Of all the things that can motivate customers to return to your business—the convenience, the special services, the excellence of your offering, the points you offer—the single largest factor in driving customer loyalty may be the quality of your company’s employees. This factor is one of the most underleveraged, maybe because it’s also one of the most difficult to manage.

Most companies profess that employees are their most important asset. But we all know that there’s often a disconnect between what executives say and how front lines deliver.

The reality is that while the financial benefits of not investing in employees—or even in eliminating positions—are immediate and easy to measure as a controllable expense, the long-term upside of supporting a strong employee workforce is harder to measure. For example, the front-line employee, not the inventory-management software, notices if products are in the wrong place or a shelf is a mess. The contributions of employees who pay attention to these kinds of details have a huge ripple effect in an operation.

The practice of training and empowering employees delivers three important benefits: It provides a better customer experience. It furthers employee loyalty. And both of those benefits, in turn, further build customer loyalty.

To achieve such results, companies must ensure that employees have the attitude, the tools and the authority to do whatever it takes to meet customers’ needs at key touch points. Here are four suggestions:

Equip and enable the team.

Employees must have access to real-time customer information, including actionable data. They must also have the authority to act on that information—either by making offers, resolving problems, or delivering surprise-and-delight rewards. At India’s Jet Airways, employees are trained to recognize Elite tier members, and have the authority to make offers and resolve issues. Employees are armed with pocket-sized booklets that offer quick references for best practices for customer issues, as well as details on the frequent-flyer program. This resource enables a front-line associate to quickly and easily answer detailed questions about earning points, for example.

Establish listening posts.

Solicit feedback from both employees and customers. For example, Bluegrass Hospitality Group (BHG) operates six restaurant brands in Kentucky and Tennessee. Management checks in with customers by managers visiting every guest’s table each night, receptionists calling guests the day after dinner, and employing an opt-in Mystery/Secret Shopper program for members of its loyalty program. Results: Guests have fewer complaints, satisfaction numbers are higher for all restaurants—and membership in BHG Rewards is up, as is customer engagement with emails—including an unsubscribe rate of less than 1%.

Reward for impact.

Productivity incentives are smart, but you can also provide perks simply to reinforce that employees are appreciated. SAS Institute, a business analytics solutions provider in Cary, North Carolina, provides a gold standard set of benefits, including on-site daycare, on-site medical care, and even a swimming pool. “We can either pay to recruit and train and retrain, or we can keep people here by giving them these benefits so they won’t leave,” says Dennis Massengill, the company’s Executive Director of Worldwide Marketing operations.

Establish alignment.

In a Forrester survey of customer experience leaders from large North American firms, 76% said that employees don’t share a consistent, vivid image of target customers, while 40% said their firms don’t have a clearly defined set of target customers. It’s one thing for executives to be aligned on a customer focus, but that vision must be shared with front-line associates.

Research by Gallup shows that engaged employees are more productive, more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. Gallup found that in world-class organizations, the ratio of engaged to actively disengaged employees is about 10:1; in average organizations, it’s less than 2:1. At SAS, where the average employee tenure is ten-plus years, Dennis Massengill sees first-hand the advantage of engaged employees: Managers “learned early on that employee longevity is directly relational to customer longevity.”

A final thought to keep in mind: Organizational alignment is ultimately the key enabler of this kind of strategy. Building that level of alignment can be challenging, but it’s a worthy goal. Every company can make the connection between how appreciated their employees are and how much their customers will want to come back.

This guest post came courtesy of Dennis Armbruster, Managing Partner at LoyaltyOne Consulting.

Re-shaping loyalty schemes for a mobile first world. At Sponge they believe that mobile is at the heart of any successful loyalty initiative.

Download the full presentation here >

Last year at Loyalty World Alex Meisl, Chairman of Sponge and the Mobile Marketing Association gave insight into-

• The paradox of mobile- How users research products.
• The mobile conundrum- How mobile effects loyalty.
• How loyalty schemes can work harder- Loyalty stats and expectations.
• Contact strategies- Thinking mobile first.

