Last week I spoke at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum in New York, “Mobile’s Role in Closing the Loop along the Path to Purchase.” The MMA’s events are always must-go for marketers as every day is packed with new and interesting ideas on how marketers use mobile to engage consumers in ways that were unimaginable just ten years ago.

Reflection upon all sessions, creative drawings (see below), hallway conversations, and tweets (#MMAF2013) reveals three key themes that rose to the top for me: (more…)

Today, the mobile device is as much a part of moms’ busy lives as bringing orange slices to a soccer game. Whether communicating with their children or office, organizing calendars, researching products, or locating directions, mothers are leveraging the mobile device to its fullest extent. While the industry buzzes about mobile marketing to millennials and young adults – the mobile moms, with her multi-faceted uses for mobile, should be another critical target audience for mobile marketers. Yesterday’s soccer moms are today’s mobile moms.

A recent survey, “Alliance Data Mobile Moms Retail Survey” sheds light on the preferences, uses, and key drivers of mobile among mothers. The survey asked moms:

• How mobile influences shopping and buying decisions
• Which vertical industries mothers interact with via mobile
• How they value their mobile device (more…)

Over the past few weeks there has been an increased level of attention given to a recent court ruling from the state of Wisconsin – Nelson vs. Santander Consumer USA, Inc.  While I do not wish to discuss my opinions on the ruling or provide legal advice about how agencies should interpret the ruling (or talk about the fact that calling a single consumer over 1,000 times might be a bad idea!), I did want to outline how SoundBite helps its clients find a viable solution for addressing the technological challenges brought forth by the ruling.

At the heart of the matter, the court ruled that calls to mobile phones must be done manually and not via any system with the capacity to make automated dials.  The challenge itself is quite simple.  How does an organization, charged with recovering debt from consumers, make enough ‘manual’ phone calls to a growing mobile population to reach enough consumers to actually make any money? (more…)

The grocery industry and consumers’ path to purchase have changed dramatically in the past decade. Gone are the days of a single weekly trip to your local supermarket, as U.S. households now spread shopping trips out between a mix of membership clubs specialty grocers like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, traditional grocers like Kroger and Publix, and big box retailers like Meijer Supercenters, Target, and Wal-Mart.  Add in the fact that frequent shoppers use a multitude of new, real-time digital tools to get the best deals wherever possible, the challenge of being in grocery marketing has never been more demanding. For grocers, the good news is that the marketing landscape has now evolved to their advantage. With the advent of digital media and multi-channel marketing programs, the biggest game-changer is now mobile. (more…)

Net Promoter Score (NPS) has gained traction in customer-centric organizations, such as telco providers, financial institutions, and retailers who want to ensure customers have a positive experience.  As my colleagues have detailed in their earlier posts on NPS and closed-loop surveys, identifying dissatisfied customers and immediately resolving their bad experiences is important to maintaining a loyal and happy customer base. Read on to find out how a US mobile carrier implemented a cross-channel closed loop survey and the crucial steps to make it effective. (more…)

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is reality and it has been with us since dial up modems were cutting edge and we were running computers on Microsoft MS Dos. It is powerful, can cost millions in class action lawsuits, and it “aint goin’ nowhere.” No matter how hard we try to comply with the TCPA guidelines, unfortunately, we find we are fighting it every day. Whether fighting a class action lawsuit, or fighting to get clarity over the broadness of language like 47 U.S.C. § 227 restrictions on use of telephone equipment [The term “automatic telephone dialing system” (ATDS) means equipment which has the capacity — (A) to store or produce telephone numbers to be called, using a random or sequential number generator; and (B) to dial such numbers].

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In connection with SoundBite’s recent 2012 Annual Report and Proxy Mailing for our Annual Shareholders Meeting on May 22, I sat down to chat with Jim Milton, president and CEO. We covered many topics including Customer Experience Management (CEM) and SoundBite Insight^tm, our cloud-based, Preference Management platform which are highlighted in this video.

The CEM market that SoundBite now participates in is a result of our continued transformation. SoundBite has evolved our offerings over the last few years to enable our clients to take advantage of multi- and cross-channel communications to increase customer engagements, deliver a better overall customer experience and establish long term, profitable relationships with their consumers. Preference Management continues to be a strategic area of focus for the company as well capturing stated preferences, learning from observed behaviors, and delivering a better, more intelligent communication.

In addition to the conversation on CEM and Preference Management, we also posted another clip that goes a little deeper into some of the strategic initiatives covered in our Annual Report released last week and available on our website. Over the next few weeks you will be able to see additional clips of my conversation with Jim covering topics such as cross-channel surveys, mobile marketing in retail, and our focus on compliant communications.

Last year, I published a blog entitled Hybrid Contact Centers: The Cloud Will Set You Free. In 2012 we have seen the hosted contact center players grow much more rapidly than the on-premise contact center infrastructure players. We have also recently seen on-premise infrastructure players make additional investments in the cloud. ShoreTel acquiring M5 Networks and Genesys acquiring Angel.com are just two examples of this trend. But the question still remains, has the emergence of a hybrid contact center been a passing fad or a real trend in the market? (more…)

Recently I spoke at the Loyalty Expo where attendees and providers discussed research, technologies and solutions that are impacting loyalty programs today. Removing communications barriers for customer engagement was a central theme throughout the event, along with customer insight and consumer communications preferences. For me, these three topics converge into one personal communications channel –the mobile device.

There are still a lot of marketers out there who admit that they don’t know what they don’t know about mobile.  I overheard mobile being called “creepy,” by a rather high-ranking executive of an industry-leading brand. During my session, Laying the Mobile Foundation: Creating and Utilizing Mobile Databases for Loyalty Programs, I addressed this directly stating that mobile is NOT creepy as long as brands and providers comply with business rules, external regulations, and customer preferences.  This starts with gaining express consent, or opt-in, prior to messaging customers. (more…)

Compliance.  That’s not a subject that you (or I) as a marketer ever really want to focus on.  Tell us about the newest, latest, and greatest technology that we can use to reach out and engage our customers. Tell us how we can use the latest location, mobile web, and messaging technology to create customized and engaging experiences that really harness the social powers of our community. But compliance?  I’d rather not. (more…)