POOR ONLINE MARKETING PRACTICES DETRIMENTAL TO CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP BUILDING

by Curt Hall, Senior Consultant, Business Intelligence Practice

Working on a research project, I've identified a number of customer relationship management (CRM) mistakes that organizations are committing with their online marketing efforts. These mistakes can be detrimental to online customer relationship building as well as to general business operations. They range from attempting to collect too much customer information to deliberately ignoring customer preferences.

Collecting Too Much Customer Information

You might be thinking, "Yeah, this is obvious, anyone knows you shouldn't try to force customers to provide too much information when conducting online marketing operations." Well, I'm not so certain this is so obvious, because I have uncovered plenty of examples of poor online customer data-collection practices.

One of the most common mistakes that companies report is asking customers to supply "supplemental" information that is not needed at the time of the transaction -- the intention being that this additional information might possibly be used for some purpose in the future. This practice is not only bad from a customer- relationship building perspective -- it forces or asks customers to provide yet one more piece of personally identifiable information (which is annoying to many) -- it has additional overhead from a data management/analysis perspective, too. Simply put, customer data tends to get stale after a period of time. When it is loaded into the data warehouse, stale data tends to become dormant data that just sits there taking up space and adding to the clutter that end users must wade through to find the information they really need when navigating the warehouse.

Ignoring Customer Preferences

Another common mistake is ignoring specific customer preferences. For example, numerous times while downloading product information, I have clicked the check box or radio button specifying that "I do not want to be immediately contacted in order to discuss my 'X' needs." Regardless, the next day I receive a phone call from a sales rep trying to push a product. Similarly, many companies also ask you to indicate what industry you are in or what your job title is. And even though I note that I'm a member of the press (from a pull-down menu box they provide for tailored input purposes!), I still get a phone call inquiring about my "data integration or CRM or other needs." In other words, no one at these companies is even paying any attention to my input indicating that I don't want to be contacted or that I am a member of the press.

While your first inclination might be to attribute such oversight to overaggressive salespeople, the bottom line is that it's largely a waste of the sales rep's (not to mention the customer's) time. Worse, it tends to highlight a specific act in which the company has essentially chosen to ignore its customer policy. This, in turn, serves to impart doubt in the customer's mind as to just how sincere the company will be with respect to its other policies. The guiding principle is that if you are not going to respect your customers' requests, then you shouldn't ask them to specifically indicate their preferences or you just end up appearing inconsiderate or untrustworthy.

Asking Strange Questions

Another online marketing mistake is asking customers to provide information in response to strange questions that don't appear to have anything to do with a transaction. Although such questions may actually be very valid to the company asking them, the customer is not given any explanation as to why they are being asked the question. This gives customers the impression of a privacy issue when in fact none exist. As an example, several months ago I sought to purchase new contact lenses on the 1-800 Contacts Web site. While paying for the lenses, I was asked to provide my birth date. No explanation was given. Because I did not feel that my birth date was any of the company's business, I abandoned the transaction and decided to purchase my contacts from another site. Last week, however, I noticed that the 1-800 Contacts site is providing a pop-up screen explaining that the company needs to collect customers' birth dates because US regulations now require that all online prescriptions be verifiable by contacting the customer's optometrist. It also states that many optometrists track prescription information based on their customers' birth dates. Thus it turns out that the company was asking a justifiable question and that I was just being too paranoid regarding my privacy. But how was I to know? The fact that 1-800 Contacts now offers an explanation indicates to me that other customers complained and that the company has taken steps to eliminate possible misconceptions.

Conclusion

No one, of course, sets out to intentionally collect too much customer information or to deliberately ignore their customers' preferences. The reasoning behind these consequences vary. Sometimes it comes down to trying to do too much with an online marketing effort. Thus, by the time numerous departments (e.g., marketing, sales, PR) have gotten involved in an online campaign, the number of data fields customers are required to complete to make a purchase or inquire about some product or service simply balloons.

Another factor is that many Web sites are not administered in a manner that sufficiently takes into consideration the end-user customer perspective. By "customer perspective" I don't mean basic Web site end-user functionality, but rather the impression of your company or organization that the customer is left with from experiencing first hand the policies and procedures they are put through when interacting with the site.

Regardless of the cause, the bottom line is that poor online marketing practices can negatively impact online customer relationship building as well as business operations. To avoid these issues, companies should test their Web site (or marketing campaign or survey, etc.) in a manner that thoroughly considers the end-user customer perspective. Ideally, this testing should be performed by someone other than the Web site designer, administrator, or marketing department (or what have you) in order to clearly assess the organizational impression that the customer gets from experiencing the company's policies and procedures on the site.

Finally, it is essential that organizations periodically conduct thorough reviews of how the data collected from online operations is actually used in order to assess the usefulness of their data collection practices. I think that a lot of organizations are in for a surprise. Many, I believe, will find that although they set out with good intentions as to why they are collecting all kinds of customer data, a lot of it they simply are not using.

As always, your comments and insights on this announcement and the business intelligence, data warehouse, and CRM markets in general are welcome. Send your comments to chall@cutter.com or call me at +1 510 848 7417.

Sincerely,
Curt Hall, Senior Consultant, Business Intelligence Practice
E-mail: chall@cutter.com