Download the full presentation here >

If you found this blog post interesting, why not join us at Loyalty World 2013 in September? For more details about the event click here to download the brochure >

Email marketing está no mercado praticamente o mesmo tempo de existência da internet . Mas é uma ferramenta que vem se aprimorando a longo dos anos, especialmente com a entrada das redes sociais nas nossas vidas. Os profissionais de e-mail marketing aprenderam a criar mensagens que realizam um propósito de marketing sem parecer marketing em tudo, isso não só ajuda a valorização da marca, mas beneficia o negócio como um todo.

Apesar dos vários benefícios que o e-mail marketing pode dar à empresa em muitas vezes até mesmo em curto prazo, há algumas empresas que ainda pensam que esta não é uma estratégia eficiente e a enxergam como uma despesa desnecessária. As empresas que não vêem retorno na sua campanha de e-mail marketing certamente estão a frente de duas barreiras: Não possuem um software adequado para o envio de e-mail marketing, o e-mail está sendo enviado para um público distinto do seu público-alvo, o que gera o famoso SPAM.

O fato é , envio de email marketing é uma ação importante e funciona perfeitamente bem, se você ainda tem alguma dúvida, veja aqui 10 razões porque o email marketing ainda funciona.

Airline Loyalty Programmes: how to best serve your customer? Do you want to know the answer to this question? Download the presentation by Alan Lias, Head of Loyalty and Ancillary Revenue Development, Virgin Atlantic and find out how.

Click here to download the full presentation >

Alan was a speaker at Loyalty World last year and in his presentation he gave an insight on:

• How Virgin Atlantic Scores Highly on Emotional Loyalty
• Whether running your loyalty business as a profit centre best serves your customers
• Why Virgin Atlantic loves loyalty marketing
• Making Loyalty a (virtual) Profit Centre

Click here to download the full presentation >

If you found this blog post interesting, why not join us at Loyalty World 2013 in September? For more details about the event click here to download the brochure >

Case Study of Wrong is a light-hearted look at a particular company or brand that has done something to alienate customers or damage its reputation. Ultimately: don’t do what they’ve done!

Yesterday in a big tent in Redmond, the world said hello to the next-generation of Microsoft’s home console system as it revealed its newest Xbox console: the perplexingly named Xbox One.

Okay, it’s name isn’t that perplexing when you realise that Microsoft want it to be an all-in-one media system that lets you watch TV on your TV via your Xbox One – because that’s what we all really want to do right?

Featuring an always-on new version of the Kinect motion tracking sensor, a redesigned controller  and, as a piece of hardware, looking worryingly clunky and large – a bit like a mid ‘00s hi-fi – the Xbox One is sure to be a welcome piece of kit for any home.

As a console, Microsoft haven’t done anything too shocking to warrant them being placed in our Case Study of Wrong series. However, the press release itself was a marketing disaster that focused not only on the wrong areas, but also raised questions that people shouldn’t have been asking.

Unlike Sony’s rather stellar performance with the PlayStation 4 event where they informed viewers about the ins and outs of the system’s software and hardware, leaving nearly no stone untouched and answering fans questions simply after the event had aired. Microsoft found themselves in a spiralling storm of crossed wires and mixed messages that just smacked of an unprepared marketing strategy and team.

People walked away from Sony’s event wondering what the PS4 would look like.

People walked away from Microsoft’s event with a plethora of questions surrounding online connectivity, useability, Kinect, games and if it’ll allow you to play pre-owned titles.

Microsoft’s response was hardly conclusive.

SEE ALSO: The Most Popular Man In Space – Chris Hadfield and Getting Social Media Right

News outlets were being told different things by Microsoft’s marketing people and executives.

One site would report that it blocked previously owned games, or had to be always connected to the internet to be played. At the same time another site would be told the complete opposite by a Microsoft representative.

It just smacked of poor marketing strategy and a confused and divided workforce who really didn’t know what they were talking about. It was almost as if Microsoft had rushed ahead with the reveal – which is surprising as they were prepared to reveal everything nearly a year ago but decided not to.

Once the dust had settled it was still unclear as Microsoft’s community man Larry Hryb failed to clarify exactly what Microsoft’s measures meant.

Even the presentation was a mess as the focus was on completely the wrong area – as this 1.5 minute video nicely sums up.

While Sony’s event brought viewers gameplay with people onstage actually playing PS4 titles, as well as demonstrations of the sharing and video recording features – with a post put directly onto Facebook as it was uploaded from a PS4 – Microsoft’s didn’t.

