Ghost customer focus wanders through Russia
In this publication, I want to briefly talk about the new ProLAN project: “Customers: Measure their loyalty” and invite IT Outsourcers and Consultants to provide services in the retail and services sector.
Our company introduces a new business-oriented IT Service to the market: "Managing Customer Loyalty". Service will be provided only through partners. It is planned that the providers of this service will be IT Outsourcers and consulting companies, in particular, marketing agencies operating in the retail and services sector. The service is based on ProLAN solutions: the Loyalty Button and the Anketer Button , and will allow companies operating in the retail and services sector to effectively manage the loyalty of their customers.
To improve the efficiency of IT Services and simplify the life of providers, it is planned to create a base of reference values for the Emotional Loyalty Index (IEL). The purpose of the project "Customers: Measure their loyalty" is, firstly, the creation of such a base, and secondly, the search for partners - companies that would like to become providers of IT Services: "Management of customer loyalty." So the company is invited to become Project Operators.
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IEL is an adaptation for retailers of the well-known Net Promoter Score (NPS) , a de facto standard in customer loyalty management. IEL is calculated as follows. Customers are asked a question: “Would you recommend our store (salon, car wash, etc.) to your friends?” IEL is calculated as the share of customers who answered YES, minus the share of customers who answered NO. Each answer - pressing the corresponding button on the remote.
You can control only what can be measured. Therefore, a company that wants to manage the loyalty of its customers should periodically measure it. This is an axiom. But measuring loyalty is not enough. It is equally important to have a base for comparison or, in other words, to know the reference values. They can be obtained in two ways. First, measure loyalty for a long time, then statistically process and build a base line. The baseline values will be the reference values. This method is applicable only if things are going well, the number of customers and sales volumes are constantly growing. If this is not the case, then you need to contact an independent consulting company and buy from it a base of reference values for your segment. There are such bases in the USA (for NPS values); in Russia - not yet. We want to create an IEL base for the Russian market, in particular, for the retail and services sector, and make it open to all users of the IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty."
There is another reason why customer loyalty should be measured (and not just the quality of service). Suppose 10% of the company's customers are regular customers who are quite satisfied with the service they receive. They may or may not tell their friends about their impressions. They may or may not recommend this company to others. If the company will periodically unobtrusively ask: “Would you recommend our store (salon, car wash, etc.) to your acquaintances?”, This question will be postponed “on the subcortex” and loyal customers, at the opportunity, will really recommend the company familiar. Thus, 10% of customers will become its free promoters. Conclusion: measuring customer loyalty is not only an important management tool, but also effective marketing communication.
Read more about IEL and loyalty management technology based on IEL, read the publication: “Emotional loyalty in the retail and services sector. Monitoring, diagnostics, management .
Bank, shop, beauty salon, etc. (hereinafter referred to as POS), who wants to measure the loyalty of its clients, is registered to participate in the Project . After qualifying his request as a ProLAN manager, he can receive for free from 2 to 7 days:
Free of charge:
The services listed above, if necessary, are provided by the Project Operator on a reimbursable basis. The cost of services is fixed and relatively low. It is assumed that the main motive of the Project Operator is further cooperation with the client: selling the solution to it Loyalty Button, its service, the provision of IT Services: “Managing Customer Loyalty”, the provision of other services.
The contacts of the Project participants who want to use the services of the Project Operator are provided by ProLAN. Information on how to become a Project Operator can be obtained after registering here (indicate that you are interested in a partnership).
Now, a little about the business value that IT Outsourcer and consulting company will receive by becoming the Project Operator and IT Service Provider: “Monitoring Customer Loyalty”.
The first business value lies on the surface. This sales leads - contacts of companies that want to measure the loyalty of their customers. If the company decided to use the services of the Operator, then it’s most likely that its IT service is not in order, so the IT Outsourcer can offer it its traditional services as well (IT infrastructure support, business applications, etc.) Thus, IT-Outsourcer gets an additional channel to promote its services. But there is one more, much more important business value, which I would call a strategic advantage. I want to talk about it in more detail.
IT Services B2B can be represented in the form of a three-story pyramid. First floor - services for the creation and support of IT Infrastructure. Second floor - services related to the implementation and support of business applications. The third floor is business consulting services.
