The TCI Group Principal Beth Fischer, PRC, and Misaki Marketing Communications Principal Elise Schadauer were inspired to find out how well Minnesota businesses are doing at customer retention after seeing results from a recent Chief Marketing Officer Council study. The impetus to developing the set of customer retention quizzes sponsored by the American Marketing Association Minnesota Chapter is below.

Profitable Customer Relationships—What are You Doing Right When It Comes to Retention?
As the U.S. marketplace becomes increasingly customer-centric, customer information has a more profound impact on the growth and profitability of a business. We believe businesses can apply a Deliberate Speed Process^SM to the business-customer relationship to promote a win-win situation in which the business grows and the needs of the customer are met.  We have been following recent studies that shed insight on the customer relationship process.

In May 2008 the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council released the results from a study on customer retention called “Business Gain From How You Retain.” Based on the responses from 450 marketing executives worldwide representing 19 leading international brands, this study revealed that only 7.7 percent of marketers say they have excellent or good knowledge of the customer when it comes to demographic, behavioral, psychographic and transactional data. Fifty-two (52) percent say they have poor, little or no knowledge of customers. Further, to improve customer retention 65 percent of those surveyed indicated they are improving customer communications, 54 percent are enhancing the customer experience, and 51 percent are addressing complaints and problems.

Obviously, there are companies from this study who are blindly implementing initiatives to retain customers. The May 5, 2008 issue of B-to-B addressed the study in an article by Kate Maddox. According to the executive director of the CMO Council, Donovan Neale-May, companies are “spending money on demand-generation programs but they are not taking their existing customer data and leveraging it.”

Upon seeing the staggering CMO Council study results, we were in disbelief that marketing professionals representing the top companies in the world lacked such valuable customer information. Our experience shows that businesses, no matter their size, are quick to “say” they know their customers.  But if only 8 percent of the top CMOs truly have the knowledge to sustain profitable relationships with their customers, how well are other businesses doing? We felt compelled to find out. Guided by the CMO Council results we began developing questions to measure what businesses are doing right when it comes to customer retention. As Minnesota business owners ourselves, we decided to start in Minnesota first.

We developed two quizzes: one for the marketing professional who is responsible for marketing communications and/or sales within a company and one for small business owner and/or independent consultant. The Quiz is designed to measure overall results and to respond to each participant’s individual situation and contains a series of questions related to the pillars of customer retention: 1) customer churn, 2) customer information, 3) competition, and 4) retaining customers.   

Both of us are very pleased to be partnering with the AMA Minnesota Chapter on this project. If you have questions about the quiz, your results, or Deliberate Speed Process^SM please contact us via email at elise@deliberatespeedmarketing.com. Thank you.