It was almost as if they weren’t aware of who would be tuning into the event.

It’s a given that those interested enough in Xbox One to tune in and watch the stream live will be interested in video games and Microsoft. They wouldn’t be your average consumer. Therefore, any sensible marketer would understand that it’s all about making sure you connect with these people, as they’re also more than likely to be lining up on day one to purchase the console.

Instead MS presented a showcase that focused on completely the wrong areas, looking at television and sports before moving back to television again and wrapping up with “gameplay” footage of the new Call of Duty: Ghosts.

It was a show of pure confusion, it looked as if they were only interested in big blockbusters and marketing speak. It was an event full of supposed gameplay footage – despite nobody playing a game nor any actual game footage being shown. After showing the world the console they whisked everyone away to look at what it could do down the line, rather than what it currently does do.

Buzzwords just don’t work at these events. Indeed, buzzwords fall flat on their face once they leave the boardroom. If the press don’t give a damn about what they all mean, then why would the general public?

This entire event just showed that not only do Microsoft need to better understand their audience at events, but the world of marketing needs to be taken by the shoulders and shaken until they realise the terms they use just don’t make sense.

Microsoft can certainly redeem themselves at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (known as E3) where the year’s biggest video game releases are announced and showcased. However that seems unlikely with MS’s new focus on the TV and their admission of dropping out of the high-end graphics race.

If anything, Microsoft’s event has meant that Sony really don’t have to try hard to win over video game fans across the globe.

The truest sign of how spectacularly Microsoft failed can be found in the fact that, during the presentation, Sony’s share prices began to rise by 9 per cent.

SEE ALSO: Case Study of Wrong: Abercrombie & Fitch

At this year’s Loyalty World Europe, part of Europe’s Customer Festival, you’ll be able to find the right marketing strategies to help you convey your product properly to customers – thus avoiding such debacles as this. You can find out more here.

Brand value is crucial to any company wishing to capture consumer interest, it’s also key to understanding where to go next in terms of region or marketing campaigns.

While we already know the top 50 most valuable brands in Britain, a list of the top ten most valuable brands has been released by Millward Brown Optimor as part of their BrandZ list.

It’s decided by an equilibrium of both local and global strength, diversification into new areas of business and its worth as either an everyday or premium brand.

SEE ALSO: Top 20 Most Social Brands In The World

“What we see with the most popular or powerful brands is that brand lasts a lot longer, is more robust and doesn’t tend to slip as much, whereas the finances go up and down,” says global BrandZ director Peter Walshe.

“Even though there was a nasty recession and even strong brands were losing share price value at that point, these brands didn’t lose as much and recovered a lot quicker. Brands are worth investing in, they’re worth looking after because they give you a much better return.”

So, who made the top of the list then?

Unsurprisingly, Apple still remain on top with a brand value of $185,071 million. Google comes next around $70,000 m less with a brand value of $113,669 million and IBM following close behind with $112,536 million.

Here’s the top 10, however BrandZ have compiled the top 100 list for you to read (PDF).

Translated literally as the “voice” of the “marketplace,” Bazaarvoice believe customers want to share experiences and opinions, and learn from likeminded people when they decide to make a purchase.

This, in turn, means that companies will slowly know what their customers want and start delivering it far more effectively.

Bazaarvoice brings the voice of the customer right into the centre of business strategy – which is something they’ve been doing for nearly 2,000 clients around the world as they transform their business performance.

Their clients range from over half of the Internet Retailer 500 list of the worlds largest retailers, over 20 per cent of the Fortune 500 and over one third of the Fortune 100 brands.

It’s clear that they know what they’re talking about.

They’ve been crucial in helping companies create social communities on their brand websites and Facebook pages to promote customer interactivity. Their software allows these conversations to be carried across a whole host of digital channels and made accessible at multiple points of purchase.

Word of mouth can now be turned into actionable insights that improve marketing, sales, customer service and product development – allowing true insight and interactivity with your brand’s customers.

What’s more, Bazaarvoice are at this year’s Europe’s Customer Festival helping you understand customer loyalty and the world of omni-channel and big data.

Customer retention is key to a powerful business.

Did you know that 68 per cent of customers leave your business because they feel that your company just doesn’t care about them?

Were you aware that 68 per cent of people leave due to poor customer service?