I hope you don’t throw stones at me, but, in my opinion, there is little money on the first floor and very soon many small IT Outsourcers will have to either leave the market or unite with large IT Outsourcers. This is a global trend - the cost of "iron" is continuously decreasing, and consequently, the cost of its maintenance services is also decreasing. To survive on the first floor it is necessary to constantly reduce costs and continuously increase its market share. As the Black Queen told Alice in Wonderland, to stand still, you need to quickly run forward. For this, either very substantial competitive advantages are needed, or investments plus a very professional management. Unfortunately, most small IT Outsourcers have neither the one nor the other. Therefore, the only possible strategy is to rise up, i.e. in addition to supporting IT Infrastructure, provide services for the implementation and support of business applications, as well as provide services to Business.
It is easy to say ... Large business with a small IT Outsourcer does not want to cooperate. And small and medium businesses are not in a hurry to invest in business applications. Of course, you can try to get into the market 1C: Franchisee, workflow systems, reference systems, etc. If it works out - well, but a more effective way is to find a new niche and gain a foothold there. I am sure that one of these niches is quality management in all its forms, since quality is objectively needed by Business, and in the Russian kingdom it’s not yet good. In particular, to become an IT Service Provider: "Managing Customer Loyalty".
With consulting companies, everything is both simpler and more complicated. The simpler thing is that the provision of business services is exactly what these companies are doing all the time. Therefore, obtaining potential customers (sales leads) who want to manage the loyalty of their customers is an absolute value for any consulting company. The difficulty is that most consulting companies are not friends with IT. They can be compared with home doctors who are willing to spend hours asking clients about their sores, giving various tips, coming up with treatment plans, etc. But if they are given a cardiograph or tomograph, many of them will say that they do not need it, because they know everything without him. They can be understood, they fear that these cardiographs and scanners will take away their bread. And I must say, not unreasonable. However, I see at least two motives to overcome this fear.
Domestic consulting companies can be divided into two groups. The first includes companies whose services they use, “because we ourselves are not able to do this”. To the second group - “because we don’t want to do it ourselves”. Obviously, the companies of the first group earn much more, and any company from the second group wants to go to the first. Becoming an IT Service Provider: "Managing Customer Loyalty", a consulting company solves this problem, because in Russia, so far, you can count on your fingers Businesses that themselves can measure the loyalty of their customers.
Another motive is improving the efficiency of services. Consulting companies, as a rule, are formed around several professionals (sometimes one), let's call them Guru. The consulting company earns by selling the skills and knowledge of the Guru. The work of the Guru is actually “manual” labor, so its productivity is low. Also a lot of time is spent on getting information, writing reports, etc. Despite the fact that Gurus optimize their labor costs (all auxiliary work is most often performed by assistants), business performance often depends on the physical abilities of the Guru.
When providing an IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty", the physical capabilities of the Guru cease to be a bottleneck. There is an opportunity to materialize the knowledge of the Guru in the form of decision settings Loyalty Button and Anketer Button . Since using these solutions, all measurements, data collection and report generation are performed automatically, their implementation allows using the work of the Guru much more efficiently. This increases business efficiency.
This, by the way, gives the consulting company another important advantage. It gets the opportunity to reduce the cost of services, to compensate for the decrease in cost by increasing sales and, thus, significantly move competitors.
To paraphrase the words of a classic, one can say that the ghost of customer focus wanders around Russia. For now, he prefers to go mainly to big cities and “mature” companies (by the way, not always big ones). But very soon he will come to all, because management of customer service quality and customer loyalty is an objective need of any Business, unless it is a monopolist or does not sit on an administrative resource. But in order to satisfy this need, they (loyalty and quality management) must come to Business in the form of effective IT Services. In an era of low-cost and high-quality video systems, the use of secret buyers and / or paper with emoticons: “Evaluate the quality of service” is, you see, an anachronism.
To make effective business-oriented IT Services a reality, almost everything is already there: the experience of Business Consultants, the IT Services market, SaaS technologies, ITSM, high-quality video surveillance systems and much more. It remains a little - to “tear off” the Knowledge from Consultants and “pack” them into IT Solutions. It is this idea that forms the basis of the IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty." In order for this Service to become a reality, support is needed from both IT companies and Business Consultants, and they must act together. Objectively, there are motives for those and others, but the conservatism of thinking is also no exception. To overcome it, as a first step, I invite IT Companies (primarily IT Outsourcers) and Consultants providing services in the retail and services sector to take part in the project: "Customers: Measure their Loyalty . "
Our company introduces a new business-oriented IT Service to the market: "Managing Customer Loyalty". Service will be provided only through partners. It is planned that the providers of this service will be IT Outsourcers and consulting companies, in particular, marketing agencies operating in the retail and services sector. The service is based on ProLAN solutions: the Loyalty Button and the Anketer Button , and will allow companies operating in the retail and services sector to effectively manage the loyalty of their customers.
