I just returned from the PegaWORLD 2015 conference after having been asked to cover the event as an analyst for Loyalty360. It is an honor to be considered a “futurist” by organizations like Pegasystems, IBM, and others, and we are fortunate to be at the “fulcrum” of change, need, opportunity, and insight.
We see the market from the eyes of brands that are challenged and those who excel, and we see the great opportunity and technology from our expanding community of suppliers. Having an inside seat in this era of transformative change is quite interesting, and to see how some are attacking it in a proactive manner is refreshing.
And PegaWORLD 2015 did just that.
As everyone knows, we live in an interesting time for marketers. There is a clarion call for simplicity in an age of growing complexity. It is challenging for brands to listen to and understand their customer. Brands continue to tell us that they feel their suppliers, the mass of new technologies and service level offerings are not listening to them. Most brands feel that they are only being sold to, and this is creating consternation, concern, and even paralysis for some.
Many of the talking points we posit, ones that come from actively engaging and listening to our customers, were also put forth during PegaWORLD. Pega seems to understand the pulse of the market. It is creating simplicity and measurability with its offerings. And based on numerous discussions with its clients and their partner suppliers, they are trying to effect change in a complex marketing landscape.
One of the most persistent things we see is the “Challenge of Listening.” We have discussed this in our conferences, webinars, and when we speak to other groups. This pervasive challenge resonates with all the discussions we have. Many brands are challenged more and more to “listen” to and understand their customers. But there is too much data, too much technology (all one has to do is look at the rapidly proliferation of the LUMAscape). How are brands expected to keep up?
Yet PegaWORLD did an adept job of creating simplicity, and seems to be creating stronger relationships by listening to its clients.
Brian Solis, digital analyst and business strategist of Altimeter group, said, “Executives have a hard time appreciating what needs to change because they don’t live their brand the way customers do.”
He is correct in noting that listening is hard. If a brand does not have the ability to actively listen to its clients, then it loses any ability to “see” from the customer’s viewpoint. Brands need to start focusing on this new customer engagement perspective.
Marketing has traditionally been about “push.” This meant creating and pushing a product, service, or idea by using a slogan, a position, and a benefit analysis that was vetted by focus groups and feedback via countless media impressions with the hope that it “clicks,” and becomes a culturally ingrained concept. Like “Googling” or “Kleenex,” for example.
But the difficulty in making marketing more about “pull” is vexing, as brands have to look at changing behaviors. And, as loyalty marketers know, this is inherently challenging. Marketers are not used to listening and the “agencies” they have employed create a conflict with that as well.
In an active discussion, Robert Tas, Pegasystems Senior VP and CMO, who has done an amazing job of positioning a very robust and potent offering, argued that agencies need to change. Brands need to re-examine their relationships with these “agencies” as to their abilities to listen and understand to provide applicably suited offerings that are appropriate for what this new age of marketing requires.
The reliance on balance nomenclature is too vexing for most. Tas and I talked about the changing landscape for social media and CRM, where social media was intended to listen to people outside the brand’s channel, and move that conversation to their community where you could embrace them in a deeper dialogue.
It was suggested that an overreliance on Google and Facebook and other social channels has the opportunity to dis-intermediate the conversation. There is a conflict with those entities as they are looking to monetize the relationship so “buy” buttons and streaming content to those channels may provide value in the short term. But what happens if Facebook or Google changes their models after a brand’s audience has changed its behavior? CRM and loyalty should always be focused on the current behavior, with an added emphasis on the optimal behavior. Brands need to make sure that they are in as much control of that as possible.
Tas also suggested that culture is imperative to change, and this culture should be focused on creating simplicity and encouraging feedback. Yet this should also apply to a situation where the brand is able to embrace this feedback and respond in kind. But this requires a unique perspective, and technology is raising these expectations, which brings us back to the clarion call for simplicity!
We heard about the lack of metrics and the need for “change agents.” We heard that budgets and resources are not officially allocated to digital. And, much like we saw in the loyalty and CX landscape, that the lack of metrics is still a big issue, as people will measure only what they know and are tasked with. A Digital Transformation study was referenced that said only 7% of brands are customer-centric. This also spoke to the results of the much-heralded Bain study, which showed that 90% of brands think they are creating engaging experiences; yet only 9% of customers feel the same way.
This all gets back to the challenge of listening. Brands must, as Solis posited earlier, need to be able to live your brand they way your customers do.
Loyalty360 talks about a “corner butcher” store mentality, which was put forth at PegaWORLD as a return to a 70’s mentality where relationships and simplicity reigned. Merchants knew their customers on a deeper and more personal level than they do today. And they accomplished this with less data, less technology, and less complexity.
This is the promise of the new landscape. It is true that marketers are challenged with complexity, but there is also an opportunity that they did not have in the past either. They must not only understanding marketing as a data scientist does, they must also understand sales, commerce, customer experience operations, training, marketing, r&d, supply chain, employee engagement, prospecting, personalization, and customer service.
The brands that can change the culture and create simplicity will be the ones who continue to flourish. It was great to see CRM represented at PegaWORLD in such a passionate manner.
About the Author: Mark Johnson
Mark is CEO & CMO of Loyalty360. He has significant experience in selling, designing and administering prepaid, loyalty/CRM programs, as well as data-driven marketing communication programs.