Well, this handy infographic from Kapow gives you all the negative information you can handle around ensuring that you keep your customers happy and your customer retention numbers high.

SEE ALSO: Why Customer Service is Integral to Retaining Customers

At this year’s Europe’s Customer Festival you can find out from key minds in the loyalty industry on just how you can improve customer retention numbers and secure that crucial percentage of loyal customers.

(Click for a larger version)

Yesterday it was announced that aging search engine giant Yahoo had bought the hipster-happy blogging service Tumblr for a cool $1.1 billion in a bid to snap up the younger demographic and push their advertising in new, bold ways.

Was this the right move for Yahoo? Undeniably.

Was this the right move for Tumblr? Initial impressions suggest not.

The social media uproar around Yahoo’s purchase was undeniably strong. A GIF of the famous scene from The Little Mermaid where Ariel signs her life away to Ursula – except replaced with Tumblr CEO David Karp and Yahoo respectively – has been doing the rounds on the blogging network rather furiously.

Twitter went hectic with users sharing their opinions, most of them wondering how Yahoo plans to tackle the thorny issue of the numerous porn blogs that clock up Tumblr’s 101 million active blogs.

Many Tumblrites felt betrayed and abused by David Karp’s decision too, potentially leading them to abandon the service.

WordPress CEO Matt Mullenweg claims that on Sunday night their service saw an unusually high number of imported posts from Tumblr – presumably presupposing Yahoo’s acquisition.

Mullenweg states on his blog that in one hour on Sunday WordPress recieved 72,000 imports – a huge peak compared to the usual 400 to 600 posts the service receives.

As you can imagine, Karp wanted to limit the damage to the blogging service by ensuring fans that the ethos behind Tumblr won’t be changing just because it’s under Yahoo.

Instead it’ll be changing in ways that enhance the experience and really project the blogging service into the future.

“The conversation started on the ad side, but then the flip switched for Marissa and she said, ‘We are going to do something big here,’” Karp said to Mashable. “We wanted to empower advertisers to make great ads and it evolved. I didn’t say ‘no,’ but I had so much to think about.

“She walked me through her vision and I’ve always been open-minded about how we work — whether it’s being public, private or a subsidiary.

“She showed me a vision of Tumblr for the future, which is so precious to me, and I knew it could be big.”

The plans for adverts aren’t going to be overly invasive though, with the implementation of “Native Advertising” to allow businesses to push adverts onto the service in what looks like a standard Tumblr post that users can interact with normally. Think of Facebook’s ‘Suggested Posts’ that crop up now and again in your news feed – especially on mobile.

Is this a step in the right direction?

Possibly. But it’s hard to see many fans of Tumblr warming to it at first. Truth be told, many people jumped to social media and internet channels to get away from the pervasive nature of advertising. For those this is just another reason to move away from a service they previously loved.

Was it the wrong move for Tumblr?

Not at all. Now they have a way to monetise the system perfectly while also letting users carry on interacting with their community and sharing their findings as they like. They’ve also opened the door perfectly for new users and Yahoo have found a way to capture the youth aspect they want. It’ll also be interesting to see if Yahoo integrate the new-look Flickr into Tumblr’s portfolio.

Do you think the uproar around Tumblr’s acquisition is just?

Do you think that Tumblr’s brand image has been damaged in the wake of this news?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.

At this year’s Europe’s Customer Festival you can find out everythign you’ll need to know about understanding social media and how you can harness it as a tool to interact with customers and thus reduce the negative customer feedback that spills out onto the Internet.

Loyalty is a major focus for almost every business with customers. The need to reach customers and please them through almost every available portal that they could be using is crucial to gaining their loyalty and ensuring repeat business.

These 10 individuals all know how to make a loyalty solution work for a business, which is why they’ve made our list of the 10 key minds involved in customer loyalty.

Brad Bennett

With more than 20 years of experience in CRM, customer service and customer experience, Bennett is an advocate of social media as a driving force for shaping customer experience.

Twitter Followers: 42,412

Klout: 57

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

Jim Connolly

Having worked in marketing for 26 years, having founded his own successful marketing business in 1995, Connolly specialises in helping small business owners make massive sales, boost profits and grow their business. He runs the 2nd most influential blog across social media, SEO, design, start-ups and technology.

