Customer Relationship Marketing | Joy of Direct Marketing

Last week, with Certificates of Deposit (CD) due for renewal, I called the bank to find out the new interest rate. A woman answered, dithered a bit and then said that nobody could talk to me. They’d call back.

They didn’t.

I called again the next day. Same thing. The bank is a Florida operation with 20 branches, so I tried calling another branch that is near my office, but apparently you can’t do that.

Hmmm. I called my original branch, tapping my feet, and told whoever answered that I’d be in to close the CDs the next day. He said “okay”.

So, I drove over there and, after an hour of waiting to get approvals, I left with my cashier’s checks. The employees didn’t even pretend to try to keep me as a customer.

Later many people tweeted and emailed me that the reason the bank didn’t care about renewing my CD’s is that they really make no money on them and that they’re more interested in investment accounts or loans.

That may be the case, but aren’t I a prospect for all of those programs also? Yes, I am. Plus, I’m on my Condo Board and we have a huge sum of money in that particular branch. They made me upset because they didn’t recognize our long-term relationship. And, as a business owner, I would be so upset if any of our clients were ever treated poorly like I was.

Flash forward a day

I was talking to my right-out-of-college assistant, Rachel, about saving money and investing wisely. One thing led to another, and I called to make an appointment for her with Jack Howell at a nearby branch of Scottrade.

He was happy to meet her and spent a lot of time explaining how to trade online. He answered her questions and was so informative that I, who’ve had a Scottrade account for years, learned a few things – like how to find dividend bearing stocks on Scottrade’s website. Here’s a photo of Jack with Rachel.

Since then, I’ve told all kinds of people about how great Scottrade is, even Tweeting the company’s praises to my 17,700 followers. My cousin, Fran up in Philadelphia, just called to tell me she signed up for a Scottrade account. Maybe others did, too.

I can’t understand the bank’s cavalier approach to customer service. They weren’t always like that. My Mom and Dad banked there for years and loved it. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a large international bank group bought them a while back and now their marketing focus has changed.

Maybe they just wanted me to leave. It’s possible. But, why? What are your thoughts?

In a 2002 article for Enterprise APPS Today, Arthur O’Connor, head of the CRM Integration Practice at Reuters Consulting, wrote:

The CRM fad is now officially dead. May it rest in peace. Contrary to the writings of some industry pundits, the demise of CRM is not greatly exaggerated. It’s real. The party’s over. The fat lady sang. It’s DOA.

Companies have become disillusioned; projects have been stalled; budgets have been cut; and enterprise rollouts of CRM pilot projects have either been postponed or cancelled. As a result, many software vendors, technology integrators, and consulting firms are limping along, and some don’t look like they’ll be around for much longer.

Apparently the main reason CRM crashed is that it was expensive and time consuming to keep track of all those pesky customers. And why bother when the Internet would be a limitless source of new customers forever? It sounded, at the time, like a new kind of thinking for a brave new world.

It was really the same old thinking so many marketing executives had spouted over the years: “Customer Acquisition!”

Increasing revenue from existing customers (and bringing back lapsed ones) is not the glamour end of the business. Acquisition is where the excitement always lives. It has always been so and every client has a budget for it, and little left for retention.

Companies that spend little or no time coddling best customers, getting referrals from and generating word of mouth from all customers and selling other things to them all are ignoring a huge potential source of revenue.

Charities don’t do that.

They’re great at working their donor files. Even if you’re as tight as Scrooge McDuck, try sending money to a half dozen or so charities like Smile Train or Boys Town and watch what happens. It’ll be a very inexpensive lesson in CRM, not to mention brilliant direct mail creative. It’ll look weird at first what with fonts and layouts making everything easy to read and the copy in a perfect one-to-one personal mode.

You’ll get special updates on all the good your money is doing. You’ll see the kids you’re helping. You’ll be asked for more money but you will also feel like a valued and important member of a wonderful group. It will never occur to you that you’re being CRMed.

And, you’ll give money again.

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