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So in this edition, we’ll be looking at how to create multi-channel happiness for your customers.
 Talking of delighting the customer, and with Wimbledon approaching, we’re re-launching our famous CVL Tennis online game on 6th June. We’ll be delivering champagne and strawberries to high scorers and those randomly selected each week right through until the Finals in July. So look out for the link on the CVL website.
The genuine NASA Space-Pens offered in our last Newsletter proved as popular as Crackerjack pencils (we’ve only got two left - e-mail me!). The pens were offered in exchange for tales of RFP hell, and the best tale described a near disaster, that leads to this piece of advice: "When you're going out to tender for the refit of a building, make sure that there are not two buildings in the same city with the same name - and that you specify the address. The reason why one of the responses comes in so cheap may be that they surveyed the wrong building."
 If you find some of the things we have to say interesting or they provoke some thoughts or ideas you’d like to explore with us then call me on 020 7907 0200 or e-mail: ray.fowler@cvluk.com. We’ll include any fall-out or follow-up in our next newsletter.
And in tribute to the worm experience of our bemused colleague in this edition we’re offering dinner for two at the splendid St Alban restaurant in London. Keep reading to the end of the Newsletter to see how tales of your multi-channel happiness can result in dinner for two. We guarantee there’ll be no unwanted protein, and you don’t have to eat salad!
All the best,
Ray Fowler
 Customer-facing businesses used to have a straightforward model; you either bought stuff in person face-to-face or ordered remotely for delivery to your home. Now there are an ever-increasing number of ways to buy stuff (online, over the phone, catalogue, from store, and even mobile), take delivery (from store, home delivery and digital download) and then send it all back again!
We are beginning to see multi-channel operations being applied with increasing sophistication to all sectors - telco, media, financial services - and you’ll need to get it right to survive (you need to get integrated, baby!) and really innovate to win. The latest thinking about multi-channel has far-reaching connotations for all industries, not just retail.
 So sooner or later, multi-channel is headed your way and you can blame the intensely competitive retail sector for doing a pretty good job of making everything available to everyone at any time. The consumer increasingly expects that sort of service from every company they deal with.
Now, even those companies who have evolved their operation to add channel after channel can get to the point where they have to sit down with a pencil and paper and ask themselves - is my whole organisation really structured in the right way to cope with customer expectations, prepare for new channels coming onstream, and still make a bit of profit? In short, are my company’s systems and processes fully integrated to cope with the complexity of it all?
That’s the challenge all businesses face in order to survive and thrive in today’s multi-channel environment. But as a company what do you do? Well, you’ve got to overcome your internal barriers and integrate (it’s that word again). You can break the key integration issues down into a series of key points:
- No matter who you are or what you do, look at everything - and I mean, everything - from your customer’s point of view, and strive for a single view.
- Build as much flexibility into your inventory as possible. Your product should jump through hoops to be available in-store in Aberdeen tonight, delivered to someone’s home in Penzance in the morning, or - if you’re a new media type - downloaded to any device in any format by the end of the next sentence.
- Develop a linked, hugely robust IT solution (you see, I said it wouldn’t be easy).
- Make all your information instantly available across the whole organisation.
- Give rewards to your team for growing sales across new and existing channels.
Finally, a sales pitch. If you recognise any issues here that you know your organisation needs to address, drop me a line at ray.fowler@cvluk.com. I could share some wisdom in return, or I could come over and do what we’ve just done for one of the UK’s largest retailers by giving you specific pointers on how to thrive in multi-channel through integration, all without obligation. We’ve recently been addressing similar challenges in retail, telco, media and financial service sectors - so wheel us in and we’ll be glad to do some deep thinking and make some bespoke recommendations for your business.
Ray wrote about how Multi-Channel Retailing (MCR) is evolving and is increasingly relevant to all sectors including the media industry. This goes way beyond media implementations of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - and incidentally, even if it didn’t, how many broadcasters or publishers have embraced even CRM?
We’re not just talking software solutions here, but the principles and practices around being customer focussed.
Publishers don’t have ‘customers’, they have ‘readers’ - right? And neither do broadcasters have ‘customers’, they have ‘audiences’ and radio and music just have ‘listeners’ - okay? WRONG! All media companies have ‘customers’, from advertising buyers to consumers.