Twitter Followers: 7,590

Klout: 69

LinkedIn Connections: N/A

Clive Humby

Founder of DunnHumby and now head of H&D Ventures, Humby is one of the most experienced people in the loyalty, marketing and omni-channel sector. His work has helped major brands engage more meaningfully with their customers.

Twitter Followers: N/A

Klout: N/A

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

Terry Hunt

Having been the founder of Evans Hunt Scott in 1986, as well as going on to become Marketing Direct’s top of DM Power 100, Hunt has a wealth of experience under his belt in advising and informing businesses on their loyalty marketing strategies. He’s also been appointed as the president of the Institute of Direct Marketing, and joined the Advisory Board of Aimia too.

Twitter Followers: N/A

Klout: N/A

LinkedIn Connections: 474

David Johnston

Having worked in various roles at both PepsiCo and Bass, Johnston’s biggest contribution to loyalty has undoubtedly been as President and CEO EMEA at Aimia. Now, in his new role as Group Chief Operating Officer at Aimia he’s expertly positioned to help businesses utilise the power of brand in capturing customer loyalty.

Twitter Followers: N/A

Klout: N/A

LinkedIn Connections: 433

Dean Van Leeuwen

Co-founder of TomorrowToday International, an organisation that inspires leaders to think about people and the industry differently, Van Leeuwen taps into his 20+ years of experience in marketing, innovations and strategy to help companies shape powerful loyalty ideas.

Twitter Followers: 2,467

Klout: 50

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

Jan-Pieter Lips

A key player and influencer in the loyalty and omni-channel space, Lips is the Regional President of Aimia and has helped shape the UK’s biggest loyalty programme, Nectar, into what it is today. Lips’ influence and knowledge of attaining and retaining customer loyalty through an omni-channel approach means he’s got plenty of tricks and tips to share.

Twitter Followers: N/A

Klout: N/A

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

Sir Keith Mills

Deputy chairman of LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games), Mills also invented the incredibly lucrative Air Miles scheme and the massively popular Nectar Card.

Twitter: N/A

Klout: N/A

LinkedIn Connections: N/A

Bryan Pearson

Author of The loyalty Leap: Turing Customer Information into Customer Intimacy, LoyaltyOne CEO and prolific blogger and guest contributor to Total Customer, Pearson is undeniably knowledgeable and influential in the loyalty, big data and omni-channel space. His thoughts on how to reach and engage customers have helped shape many businesses to date.

Twitter Followers: 1,375

Klout: 46

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

Michael Seifert

As CEO and owner of Sitecore, a global software company committed to developing products to solve real world problems through CRM and omni-channel solutions, Seifert knows his way around the omni-channel web. The knowledge he can pass onto others is incredibly valuable.

Twitter Followers: N/A

Klout: 43

LinkedIn Connections: 500+

To help understand exactly what those in the industry think omni-channel is and how it can be used to help brand loyalty, as there is certainly much confusion, CloudTags put together a rather handy – and amusing – video to answer the question.

We’re also holding a wonderful secret meet up in May that brings together all the key players involved in the omni-channel space. Places are strictly limited, but you can avoid disappointment by signing up for it now.

A recent survey by Forrester (via Fortune) shows that people are loyal to Google, but have no devotion to the company in comparison to Microsoft and Apple.

That is when they’re devoted at all as – from a survey of 9,766 ‘global information workers’ – the vast majority of computer users (85 per cent worldwide or 88 per cent in the US) have little to no loyalty to any particular computing system.

Google doesn’t fare well here, snatching only 1 per cent of the 6 per cent of devoted users. Apple, unsurprisingly, takes 56 per cent while Microsoft nabs 44.

Things are different in the ‘Loyalist’ camp of users – determined by their affinity to having mostly unified or networked devices, but not completely.

Here Google takes up a tasty 25 per cent of the share while Microsoft sits tight with 17. Once again Apple dominates with a 58 per cent share of the 9 per cent who fall into the Loyalist category.

For those who keep trend with technology, the results aren’t surprising at all. Microsoft owns the vast majority of workplace computing, meaning consumers generally have multiple windows devices across the board – yes, some people do actually use Windows Phones.

Apple understandably have the high count in the devotees section as they’ve secured many users into their unified ecosystem of iPad, iPhone and Mac with many purchases and saved information being easily transferred.

