were completed. The small business owners were recruited from Research Now’s US panel. The panel contains about 3 million subjects, utilizes normalized sampling, and is weighted to reflect the population.

[Photo credit]

Digital Coupon Users Spend 42% More Annually Than Average Shoppers

Raouf — Tue, 14 May 2013 09:30:47 +0000

A new GfK report, based on over 120 campaigns run by Coupons.com in 2012, shows that digital coupon users spend 42% more per year at supermarkets than the average shopper – a differential of $1,029. This reflects a 7% increase compared to 2011.

The report, which covers six major product categories and 49 subcategories, also shows that heavy digital coupon users (defined as the top 1/3 of redeemers) are among the most desirable shoppers, spending 50% more per shopping trip and $3,171 more per year than average shoppers.

The major categories covered are Food, Beverage, Personal Care/Baby Care, Household Care, Health Care, and Pet Care.

The prolific shopping of digital coupon users becomes more noticeable when examining just “stock-up trips,” or occasions when shoppers spend $75 or above. Digital coupon users make 48% more stock-up trips than average shoppers: 19.5 per year, compared to 13.2. Heavy digital coupon redeemers make 169% more stock-up trips annually, for a total of 35.5.

The data source is GfK’s National Shopper Lab (NSL), which consists of transaction-based, UPC-level purchase data from over 20 million US loyalty card households. Through NSL, GfK maintains a three-year rolling purchase history with price and coupon redemption information, resulting in top-quality data and insights. The demographic profile of NSL consumers is representative of the total U.S.

To download a detailed report on these trends, click here.

[Image source]

Study: Instagram More Effective Than Pinterest for Top Brands

Raouf — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:26:21 +0000

According to a study by Simply Measured, a major provider of analytics and reporting capabilities, 67% of top global brands are now using Instagram, reaching more than 100 million active monthly users on the network, a 500 percent increase in users since the acquisition.

The Simply Measured Instagram study evaluates brands and verticals in the Interbrand 100, identifying key trends and strategies shaping the way companies engage with consumers through social media. Key findings include:

Instagram is more powerful than Pinterest.
The appeal of visual marketing is on the rise. To date, Pinterest has attracted a higher percentage of brands, however Instagram is growing faster and proving more valuable. As of May 1, the collective audience of the 76 Interbrand companies on Pinterest was less than 500,000, while Instagram’s 67 companies reach more than 7 million followers.
Facebook’s impact cannot be overlooked.
Since the acquisition, Twitter engagement has steadily dropped, while Facebook engagement is up 23 percent quarter over quarter, spurred by several strategic moves including integrating “like” sharing and introducing web profiles. In total, more than 2 million likes, comments and shares of Instagram photos have occurred on Facebook since the network bought to photo sharing app.
Top brands are using Instagram more frequently and with greater impact.
Today, 23 percent of active Interbrand 100 companies post more than 50 times a month, up from 20 percent last quarter. In addition, those brands are seeing more than 5,600 engagements per photo, up 16 percent over the previous quarter.
Nike, MTV and Starbucks top the list.
This quarter, Nike became the third brand to reach 1 million followers, joining MTV and Starbucks. MTV saw a 200 percent growth in engagement, due in part to its robust usage of Instagram surrounding the MTV Movie Awards. The network’s unprecedented level of activity was rewarded as it posted 78 photos the day of the show, each averaging more than 16,000 likes and comments.

To analyze any Instagram profile for free, click here.

Mobile Job Searching On The Rise

Raouf — Sun, 12 May 2013 14:41:26 +0000

According to Snagajob.com, a US employment marketplace, smartphones are proving to be an increasingly common tool for the job hunt. This based on the fact that Snagajob noticed, with its users increasing their mobile job searching by 95 percent over the past year.

According to the report Snagajob released recently, titled Counter Intelligence and based on data captured from its website from April 2012 through March 2013. The report found that while job seekers nearly doubled their mobile searching compared to the previous 12-month period, there wasn’t a proportional increase in applications submitted.

In general, job seekers continue to be selective of which jobs they pursue. Users submitted 4.3% fewer applications. Job seekers under the age of 24 only saw a 2.1 percent decline. Snagajob has found that job seekers submit roughly three times more applications on desktop computers as compared to mobile devices.

