Customer Centric Marketing

You simply cannot foster and develop a relationship if you know nothing about your existing Guest/Customer or prospect.  Data collection is the first step, and it still amazes me how so many are behind the “eight ball”.  Every touch point is an opportunity to sell or learn more about your Customer, and technology allows us to build a “history” effectively and efficiently and then move forward with a Marketing Communications Plan.  As consultant Shar Van Boskirk of Forrester Research reported, using IHG as a case study, Intercontinental is creating quite a competitive advantage.  It all starts with data from and about your Guest/Customer.

In simpler times, we began to learn about our guests through Registration and, perhaps, Comment Cards.  We learned addresses, telephone numbers, maybe age and some preferences.  We communicated primarily through the phone and written correspondence.  A different time, actually a different world.  Technology, tastes and pace have altered everything, but it is still driven by a basic component – information.  How we gather that, analyze it and deploy what we have learned, give us the advantage in the Marketplace.  We get the nuance and the broad brush – the differentiator.

IHG’s strategy dovetailes three initiatives:  investing in technology; expanding into new frontiers; and building a centralized customer oriented culture.  Technology allows you to build and integrate that warehouse of information from all your sources.  The key is immediate, actionable and reliable information.  Next, you look outside that Customer Model “box”, creatively looking to expand and enrich your typical Guest communications.  Lastly you need to align everyone in the organization to this new focus, redefining the Customer interaction.

As Ms. Van Boskirk noted, the IHG initiative is not easy nor is it for the faint-hearted.  This is a dramatic cultural, organizational, and technological pronouncement, fully Guest-Centric and evolutionary.  Let’s see how it unfolds.