Google, however, haven’t managed to move out of the middle Loyalist bracket due to having little to no penetration on the desktop front.

Lots of people have Android-enabled phones, with Google’s platform holding 75 per cent of the entire smartphone market. Lots of people also use Android tablets meaning data is easily transferred between the two. However, Chromebooks haven’t taken off with many so, bar those using Google Chrome browser, the network cloud appeal of Google’s offering diminishes fast.

What could they do to secure these Loyalists as Devotees? Make something consumers want.

Apple have managed to create devices that, until many used them, nobody knew they wanted. They positioned them as desirable and functional.

Google tried to do similar by showing that cloud computing and Chromebooks are the future. The trouble was they were far ahead of everybody else in that thought and the idea sunk – it’s only now beginning to take off. For now Google need to create a Chromebook that has the computing power that many want, with sizeable offline storage and capabilities with a superior online experience when available – currently Chromebooks are entirely online devices.

What Google need to do is appease customer wishes for now before rolling out what they know they’ll really want once they get their hands on it.

Google are used to playing the long game. They’re biding their time with Google+ as they tweak it and slowly integrate it Android, Chrome, YouTube and even Google Glass.

Do you think that Google can win over consumers into a completely integrated system?

Is there any way to improve customer loyalty within the technology sector at all?

As always, let us know by leaving a comment below.

In a new survey from consumer helpers Which? shows that newsagents and stationery store WH Smith is the most disliked high-street store in the UK.

Comprised of over 11,000 consumers opinions, WH Smith came out on the bottom with only 51 per cent of respondents saying they had a positive experience in the store.

Other brands that floated around the bottom were TK Maxx with 56 per cent and Millets with 57 per cent.

Conversely, the top-rated store was (unsurprisingly) Apple.

Consumers said that they loved the “unique look and feel” of its stores, along with the “great customer service” received. All 37 stores were described as having “great atmosphere and products” alongside “excellent” and “knowledgeable” staff.

All very positive things for Apple and its in-store ethos with an 85 per cent customer satisfaction rate.

It wasn’t alone up top though as fancy natural soap retailer Lush bagged an mark of 82 per cent and the Disney Store sat pretty with 80 per cent. Hi-fi and TV specialist chain Richer Sounds also managed to grab 80 per cent and women’s clothing store Bon Marché scooped 79 per cent.

The most interesting point of the survey wasn’t the dissatisfaction with WH Smith. Instead it came from the high percentage (88 per cent) of consumers who were unhappy about many retail chains closing over the last year.

Despite 52 per cent admitting that they buy online, consumers still use high-street shops more often than they do websites, shopping centres and retail parks.

As you can imagine, WH Smith have debunked the survey’s results saying it isn’t reflective of consumer thought. However, it’s been one of the lowest-rated shops for the last four years.

Even Mary Portas – who is speaking at this year’s Loyalty World in London – described it as a “dump” that she “truly hates” shopping in.

Do you think that WH Smith is really the worst store on the high-street?

Are consumers really visiting high-street stores more than websites, shopping centres and retail parks?

Let us know by leaving a comment below for us.

Yahoo have set out to recapture the young demographic that they’ve managed to lose by buying Tumblr.

Most of Yahoo’s users are older than that of other search engines, chiefly because Yahoo captured these people when the World Wide Web was young and there was no such thing as Google – as impossible as that is to imagine.

These young and tech-savvy users stuck by Yahoo mostly and then the partnerships they’ve formed with others over time (namely BT Broadband) have helped keep them relevant as time as passed.

Finally the time has come and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has made her first move in making Yahoo the ‘cool’ brand it once was.

AllthingsD are reporting that Yahoo’s board of directors today approved that first move by accepting a $1.1 billion deal to acquire the simple and stylish blogging site Tumblr.

Such a move has been done to bring in the core userbase that Yahoo lack, 16 – 24 year olds.

This is the biggest deal that Marissa Mayer has made since she joined Yahoo as previous ones have focused on the mobile market in a bid to secure a younger audience.

So, why’s Tumblr such an attractive proposition?

Well, the social networking and blogging service has more than 100 million blogs and has been rolling out a bigger and better mobile strategy and app.