Also, for the second consecutive quarter, more job seekers resumed their search compared to the previous 12 months, by an increase of 3.1 percentage points. The “Reactivation Index,” a measurement of job seekers who have picked up their job search after at least three months of inactivity, showed younger job seekers under the age of 24 leading the charge, with a 6.8 percent increase over the previous April-to-March period. Job seekers ages 45 and older though stepped away from the job search, dropping 2.4 percentage points.

When Do Americans Tweet? Depends on What They’re Watching

Raouf — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:24:29 +0000

Local broadcast TV viewers are 85% more likely to post photos and videos to their social media accounts, than users of other media (radio, newspapers, broadcast and cable television), primarily because of their strong connection to community. This fact, among others, was among the findings of the Cultural Currency research (commissioned by TVB.org), which analyzed social media behaviors among 167 million Facebook and Twitter users across 4400 primetime television programs, 540 consumer brands, 570 TV stations, 1823 radio stations and 358 local and national newspapers.

Local newspapers outperform all other media in generating retweets (54% more likely), while radio and cable TV users are avid content Likers (each 46% more likely). Across all media channels, broadcast television offered the most balanced set of social media behaviors to activate across content offerings.

The study unearthed critical insights for programmers and advertisers who build complementary social media experiences to enhance their media investments, including:

Broadcast TV Builds Brand Fans With its Combination of Big Audiences and Deep Engagement.
Broadcast TV at the national and local level is still the dominant brand-builder in the media landscape, generating as much as 192X more brand fans within social media than advertisers in the same category who only purchased cable. The use of social media to prove the correlation of actual media investment with brand affinity is a game-changing insight that provides marketers with the ability to target their most engaged brand fans using the efficiencies of mass reach media.
Social Media Platforms Are Not Equal Across the Television Landscape.
There is a polarization of platform preference depending on the programming genre. Viewers of mainstream primetime genres, driven by big hit programs, exhibited more active behaviors on Twitter than on Facebook, suggesting that Twitter has established itself as the “in-the-moment,” simultaneous platform for cultural currency traders and that “appointment viewing” is now an interactive “appointment experience” that offers advertisers more opportunities to engage in real-time.

[Photo credit]

Twitter More Popular Than Facebook As a Recruiting Channel

Raouf — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:31:15 +0000

According to the 2013 North American Social Recruiting Activity Report, only 22% of recruiters used Facebook for recruiting in year 2012, compared to a dominant 97% using LinkedIn and even 27% using Twitter. The data, culled from more than 160,000 recruiters, showed that only 12% of recruiters were connected to all three major social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter – in 2012. With 14 percent of recruiters using a combination of LinkedIn and Twitter for recruiting versus eight percent using LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter is once again more popular than Facebook as a recruiting channel.

Recruiters are more active on LinkedIn than on any other network. LinkedIn has the highest percentage of recruiters with enormous network sizes (15 percent have between 1,001-2,000 connections). Fifty percent of North American recruiters using Twitter for recruiting have fewer than 50 followers, and 26 percent of North American recruiters using Facebook have fewer than 200 Facebook friends.

In terms of views per job post in 2012, LinkedIn again led the pack. For any job posted on Facebook in 2012, Twitter drove 4.3 times more job views and LinkedIn drove 17.2 times more job views. In turn, LinkedIn drove 4 times more job views than Twitter did. Interestingly, Facebook and Twitter drew a similar number of applications per job post despite Twitter job postings getting considerably more views. This suggests that while Facebook job posts get fewer average views, those who do view them may be more receptive to applying.

For recruiters utilizing all three social networks, the most heavily represented vertical was, by far, information technology. This was followed by recruiters in finance and banking, healthcare, and manufacturing. Information technology professionals are currently in very high demand in North America, which would account for recruiters specializing in information technology trying to reach as many potential candidates as possible through a variety of social networks.

To download the full report, please click here .

Six Tips to Save Money on Your Summer Vacation

Raouf — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 18:38:24 +0000

Chances are you’ve planed for your summer vacation by now. Like all mortals, you were tempted to over-spend for your duly-needed vacation, but the bills following a few days later can cause even more stress when returning home.

