Scott Dubois

It All Comes Down To Customer Experience

scottdubois — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 18:30:21 +0000

I spend a fair amount of time on the road traveling, and often get offers which are generic and should rightfully be ignored. However today I received an offer from Starwood Preferred Guests offering me to create my own SPG Card! I could select card styles, tell them more about interests and favorite destinations. This is great use of customer data and I was more than ready to turn it over to them and get started.

The eMail was great, well designed and so I clicked on the link:

However, when I clicked the link and was brought to the micro-site the problems began! They wanted my SPG Account Number and password. Why? They already knew who I was, and they don’t have any personally sensitive information of mine, why not just auto-authenticate me and pass me through?

It took me a minute to realize that they put my SPG Account Number at the top of the eMail, but I have no idea what my password is. Well guess what I didn’t do…… that’s right my time is much to valuable to sort all of this out. I passed on the offer; as cool as it was and moved on with my day.

Almost Starwood, maybe next time. This is a well done campaign and I’m willing to bet a little thought towards customer experience would have greatly improved participation.

p.s. Your hotels are still great!

QR Codes – What Are They And Why Are They Cool?

scottdubois — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:36:13 +0000

If I were to ask you if you knew what a QR Code is would you know?

How about a 2-D Bar Code?

How about a Tag?

Would you know either one if you saw it?

To the left is a QR (Quick Response) Code and to the right Microsoft Tag. Both are 2-D bar codes which allow an end-user to quickly scan the code and be presented with information. This could be a URL, an SMS number, a Phone Number, Text, or utilized to share contact information. Because they are 2-D, these bar codes can hold quite a bit of information and the possibilities for marketing are endless.

The use of these bar codes is quite common overseas and is moving toward the mainstream here in the US. The majority of popular phones now have software to support reading and using 2-D bar codes. If you happen to be an iPhone user like I am, I’d recommend QuickMark as it offers automatic scanning which is a great feature!

Want to try out making your own QR Codes? Check out Kaywa.

Now how about the marketing possibilities I mentioned?

- Scan a QR Code on a product you see in a store and be brought to a special micro-site. Maybe even get a coupon.

- Scan a QR Code on a product and be connected to a special call center on the first ring with real product experts.

- Generate QR Codes via an API and place them variably on a direct mail piece and embed the end user’s Personalized PURL into the code.

There are more, and what is most exciting to me is that I am having more and more discussions with our clients about this technology.

Really, We Haven’t Said It Enough… It’s All About Data

scottdubois — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:45:13 +0000

This is certainly one of my favorite topics, and I continue to say this a hundred times a week to our clients. The value of data in marketing efforts cannot be overlooked, and having “deep” data opens up a world of possibilities.

One of my regular reads is Seth Godin’s Blog and he has an excellent post about the Five Easy Pieces in marketing. Seth lists them as data, stories, products, interactions and connections. Great observations.

However as it applies to marketing I think Seth may have understated data (although maybe not intentionally). Technology is such, that a large part of media can be personalized. Therefore data can be used to encourage interactions or to variably showcase relevant products (he does talk about AdWords). How about using data to showcase different stories? A product (or more so a service) will often have a multiple stories that will appeal to different people…. If the data is “deep” you can go there! I guess in the chart, I would have data on top.

I find the hardest part about adopting this for people is that it involves change. To often data is treated as one-off, or if there is an observation and data is appended, it never seems to make it back to the IT people so that it can be used in the future. Crazy!