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A report commissioned by Royal Mail has found that a staggering 90% of the companies in the UK are not making the best use of customer data at their disposal and in the process they are collectively losing out on millions of pounds in sales. A little more effort on part of the companies in understanding the customer data at their disposal could lead to a 30% increase in value.

According to Colin Bradshaw, head of data strategy at Royal Mail, hardly 15% of the companies that they investigated considered their data to be a valuable intangible asset. But not everyone is in favor of assigning a value to data; the question raised by some people is that how does one assign a value to something as intangible as data. Yet all agree that data needs to be managed better if it is to be of more use as information. Most companies err in using overly simple statistical methods to understand data and they do not use data for running most of their applications.

High street British optician Specsavers, which has around 600 stores in the UK, has decided to deploy Infor CRM Epiphany. The CRM system is expected to help the company achieve that most desired position - one where it has a single view of its customer. Specsavers intends to use the Sales and Service modules of Epiphany to boost its call center program with a view to support its client retention efforts. Epiphany is a big leap forward from the spreadsheets and notepads which the company used to process customer data. Infor CRM should enable the company call center to react more swiftly and with greater certainty to customer queries and resolve issues faster.

In-depth, real-time customer information will surely enhance the staff working experience as well as the customer experience fostering loyalty amongst both for Specsavers. Another advantage is that with accurate customer information, the company can personalize its services to suit the needs of the customer. 

 An interesting study conducted by the Ponemon Institute has thrown up some interesting facts regarding the (mis)use of customer data. Sixty two percent of the companies that were questioned by Ponemon stated that they used real and sensitive customer data while testing and developing applications.

Given the fact that the data includes employee, vendor and customer records, and credit card and Social Security numbers, it is a little surprising that companies are loath to use duplicate data for testing purposes.

The report states that 52% of companies outsource application testing and 49% of those questioned revealed that they shared sensitive data with the outsiders working on the application testing. Disregard for data security comes across quite strongly in these situations where companies are lazy enough not to use dummy data. This easy access to data can tempt unauthorized people to abuse the data.
Shockingly, well it is shocking you know, 50% of the companies interviewed had no idea if their data had been compromised during the testing and a third were not sure if their data had been lost or stolen during the testing and development phase.

FTS, a global provider of Business Control, Billing and CRM solutions for service providers has announced that Globalcom Inc. has selected the FTS Leap Billing RC for its billing platform.

FTS’ Leap Billing RC (LBRC) is an end-to-end billing and customer care solution designed for the American market. FTS’ LBRC platform is to be integrated with Globalcom’s existing back office platforms including order management.

Chicago, Ill.-based Globalcom is a provider of telecommunications services, offering a portfolio of VoIP solutions, broadband and IP Telephony integrated from a single provider.

iCongo Inc. closed out the week with the announcement that Lecavalier Auto Parts, reportedly Canada’s leading distributor of recycled auto parts and equipment, has selected the iCongo ICE3 suite of collaborative e-business systems. Lecavalier will be employing iCongo e-commerce to conduct customers’ order entry and order management processes online.

The applications being implemented by Lecavalier include iCongo’s ICE3 Business-to-Business Catalog and Online Order Entry System; the ICE3 Business-to-Consumer E-Commerce System; the ICE3 Customer Portal; and a suite of marketing and collaboration modules.

Lecavalier Auto Parts was founded in 1942 by Fernand Lecavalier and was acquired by Roger Fugère Sr. and his brothers in 1965. In 1982, Roger Fugère Jr. joined the business, followed a year and a half later by his brother Philippe. Lecavalier acquired the Centre de recyclage St. Jean in November 1999, and Ford Motor Company bought Lecavalier in November 2001. Lecavalier’s four facilities process approximately 15,000 vehicles a year to provide professionally cleaned and thoroughly tested parts to body shops, garages, dealerships, insurance companies, and individual consumers.

That sober note you hear sounding emanates from Accenture, that international management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. A recent study outsourced by the firm and undertaken by BPRI Group implied that, overall, tech firms are alienating customers with customer service that is average at best. Firms supplying such average or below-average service risk losing up to 73 percent to competitors.

The research was based on a survey of 1,200 technology consumers in North America, Europe and Asia, and interviews with executives at vice-president level and above at 35 global consumer technology companies, each with at least $1 billion in annual revenue between August and November 2006.

The survey of customers of consumer technology companies was fielded between January and March 2007 by the Lightspeed Consumer Panel and included consumers in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan.

Other statistics revealed an interesting perception gap between those on opposite sides of the buy-sell equation:

? 81 percent of customers surveyed who rated their service satisfaction as “below average” said they will purchase from a different supplier the next time.

? Although 75 percent of executives said their companies’ provide “above average” customer care, 58 percent of consumers rated their satisfaction with customer service as average or below average.

? When consumers rate their service satisfaction as merely “average,” the likelihood of their buying again from that same company falls by almost half from 51 percent to 27 percent.

? 48 percent of consumers surveyed said they share their negative customer-service experiences with friends and family.

? 42 percent of customers surveyed said they had to access customer-service channels multiple times to resolve their problems.

? 61 percent of consumers surveyed said they believe that technology has not improved customer service.