So stop treating them as mass audiences, and start treating them as unique individuals:
- Newspaper and magazine publishers need an inventory of their advertising buyers, and should be analysing what they buy and when, and how and why they buy advertising. Could publishers promote custom-tailored deals, or packages, to individual buyers?
- Commercial broadcasters should take a leaf out of the book of BSkyB with regards to subscribers, and how to increase acquisitions (in terms of new audiences for television and online). How many terrestrial broadcasters have realised truly cross-platform management?
- Public Sector Broadcasting (PSB) is now moving from mass audiences to individual consumers - but what new systems, processes and staff or skillsets, support this?
- Music labels and music publishers now see a need to restructure, in an age of downloads and direct-to-consumer digital distribution - need we say “EMI”?
Retailing has led the way for so long, going direct-to-market and maximising value. How can media now in a digital age of downloads not apply this? It can’t afford not to!
Elena writes below about how CVL is conducting a study of current practices out there, to see which retailers have or are implementing what best practices to see how we can learn from it - in terms of beating the competition, as well as how to delight their customers, within retail.
How ‘singular’ is your view of ‘customers’? Here’s a guide to test your thinking. Have you:
- Tested your organisation or operations against specific transactions? Like how easy or enjoyable is it for an end-user (or customer) to subscribe to something like a new service? You might find the experience from their perspective is poor - why?
- Analysed what customer data needs to pass between which departments, and when by? So for example, to see how fast and efficient it is to fulfil a customer request or a complaint? You may find that there are gaps or the times are slow - why?
- Compared to see if your measures of performance are conflicting, or if dashboard monitors are comprehensive? Do your people (not just your processes) have KPIs to incentivise co-operation and encourage collaboration (across divisions or departments) and focus on the customer at all times regardless?
If you haven’t tried these scenarios through real-life simulations, you should do - right now. Yes, of course we’d love to help you. And we’ve got the expertise to quickly show you how. But the real focus here, for media companies, is not us - but you - do you agree with this?
If not, I’d like to hear your reasons why not. Do drop me a line at salman.momen@cvluk.com if this is important to you.
 Ray and Salman have discussed how retail and media organisations need to organise themselves to excel at multi-channel delivery, and how the retail industry strives to lead the field in producing the happiest customers.
All businesses are essentially running two races, one with their customers, and another with their competitors.
At this stage of the game we thought it would be interesting to gauge how the UK's top retailers are actually performing and
we're conducting a study
to look at their ability to delight customers, whilst comparing their performance against one another.
Please e-mail me at elena.farragher@cvluk.com if you'd like more details.
Whatever your industry and offering to your customer base there are many lessons that can be learnt from commissioning this type of survey on a regular basis. Don't rely purely on feedback from consumers (most won't actively complain if they've had a bad experience); get into the mindset of your most difficult, demanding customer to experience the multi-channel effectiveness of your business.
- Try to break your website. Change orders halfway through, amend your credit card details a hundred times, put in dodgy postcode details.
- Be a nuisance caller. Ask whether a particular product can be ordered right now, if not, where it is available - which stores, online?
- Send everything back. Do it in as many ways as you can - post it, drop it to store; push it through the letterbox of your head office! If it’s a digital product, try and e-mail it back for a refund.
- Order out of stock goods. Demand to know why they are not available, when they’ll arrive, how they’ll let you know they’re despatched. Order out of stock through all the different channels and see what arrives first!
- Claim that you never received your goods. Ask for compensation.
Finally be ruthlessly competitive. Monitor the activity of your competitors; make sure that you’re benchmarking your multi-channel approach with the best. Watch out for innovative developments, and exploit others’ channel weaknesses.
Remember to e-mail ray.fowler@cvluk.com if you have experienced multi-channel happiness from a business and would like to share your story with us. We’ll feature the best and most unusual anecdotes in our next Newsletter - and there’s dinner for two at the St Alban restaurant in London for the best one.
We'll be publishing our newsletter again next quarter. If you know anyone who would like to be on the receiving end of our genius, please ask them to forward their e-mail address to newsletter@cvluk.com.
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