Marketing managers have long since agreed: a consistent and personalized customer focus will determine success and failure in the future. But many brand companies are still struggling with themselves.
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As part of Serviceplan’s “Best Brands College” on Wednesday, decision-makers will discuss current topics in marketing, brand management and communication. The overall theme at College 2021: “Customer Centricity as the Core of Brand DNA”
One of the speakers at the digital event was Wolf Ingomar Faecks. In his keynote speech, the CEO of the Plan.Net Group and The Marcom Engine spoke about success factors a customer-centric organization. And about how global organizations have to redesign their customer experience management in order to put the customer first, so that individual customer needs are addressed in the right context and at the right time.
VUCA world and “skepticism in communication“
At the beginning Faecks drew the familiar picture of the VUCA world (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, Ambiguity) that marketing managers have to deal with today. Consisting of, among other things, an increasingly complex portfolio of products and services on the one hand and changing communication channels and inconsistent touchpoints on the other. According to Faecks, the only challenge here is that “skepticism in communication” is increasing: “This forces us, as those responsible, to take customer loyalty very seriously – with ethical behavior and honest communication.”
For those responsible for marketing there is consequently a “task of orchestration”. “As a marketing decision-maker, you are faced with the task of combining both market complexity and supply complexity,” said Faecks.
Decision-makers in the industry are required to sort multichannel and ensure that the right offers are made at the right time. But: “It is precisely this aspect that global marketing organizations struggle with the most,” said Faecks. Because the reality shows “many unrelated brand interactions and fragmented touchpoints”. According to Faecks, this results in an “inconsistency and sometimes inappropriate customer approach”.
Cause from the past: “Engineer beats marketeers.“
According to Faecks, one of the reasons for the current imbalance in some organizations lies in the past. Specifically, it is problematic in today’s VUCA world that organizations have been set up much more product-centric for decades. “The quality management of the products was more in focus than customer needs,” said Faecks. Or to put it another way: “Engineer beats marketeers.”
Marketing organizations were designed to market a given product. Individual departments concentrated on the marketing of these products – in clearly defined, stable, but also sedate channels. Faecks: “The four Ps – very old school.”
“No stroll through the park ”
The only problem is that the previous system no longer works in customer-centric marketing. And so marketing decision-makers would also have to actively redesign the change in the organization. According to Faecks, the task is summarized as follows: “Customers are becoming more and more demanding. The product alone no longer sells. It takes a context. Customers need consistent experiences that take into account the wholeness of themselves. We now have to implement this prerequisite for success and thereby break through an organizational legacy. “
In conclusion, Faecks makes no secret of the fact that the outlined change in a marketing organization is not easy. He says: “Transformation programs do not go by themselves, a lot of change management and top management attention are required. This is not a walk through the park. “
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