Real-time analytics is, at its most basic, being able to present the right offer at the right time. And it’s the ultimate competitive differentiator in today’s age of highly valued customer experiences. Marketers need to understand why this capability is so important to customers, and how to implement this kind
The concept of real-time customer experiences has been around for a while. However, the ability to deliver real-time customer experiences had been limited until recently. Real-time experiences are progressively and significantly influencing today’s customer journeys. Tomorrow, successful customer journeys will not happen at all without them. What is the meaning
Real-time customer experiences are an elusive yet coveted goal for all organizations. As competition intensifies in every single industry, organizations want to ensure they are providing customers with unforgettable results. Satisfactory is no longer enough. Not if you want your customers to come back. Forrester Principal Analyst Rusty Warner’s research
Editor's note: Tiffany Carpenter, Head of Customer Intelligence, SAS UK & Ireland sizes up the benefits of the two technologies and offers up a solution to businesses wanting the best of both. With constant pressure on profit margins, organisations need to strike a balance between improving cost efficiencies and customer
Your business is in a battle to retain and increase your share of wallet from a happy customer base. Winning takes analytics-driven real-time customer experiences. If you’re unconvinced of the value that using analytics brings to the customer experience, a recent Forbes Insight survey of nearly 360 executives makes a
Stories from the edge of innovation How would you feel if I said it’s possible to generate a significant increase in sales during a six-week period, using advanced analytics? This was achieved by a leading European broadcaster – and there’s no reason why you can’t transform your business success similarly.
Think big, start small, take the analytics-driven approach You want to be a customer-first organisation, but are the benefits worth it? Forrester reports that customer experience leaders enjoy 17 percent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) as opposed to laggards at 3 percent.[1] Organisations of all shapes and sizes are embarking on
For many industries, products and features are no longer the most crucial differentiators in the minds of customers. Take mobile telecommunications, for example. The recent market shift from virtually no unlimited data plans to announcements of unlimited data offerings by every major US wireless carrier in a short span of
If there’s one thing today’s organisations can agree on, it’s that the world has changed. In the words of Tony Mooney, former managing director of insight and decision science at Sky, speaking at the recent SAS Data & Customer Experience Forum, “we are now living in a world that is volatile,
Tiffany Carpenter, head of customer intelligence at SAS UK & Ireland, looks at the benefits of real-time customer experience and offers a preview into how analytics is powering hyper-personalised customer journeys In recent years, customer experience has become an important battleground for brands. Yet, in a hyper-connected, hyper-competitive environment where
I think it's probably the most frequently asked question among teenagers who come to our house: "How much data have you got left this month?" And then, if the status of their data limit requires it, they immediately ask for my wi-fi password. They carry on unperturbed watching YouTube videos
I wanted to share some thoughts about when real-time decisioning is actually necessary. I guess the reason for wanting to do this is to balance the view that everything can be actioned by trigger event campaigns executed in real time. So have a look at the graph below – with
All of us we have had the unfortunate experience of going to a store and encountering a salesperson who is unable to give us expert advice about a product or service. It’s not because salesperson is unwilling to help us, but rather because he or she does not know in
Using real-time analytics, your conversations with customers can be more relevant and have a more personal touch. When you’re engaged in conversation, you may not be aware of it, but your brain is taking in and using massive amounts of information. First, you recall previous conversations and everything you already
Rand Merchant Bank (RMB) ran an advert a few years ago, showing identical twins born 10 minutes apart. The advert shows how this small difference had a great bearing on their lives, with two very different personalities developing, and, of course, both eventually finding contrasting but equally fulfilling careers at the bank. I
As we all know, marketing today is moving fast (although everyone was saying that in 2005, and will be in 2025!) Currently, one of the “accelerators” is that of digital marketing, with real time event driven campaigns being one of the latest mantras. For example when a customer puts something
Two topics seem to be top of mind this year…the long awaited “Star Wars, The Force Awakens” and the “Internet of Things.” Being a fan of both, I think there are some striking parallels to think about. So here is a mashup of Star Wars references to describe the Internet
In the movie Minority Report, while the leading actor walks through the mall and experiences personalized greetings all around him, there is a clear flash of how the future of marketing may look: a customer journey marked by relevant and personalized experiences. Getting back to the reality of today, the typical
In my ongoing quest to connect people's business problems with sources of technology solutions, my work on the TechnologyAdvice Expert Interview Series puts me in contact with some interesting people behind those solutions. Recently, I caught up with John Balla from SAS and got his insights on how marketing automation relates to mobile customers.
Financial goals are best reached with long-term planning - be it savings plans, carefully arranged financing, or any and all forms of insurance coverage. When it's part of a plan and all goes well, the results intended are the ones achieved. All very good, right? But even the best laid plans at
Retailers are always trying to get closer to customers. But it’s not just about improving service to those customers – it’s about understand more about what products they are demanding so as to make better forecasting decisions around, for example, how much of a particular item is needed in stock.
Decades of Westernized television and cinema have featured fantastic imagined car technologies, including many that now actually exist. Think of the autonomous car from Knight Rider and today’s self-parking capabilities. Or the ongoing James Bond series with tracking devices that resemble the well-established GPS systems in our cars, phones and
When we talk about digital customer services, it’s all about creating online self-service capabilities for our customers. This is great for everyone! We’ve made it easy for the customer to get what they need; it’s cheaper and faster for organizations to deliver the service to the customer. Need a copy
Few of us can have missed the scenes of frantic shoppers searching for that ultimate bargain on Black Friday. This is something fairly new in the UK, having originated in the United States to refer to the Friday following Thanksgiving Day. Legend has it that ‘black’ refers to the first day of the
It seems like every retailer nowadays has a loyalty program. From the local coffee house to “big box” national retailers to almost any online merchant, everyone has a loyalty program. But do people really want them? It turns out the answer is yes – a resounding yes. But are those programs
Back in 2007, the NY Times published an article about “The Google Way.” The premise behind the Google Way is to give engineers 20% of their time to spend on new company related ideas and projects that interest them. For a while this became the management strategy du jour as
"Give the lady what she wants" and "The customer is always right" are quotes attributed to the venerable Chicago retailing pioneer Marshall Field. That customer-centered approach to doing business was leading-edge at the close of the 19th century and soon became a competitive advantage for Mr. Field's namesake department store empire.
Déjà vu. For me, this term immediately conjures images of Bill Murray waking up in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania on Groundhog Day – repeatedly. In French, déjà vu means “already seen” and while I usually fall solidly into the realm of skeptic in matters like these, I have to admit feeling a
You may notice that marketing is changing. Fewer credit card offers are hitting your mailbox. Fewer coupons for irrelevant products and services. There is a reason for the change. Organizations are beginning to understand that mass marketing alienates customers. Spray and pray doesn't work - so organizations aren't spending their
Have you ever worked on a jigsaw puzzle? You have hundreds of pieces to painstakingly put together and somehow at the end it all fits to make a beautiful picture. Some people love the challenge and others could think of few things more painful. Either way, a jigsaw puzzle is