Tumblr also gained 117 million worldwide visitors in April, with 37 million coming from the US alone – placing it in the same realms as LinkedIn and Twitter (at least in terms of desktop browser visits).

The deal now means that Yahoo can revive their staggering advertising branch and hopefully revive their brand image with a younger audience – probably scoring a hipster or two along the way.

The biggest challenge that Tumblr does present is how to place adverts on personal blogs without encroaching on personal space. There are also a lot of pornographic images on Tumblr, meaning Yahoo have to be careful about what they advertise and where.

Do you think that Yahoo were a bit money happy with this venture?

Could it really turn around Yahoo’s fortunes with the younger generation?

Let us know by leaving a comment below with your thoughts.

JC Penny has had quite a bad time lately with their customers. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ll know that their efforts to revolutionise the store met with an awful lot of dissatisfaction from their customers.

So much, in fact, that it nearly hit rock bottom as customers fled the store and the newly appointed CEO, Ron Johnson, was fired for the unsuccessful changes he made.

Who knew that American consumers wouldn’t like the idea of a store having no discounted ranges anymore?

That is, of course, a rhetorical question as everybody could tell you that American consumers are on the hunt for a deal. Removing that element from your store is sure to wind up with you losing few hundred here and there.

That’s not all though, the change of store layout alienated even more consumers, leaving the brand in a state where it may as well have been operating ghost stores.

Now it’s made some changes, re-hired Johnson’s predecessor Mike Ullman as CEO once more, listened to customers and put out a rather large apology ad campaign, has it all worked?

The numbers would say that, indeed, it has. But, it’s still got a long way to go.

Having issued its latest financial reports, net income fell by 113 per cent – equating to a loss of $348 million.

Despite all the changes, store losses were higher than expected.

What should be noted is that the 16.6 per cent drop in same-store sales is actually a large improvement over the 32 per cent decrease that JC Penny reported last quarter.

While that’s little consolation, seeing as it’s hard to go further beyond the bottom of the barrel, JC Penny are clearly starting to do something right.

Now just time will tell.

While there won’t be any horror stories on par with JC Penny, at this year’s Europe’s Customer Festival discussions around ensuring customer loyalty and customer engagement through the bad times as well as the good will help you really understand and shape how you engage with your customers.

At our conference in 2012, Tony Ventrice, Senior Game Designer, Badgeville, presented on how to connect game design fundamentals to generate brand excitement

Click here to see his presentation

Tony Ventrice works at Badgeville and is a veteran game designer. In the past, he has made games with Playdom and Zynga, and he has since turned his attention to bringing the most motivating and fun aspects of games and applying those techniques to businesses. Through this presentation you will be able to find out:

- What issues traditional loyalty programs are facing

- How to learn from games

- What things makes games more fun

- What does gamification look like

- What are the intrinsic rewards

Check out his full presentation

To learn more about this subject, check out Loyalty World USA 2013

At our conference in 2012, Bill Hanifin, Consulting Practice Leader, Aimia, presented on the importance of why companies should retool loyalty marketing in a digital economy.

Click here to see his presentation

The idea of loyalty marketing has progressed beyond a novelty idea, and is currently undergoing what might be described as a midlife crisis. The simple act of having a loyalty program for customers is not enough to lasso consumers to a particular brand in the digital marketplace. Through this presentation you will be able to:

- Check the results of the Aimia’s survey, which confirm that people are interested in loyalty

- What these results tell us

- When social loyalty became a reality

- What are the benefits from social loyalty

- What is contextual loyalty

- Some examples of loyalty

Check out his full presentation

To learn more about this subject, check out Loyalty World USA 2013

O Facebook, a rede social com mais usuários no mundo, e a Google, a maior companhia de internet, escancaram uma briga que não é novidade para quem acompanha de perto o universo digital. A briga é velha e se acirrou desde que a rede de Zuckeberg atingiu a marca de meio bilhão de usuários no meio de 2010 e piorou quando o Google resolveu concentrar suas forças em mais um projeto de rede social, o Google Plus.

Nessa constante luta para ser o líder do mercado na web, o google mais uma vez expande sua expertise e incorpora um novo recurso na sua plataforma Google Play , O Google Play Music.