To improve the efficiency of IT Services and simplify the life of providers, it is planned to create a base of reference values for the Emotional Loyalty Index (IEL). The purpose of the project "Customers: Measure their loyalty" is, firstly, the creation of such a base, and secondly, the search for partners - companies that would like to become providers of IT Services: "Management of customer loyalty." So the company is invited to become Project Operators.
')
Emotional Loyalty Index (IEL)
IEL is an adaptation for retailers of the well-known Net Promoter Score (NPS) , a de facto standard in customer loyalty management. IEL is calculated as follows. Customers are asked a question: “Would you recommend our store (salon, car wash, etc.) to your friends?” IEL is calculated as the share of customers who answered YES, minus the share of customers who answered NO. Each answer - pressing the corresponding button on the remote.
You can control only what can be measured. Therefore, a company that wants to manage the loyalty of its customers should periodically measure it. This is an axiom. But measuring loyalty is not enough. It is equally important to have a base for comparison or, in other words, to know the reference values. They can be obtained in two ways. First, measure loyalty for a long time, then statistically process and build a base line. The baseline values will be the reference values. This method is applicable only if things are going well, the number of customers and sales volumes are constantly growing. If this is not the case, then you need to contact an independent consulting company and buy from it a base of reference values for your segment. There are such bases in the USA (for NPS values); in Russia - not yet. We want to create an IEL base for the Russian market, in particular, for the retail and services sector, and make it open to all users of the IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty."
There is another reason why customer loyalty should be measured (and not just the quality of service). Suppose 10% of the company's customers are regular customers who are quite satisfied with the service they receive. They may or may not tell their friends about their impressions. They may or may not recommend this company to others. If the company will periodically unobtrusively ask: “Would you recommend our store (salon, car wash, etc.) to your acquaintances?”, This question will be postponed “on the subcortex” and loyal customers, at the opportunity, will really recommend the company familiar. Thus, 10% of customers will become its free promoters. Conclusion: measuring customer loyalty is not only an important management tool, but also effective marketing communication.
Read more about IEL and loyalty management technology based on IEL, read the publication: “Emotional loyalty in the retail and services sector. Monitoring, diagnostics, management .
How it's done
Bank, shop, beauty salon, etc. (hereinafter referred to as POS), who wants to measure the loyalty of its clients, is registered to participate in the Project . After qualifying his request as a ProLAN manager, he can receive for free from 2 to 7 days:
- ProLAN-202 wired push - button console or ProLAN-301 wireless push-button kit (remote) + ProLAN-501 (receiver) . It is provided by ProLAN or the Project Operator (see below).
- Temporary license to use EPM-Agent Plus (Data Hub). Provided by ProLAN.
- Account for using the SaaS: Loyalty Reporter web service provided by ProLAN or other services provided by Project partners.
Free of charge:
- Services for the installation and configuration of relevant software products and equipment. It is assumed that this will make IT POS or its contracting organization. It is not difficult, because The solution is well documented. Nevertheless, as practice shows, it is easier for many companies to attract external IT specialists who know the solution well, especially if the cost of their services is relatively low.
- Consulting services in the organization of measurements and interpretation of results. ProLAN will provide the company with information about the average IEL value in its segment, but ProLAN will not be able to provide any nuances “as it was with others”, which are always very important in such cases.
The services listed above, if necessary, are provided by the Project Operator on a reimbursable basis. The cost of services is fixed and relatively low. It is assumed that the main motive of the Project Operator is further cooperation with the client: selling the solution to it Loyalty Button, its service, the provision of IT Services: “Managing Customer Loyalty”, the provision of other services.
The contacts of the Project participants who want to use the services of the Project Operator are provided by ProLAN. Information on how to become a Project Operator can be obtained after registering here (indicate that you are interested in a partnership).
Now, a little about the business value that IT Outsourcer and consulting company will receive by becoming the Project Operator and IT Service Provider: “Monitoring Customer Loyalty”.
Business value for IT Outsourcer
The first business value lies on the surface. This sales leads - contacts of companies that want to measure the loyalty of their customers. If the company decided to use the services of the Operator, then it’s most likely that its IT service is not in order, so the IT Outsourcer can offer it its traditional services as well (IT infrastructure support, business applications, etc.) Thus, IT-Outsourcer gets an additional channel to promote its services. But there is one more, much more important business value, which I would call a strategic advantage. I want to talk about it in more detail.
IT Services B2B can be represented in the form of a three-story pyramid. First floor - services for the creation and support of IT Infrastructure. Second floor - services related to the implementation and support of business applications. The third floor is business consulting services.
