2. White Paper
The New Consumer Principle
The New Consumer card or store card? How many frequent flyer programs count
Consumers have changed. Their expectations have evolved you as a member? Do you collect reward points for certain
and they have become more demanding. hotel chains, car rental agencies, restaurants, coffee shops or
cinema outlets?
Some are motivated purely by price, while others remain
fiercely loyal to certain brands. Others want to understand Let’s look at your buying patterns. How do you make decisions?
“green” or “fair trade” or “cruelty free” aspects of various Where do you do your research? Are you likely to trust a
products to ensure their purchase decisions are politically brand’s advertising? Or, are you more likely to ask a friend for
correct. For some, the decision will hinge on the “cool factor” an opinion? Would you accept a recommendation even if the
of the brand. “friend” is actually just a distant acquaintance from one of your
social networks? If you have a positive (or negative) experience,
Many consumers will take advantage of digital channels to will you tell others to inform their decision-making?
learn about products or services before making a decision
to purchase, with the transaction occurring in a shop. This Turning to some specific items, how and why did you purchase
process is known as ROBO – Research Online, Buy Offline. your home computer, laptop or mobile device? What determined
However, today this may be more accurately described as your decision for an internet provider or mobile carrier? Have
REBA – Research Everywhere, Buy Anywhere – as consumers you signed long-term contracts, or have you left yourself open
look to every channel for information and expect to purchase to take advantage of short-term deals and promotions?
products and services in the manner most convenient to them.
Now that you are digitally connected, which of these devices
Given these challenges, how can marketers keep pace with do you use to interact with your favourite brands? Likely you
these ever-changing demands of the consumer? Do you use all of them, but it depends on which brand, the type of
have the tools to deliver the right message, to the right interaction, the time of day, etc, as to which one you use for
person, at the right time, across the right channel? Actually, any particular communication. Do you “opt in” so that certain
you’d better make that channels, since multi-channel is no brands can proactively reach out to you via email, SMS or
longer good enough; marketing messages must be mobile voice call? Do you have login accounts for any websites?
orchestrated cross-channel as well. Have you become a brand’s Facebook fan or do you follow
them on Twitter?
Let’s say these three people visit your
website or interact with your brand in What does it all mean?
some way... Given everything you know about yourself, how would YOU
• Do you know which one is an existing market to YOU? You’re quite demanding, aren’t you? And we’ve
customer? If so, do you know if he or only covered a few aspects of the massive global spectrum of
she is profitable to your brand? products and services. Have you considered how you would
• Do you have an up-to-date record of purchase history? expect various brands to engage with you as an individual?
• Do you know what he or she is likely to purchase next? Can you think of examples where brands have got it exactly
• If none of them is a current customer, how do you right, and cases where others have completely missed the
determine which one(s) exhibit the best characteristics mark? What if you had to develop a marketing strategy not
to become target prospect(s)? only for yourself, but multiply it by the millions of consumers
• How do you follow-up? in the marketplace?
• How do you decide the appropriate messaging?
• What channel do you use to deliver it? Well, that’s what marketing organisations must do every single
day in order to engage and build relationships with their
You the Consumer customers. Customer engagement is a proven methodology
These are just some of the myriad of challenges facing the to answer the questions we posed earlier, and build a
marketer. Let’s take another viewpoint. Let’s say YOU are the successful, profitable and long-term relationship with
consumer. Do you participate in brand or store loyalty schemes? everyone, on an individual level.
Do you take it to the next level and carry a branded credit
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3. White Paper
The New Consumer Principle
So how…? CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT LIFE CYCLE
By following the key customer engagement principles of UNKNOWN AWARE CONVERSATION CUSTOMER ADVOCATE
Listen, Learn, Understand, Speak, marketers can engage in
mass, individual dialogues, which are appealing and relevant
to each individual. By storing and analysing each nugget of
knowledge we find out about someone, marketers build up
rounded and detailed “Engagement Personas”. Through
these engagement personas, marketers are able to develop
and deliver precise, relevant messaging to each person,
across multiple channels. This fundamental shift in the way The Customer Engagement lifecycle
marketers communicate their message is at the heart of
Alterian Alchemy™, which takes the landscape from mass
communication to engagement, from information overload
to conversation, from interruption to interaction, and from
targeting to collaboration.
With Alterian Alchemy™, marketers can Listen by monitoring
and collecting interaction data with customers and prospects
across all channels. They can Learn as they merge data from
all sources and apply analytics to derive intelligent insights.
The next step is to Understand the appropriate actions by
leveraging these insights to develop interactions using
relevant content and messaging. The end result is the ability
to Speak in an engaging manner when you deploy relevant
interactions across the appropriate channels at the right time.
However, this is not a one-time process. Customer engagement
is a lifetime commitment and will be repeated throughout the
customer lifecycle – from creating awareness, to identifying a
prospect and initiating a conversation, to orchestrating the
conversion to customer, and even further to the ultimate goal
of building loyalty and advocacy.
Such a comprehensive approach may look complicated, but
Alterian Alchemy™ makes it achievable by providing easy-to-use
tools that enable all levels of marketers – with different skill
sets and varying levels of expertise – to successfully execute To learn more about this radical solution, get our Alterian Alchemy™
Datasheet by visiting our website at www.alterian.com/alchemy or
engagement strategies. With Alterian Alchemy™, it is possible emailing us at info@alterian.com
to engage with the most demanding customers on an individual
level – even those with extremely high expectations for brand
performance – like YOU!
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