Durante um evento que acontece em São Francisco, nos EUA, o Google I/O 2013. O Google anunciou seu novo serviço de música pago. Por enquanto, o Google Play Music só está disponível nos EUA, mas a empresa diz que o serviço chegará aos outros 13 países em que está disponível o Play Music –o que exclui o Brasil.

Mas o Google não está de brincadeira . O aplicativo é interessante e relativamente fácil de usar e rápido. O ponto forte do serviço são as recomendações personalizadas, feitas com base nas músicas que você mais escuta , e oferece acesso ilimitado ao catálogo por uma mensalidade fixa. Por enquanto com uma mensalidade mais barata do que oferecida pelos seus concorrentes e com 30 dias gratuitos para teste.

Ficou interessado em saber mais sobre o Play Music? Quer saber quais os benefícios e as vantagens em cima de seus concorrentes? Clique aqui.

Case Study of Wrong is a light-hearted look at a particular company or brand that has done something to alienate customers or damage its reputation. Ultimately: don’t do what they’ve done!

Abercrombie & Fitch, the fashion clothing brand that’s been running since 1892, has performed something of a faux pas recently when it’s chairman and CEO Michael S. Jeffries  proclaimed that they won’t ever make plus size clothes for women.

The brand also stumbled on another key consumer point by revealing that any damaged or faulty clothes are burned instead of donated to charity like many other brands do.

The reasoning?

To keep it out of the hands of the poor and homeless, instead allowing it to remain pure and for the elite.

Those aren’t the only eugenics-sounding comments Jeffries has made, stating that A&F only go after “the cool kids.”

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” said Jeffries. “Candidly we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong, and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”

It must be said that Jeffries should be acknowledged for his forthrightness on such an issue – one that many other CEOs would have skirted around.

Was it the right thing to do though?

Probably not.

As you can imagine, there are pockets of people online outraged by such a stance in a clothing brand that associates itself so candidly with a certain subsection of society they deem ‘beautiful people’.

It’s also terrible to see and hear a company so obsessed with its image that it goes against some of the pure basics of human morals. It shuns charity and helping others in favour of pushing forth its own agenda in an attempt to propel itself to god-like standing in the fashion world. Something that’s unlikely to happen for a high-street retailer who’s main hook are pubescent teens and 30 year olds who wish they still were pubescent teens.

Jeffries’ actions have now spurred an online campaign (video below) to boycott the clothing brand, while also donating any A&F clothes that you own or find to homeless people.

While this may seem as exploitive of the homeless in what is essentially a viral marketing campaign, at least deserved people are benefiting from the firm two fingers up at Abercrombie & Fitch.

His services to the industry through Marks & Spencer, Argos, the Arcadia Group and the Burton Group are well known, and so when Total Customer got a chance to speak with him at our secret Loyalty Meet Up – of which we’re having an omni-channel focused on at the end of May – we had to ask him where he saw the future of retail.

As you can expect, we got an insightful response.
For more videos around the areas of customer loyalty, omni-channel, big data or retail, subscribe to Total Customer’s YouTube channel.

Esta semana a marca Danette, deu o que falar nas redes sociais. A marca postou uma imagem na sua fanpage com a seguinte frase: “Poderia ser Danette, mas foi um chocolate no seu time do coração”. Chocolate, na gíria futebolística, se refere a uma derrota com placar elástico, como foi o 4 a 1 sofrido pelo time da capital paulista frente ao Atlético-MG.

Ponto para a marca que que estava atenta aos acontecimentos na sociedade para tentar divulgar a sua marca através das redes sociais. Várias marcas obtiveram sucesso realizando esse mesmo tipo de estratégia, como o caso do biscoito Oreo na super bowl, clique aqui para mais informações sobre este caso.

No caso da Danette, o resultado não foi muito favorável, antes do post ser excluído, a tal postagem continha mais de 500 comentários, a maioria negativo, conforme informa o site Máquina do Esporte. Fale bem ou fale mal mas fale de mim, nem sempre é o melhor caminho para o fortalecimento de uma marca. A empresa deve tentar sim, propagandas espontâneas através redes sociais mas evitando uma imagem negativa da marca. Caso os comentários negativos aparecam, a empresa deve estar preparada. Segue aqui, dicas para lidar com comentários negativos nas redes sociais.

Para saber mais sobre fortalecimento e fidelização de marca, participe da conferência Loyalty World Brasil 2013