? And as for that 78 percent mentioned above, here it is: That 78 percent surveyed said the service they receive is “at or below” the level competitors offer.

Upon releasing the results, Brett Anderson, managing director for Customer Relationship Management in Accenture’s Communications and High Tech Practice, declared the numbers to be “a wake-up call that customer service should no longer be relegated to a mere instrument for extracting costs out of the business. Instead, this service should be a powerful and crucial investment target for accelerating full-throttle toward delivering high performance.”

For more information on Accenture’s “Customer Service” report, click here.

A pair of announcements came out of the Nielsen Company today. The company’s cross-discipline initiative known as NielsenConnect has released a suite of company-wide services.

Initial services in the offering will include NielsenCombine, a consumer insight service that integrates data sets such as that of a client’s database with Nielsen’s “National People Meter” data used in collecting information for television audience ratings; NielsenConnections, a tool used to evaluate consumer activity across media; NielsenHealth, specialized CRM for various healthcare industry segments; NielsenTrend, which provides analysis of dynamics between demographics, ethnographic trends and attitudinal shifts; NielsenLinx, designed for marketers, retailers, media and advertising agencies in organizing and managing data on brands, locations and media analysis; and Nielsen In-Store, a specialty product for marketing in retail outlets.

In a second announcement, the Nielsens came together with Experian Marketing Services in telling a strategic alliance to provide CPG businesses with a “new, holistic” consumer relationship marketing solution.

Announced at Nielsen’s annual Consumer 360 Conference, the joint solution seeks to assist marketers in more effectively targeting and establishing direct relationships with consumers at the household level.

“Household targeting has become the goal for savvy CPG marketers,” said Tim Kregor, U.S. president of Nielsen Homescan and Nielsen company service Spectra, and NielsenConnect chief executive office Jon Mandel also stated that “As a company, Nielsen knows more about consumer behavior than anyone else.”

The Nielsen Company, most famously known for its American television audience ratings, is a global information and media company with recognized brands in marketing information (ACNielsen), media information (Nielsen Media Research), business publications (Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, Adweek), trade shows and the newspaper sector (Scarborough Research). The privately held company employs more than 41,000 and is active in more than 100 countries, with headquarters in New York and Haarlem, the Netherlands.

Experian is a specialist in providing analytical and information services; clients include organizations from financial services, retail and catalog, telecommunications, utilities, media, insurance, automotive, leisure, e-commerce, manufacturing, property and government sectors. Experian Group Limited is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has corporate headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, with operational headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif., and Nottingham, UK. Experian employs more than 12,500 in 34 countries worldwide, supporting clients in more than 60 countries. Annual sales are in excess of $3.1 billion.

DST Systems, Inc. has unveiled its DST SalesConnect data management and CRM solution this week at the ICI General Membership Conference in Washington, D.C.

The SalesConnect solution features a central repository of firm, office and representative information that systematically matches trades coming into DST’s shareholder TA2000 record-keeping platform to the correct representative.

Down Under’s Australian IT website is reporting today that the country’s National Rugby League will go live this week with a new StayInFront customer relationship management system to be used in targeting a fan base of some three million.

Five of the league’s sixteen clubs – Wests Tigers, Gold Coast Titans, South Sydney Rabbitohs, Canberra Raiders and New Zealand Warriors – will be rolling out the solution this week, with the remaining eleven to follow within the next nine months.

The sales win represents a huge coup and a fat symbol of the diversity StayInFront CRM has been capable of lately. Two weeks ago, the firm announced it had reupped with a new three-year contract with Randox Laboratories Ltd, a privately owned diagnostic reagent and equipment manufacturer located in the UK.

Randox selected StayinFront CRM for Life Sciences, Analytics and Workflow – certainly not the same package employed by the rugby league – to “manage and facilitate consistent sales and marketing efforts and messaging across its entire sales and distribution network,” which incidentally spans 131 countries on six continents.

StayinFront, Inc. is a provider of enterprise-wide customer relationship management applications, decision support tools, data services, sample inventory management solutions, and eBusiness systems. Headquartered in Fairfield, N.J., StayinFront has offices in Illinois, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Ireland, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand.

Australian television mega-broadcaster Network TEN recently appointed the Sydney office of global loyalty marketing agency ICLP to assist in developing a customer relationship management strategy and to provide implementation support as part of its digital marketing plans.

The first stage of ICLP’s work for TEN involve the launch of the “Seriously Ten” website and specialty websites for “Australian Idol” and the Oz version of “Big Brother.” (Which, as of this writing, features some quite arresting clips from a program called “Search for the Next Doll.”)

Future plans call for ICLP to “support TEN’s customer identity management objectives by delivering high-end database marketing services including, analytics, segmentation, marcomms planning, and execution of digital communications to drive advertising revenue for TEN.”

Network TEN is one of Australia’s three national commercial television broadcasters, with stations in each of the country’s five mainland capital cities. The Network TEN programming catalog includes “Rove Live,” “Big Brother,” “Australian Idol,” Neighbours,” “Thank God You’re Here,” “House,” “The Simpsons,” “Medium,” “Supernatural,” and “Law & Order.”

Network TEN began broadcasting in Melbourne in 1964. Today, Network TEN is listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and employs approximately 1,000.