Mike Sullivan, chief education officer for Take Charge America, a US non-profit credit counseling and debt management agency, says consumers can create memorable, budget-friendly vacations with some careful planning. Sullivan offers six tips to help consumers save more when planning summer vacations:

Comparison Shop
Compare travel packages with hotels or airlines directly, and with travel deal sites such as Expedia or Priceline. You’ll get different deals depending on the season. Also seek out AAA and AARP discounts, as well as additional perks such as free breakfast and Wi-Fi. Remember to also consult with TripAdvisor.com and see what over travelers have to stay about your place of stay.
Consider All-Inclusives
All-inclusive resort and cruise packages may include everything from lodging and transportation to food, drinks and tips. These are excellent options for money-conscious travelers who want to make it easy to abide by a budget. Also consider visiting some Online Coupons websites, they might have an offer or two that you can put to good use during your vacation.
Plan Far in Advance
Airlines, hotels, cruises and travel deal websites offer deals for travelers who book their vacations far in advance or wait until the last minute.
Be Flexible
It’s easier to find discounted travel packages if you are flexible with dates and times. Consider taking a red-eye or booking your flights mid-week. Avoid holiday weekends, if possible. Also look into hotels or airports slightly off the beaten path. A little extra driving or walking can save a few hundred bucks.
Jump on the Bandwagon
Travel in a large group with friends or family to take advantage of group discounts. You can also split the cost of gas, food and entertainment. If you can’t afford to pay for lodging, stay with friends or family in another part of the country (offering reciprocal accommodations in your hometown). They should have tips on tourist and local hotspots, too.
Budget Year-Round
If you save for vacations throughout the year, you won’t feel the pinch when you’re ready to take time off. Consider setting aside a small amount of money each month in a vacation fund.

[Photo credit: Niagra on the lake]

Go Mobile OR Go Home

Raouf — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:28:04 +0000

Still not convinced that you should give more attention to mobile devices, be it a devoted application, a special web design or marketing campaigns? Think again as you might be pushed out of the way and when you get your wake up call, it might be too late, or you might even go out of business before you know it.

Surveys and studies keep coming out, all showing the same signs. According to recent Market Data from ABI Research, shipments of sub-US$250 low-cost smartphones will grow from 259 million in 2013 to 788 million in 2018, . Mid (sub-$400) and high ($400+) cost smartphone shipments are expected to grow from 635 million to 925 million over the same period.

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, US consumers’ desire for mobility is driving sales of tablets, smartphones, e-readers and wireless mobile hotspots. The same study also found that consumer electronics (CE) spending is up for US individuals (35 percent) and US households (36 percent) over the last 12 months.

Smartphone ownership continues to flourish, with 69 million U.S. households now owning a smartphone. As a result, basic cell phone (non-smartphone) ownership is steadily declining. E-reader ownership increased from 19 percent in 2012 to 29 percent in 2013, and wireless mobile hotspot devices nearly doubled in ownership from 11 percent in 2012 to 21 percent in 2013.

On average, U.S. adults reported spending $746 on CE products, a 35 percent increase over the prior year, while the average American household spent $1,312, an increase of 36 percent. Spending increased most dramatically for adults ages 25-34, up 62 percent from 2012 levels to $1,171.

[Photo credit]

1.2 Million Smart Watches To Be Shipped in 2013

Raouf — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:25:56 +0000

You’d be forgiven if you thought Apple’s iWatch is the first generation of smart watches, but the fact is those watches have been around for the last decade. Like with MP3 players and iPods, other vendors and copycats (i.e. Samsung and LG) couldn’t produce smart watches properly, and so the world had to wait till Apple set out to bring us a proper iWatch, to be announced soon enough.

With hype created and growing, new smart watch launches and even consumer perceptions have changed, leading ABI Research to believe that over 1.2 million smart watches will be shipped before year 2013′s end. Once known for being bulky, ugly, few functionality, lousy better life, you name it it.

Now, the new wearable computing gadget can act as a notifying device, voice operated, hybrid or fully independent. Your smart watch can notify you for an incoming phone call or SMS. Or you can issue your orders by voice to your smart watch to make it dial a number or search for a message (Siri hype have faded, but maybe iWatch would revive it again?)

Smart watches with their own OS are to keep our eyes on. Those promise to add more functionality, supporting our reliance on mobile phones, or even help us survive without one.

Like it or not, smart watches are coming, and they will be the gift to get during the holidays and coming Christmas. Bring it on Apple and Samsung, let a new era begin.

‘Watch: Post this to my blog and tweets about it.’

[Image credit: MacUser magazine's]