I hope you don’t throw stones at me, but, in my opinion, there is little money on the first floor and very soon many small IT Outsourcers will have to either leave the market or unite with large IT Outsourcers. This is a global trend - the cost of "iron" is continuously decreasing, and consequently, the cost of its maintenance services is also decreasing. To survive on the first floor it is necessary to constantly reduce costs and continuously increase its market share. As the Black Queen told Alice in Wonderland, to stand still, you need to quickly run forward. For this, either very substantial competitive advantages are needed, or investments plus a very professional management. Unfortunately, most small IT Outsourcers have neither the one nor the other. Therefore, the only possible strategy is to rise up, i.e. in addition to supporting IT Infrastructure, provide services for the implementation and support of business applications, as well as provide services to Business.
It is easy to say ... Large business with a small IT Outsourcer does not want to cooperate. And small and medium businesses are not in a hurry to invest in business applications. Of course, you can try to get into the market 1C: Franchisee, workflow systems, reference systems, etc. If it works out - well, but a more effective way is to find a new niche and gain a foothold there. I am sure that one of these niches is quality management in all its forms, since quality is objectively needed by Business, and in the Russian kingdom it’s not yet good. In particular, to become an IT Service Provider: "Managing Customer Loyalty".
Business value for a consulting company
With consulting companies, everything is both simpler and more complicated. The simpler thing is that the provision of business services is exactly what these companies are doing all the time. Therefore, obtaining potential customers (sales leads) who want to manage the loyalty of their customers is an absolute value for any consulting company. The difficulty is that most consulting companies are not friends with IT. They can be compared with home doctors who are willing to spend hours asking clients about their sores, giving various tips, coming up with treatment plans, etc. But if they are given a cardiograph or tomograph, many of them will say that they do not need it, because they know everything without him. They can be understood, they fear that these cardiographs and scanners will take away their bread. And I must say, not unreasonable. However, I see at least two motives to overcome this fear.
Domestic consulting companies can be divided into two groups. The first includes companies whose services they use, “because we ourselves are not able to do this”. To the second group - “because we don’t want to do it ourselves”. Obviously, the companies of the first group earn much more, and any company from the second group wants to go to the first. Becoming an IT Service Provider: "Managing Customer Loyalty", a consulting company solves this problem, because in Russia, so far, you can count on your fingers Businesses that themselves can measure the loyalty of their customers.
Another motive is improving the efficiency of services. Consulting companies, as a rule, are formed around several professionals (sometimes one), let's call them Guru. The consulting company earns by selling the skills and knowledge of the Guru. The work of the Guru is actually “manual” labor, so its productivity is low. Also a lot of time is spent on getting information, writing reports, etc. Despite the fact that Gurus optimize their labor costs (all auxiliary work is most often performed by assistants), business performance often depends on the physical abilities of the Guru.
When providing an IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty", the physical capabilities of the Guru cease to be a bottleneck. There is an opportunity to materialize the knowledge of the Guru in the form of decision settings Loyalty Button and Anketer Button . Since using these solutions, all measurements, data collection and report generation are performed automatically, their implementation allows using the work of the Guru much more efficiently. This increases business efficiency.
This, by the way, gives the consulting company another important advantage. It gets the opportunity to reduce the cost of services, to compensate for the decrease in cost by increasing sales and, thus, significantly move competitors.
Conclusion
To paraphrase the words of a classic, one can say that the ghost of customer focus wanders around Russia. For now, he prefers to go mainly to big cities and “mature” companies (by the way, not always big ones). But very soon he will come to all, because management of customer service quality and customer loyalty is an objective need of any Business, unless it is a monopolist or does not sit on an administrative resource. But in order to satisfy this need, they (loyalty and quality management) must come to Business in the form of effective IT Services. In an era of low-cost and high-quality video systems, the use of secret buyers and / or paper with emoticons: “Evaluate the quality of service” is, you see, an anachronism.
To make effective business-oriented IT Services a reality, almost everything is already there: the experience of Business Consultants, the IT Services market, SaaS technologies, ITSM, high-quality video surveillance systems and much more. It remains a little - to “tear off” the Knowledge from Consultants and “pack” them into IT Solutions. It is this idea that forms the basis of the IT Service: "Managing Customer Loyalty." In order for this Service to become a reality, support is needed from both IT companies and Business Consultants, and they must act together. Objectively, there are motives for those and others, but the conservatism of thinking is also no exception. To overcome it, as a first step, I invite IT Companies (primarily IT Outsourcers) and Consultants providing services in the retail and services sector to take part in the project: "Customers: Measure their Loyalty . "
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/195002/
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