Sarah Haskell, Director of Marketing, Portrait Software You Asked What is sensory interaction and could it be the answer to the enduring customer relationship puzzle?

It remains a puzzle for many Heads of Sales and Chief Marketing Officers as to why customers are so taciturn and why loyalty is so elusive. This situation continues to prevail despite the millions that have been invested in ''getting closer to the customer" with CRM systems underpinned by sophisticated analytical and modeling techniques.

To help answer this conundrum, we need to explore new ways of understanding a customer's behaviour and determining how companies can optimise customer engagement at the point of interaction to maximise sales.

Research by the Gartner Group shows that almost a quarter of interactions with a typical bank are rated as poor, yet only two percent of dissatisfied customers actively complain. Of the rest, almost half defect without the institutions ever knowing why. Consider two examples where customers feel less than delighted at the end of a transaction.

Firstly, major financial services institutions were among the first to jump on the CRM bandwagon but service deliver does not always match up to promises. Imagine that John started to pay his bills over the internet at breakfast, finished them via the call centre on his way to work and is now querying a credit card transaction in the branch at lunchtime. He fully expects his bank to be up-to-date on today's transaction history and if that is not the case he will be unimpressed.

In another instance, an insurance company is pleased to offer Gerry a timely renewal notice for his beloved sports car at a special discounted price. Surely though they should have offered him a complete household package in view of the fact that he has recently got married and is currently discussing a mortgage with the call centre of the home loans division of the company.

Customer interactions under the magnifying glass

It is generally understood that every customer interaction represents a 'moment of truth' – both a time for the company to make offers and a time for the customer to assess the quality of the products and service on offer and the ease with which information is provided.

It is not uncommon to use multiple channels and target ever more tightly defined target groups to leverage every potential customer interaction for sales. Invariably these business strategies are implemented with the support of various customer information files and marketing tools.

It would appear that with such tools, companies can sustain long term profitable relationships with their customers. Closer examination nevertheless reveals that even these leading businesses are failing to use the knowledge they have painstakingly gained, resulting in customer apathy rather than delight.

Structural factors that have long been considered crucial to establishing customer rapport may actually be inhibiting a real connection with the customer - these being:

• Multiple channels – few companies treat channels equally and the extent to which they are connected is questionable
• Segmentation - data must be accurate, the models well-defined and tested. Importantly, the results need to be shared from marketing to allow other departments to find gems of information.
• Personalised marketing – this can only achieve its true potential if the type of message is assessed and the content refined during an actual customer interaction
• Line of business systems have evolved into the core of the operational activities but many cannot adapt to the demands of new channels or competitive threats while line of business targets and incentives work against sharing knowledge across the enterprise
• Business & IT outsourcing – how do you ensure that both outsourced and in-house applications and interconnected and customer oriented?

A lack of investment to join up all the dots results in a customer experience characterised as apathetic rather than delighted.

The perception that a customer has at any given time represents the vital missing piece in the customer management puzzle. It is also readily acknowledged that it could be the most difficult piece to put into place.

Customer perceptions drive a 'propensity to engage' which drives a “propensity to buy”

Customers intuitively assess the state of play during the course of every interaction. Figuratively speaking, the wires within the brain are designed to monitor status, measure responses and send status reports that combine to create a perception of the interaction.

Whether consciously or subconsciously the customer draws on a number of 'soft factors' that influence the perception - brand image, quality, value and experience.

Ultimately the four 'soft factors' combine and for each interaction can develop a different customer perception.

Thus it appears that a breakthrough is within sight - one that finally solves the puzzle of creating long-term customer rapport. The Sensory Interaction Model (SIM) provides the key. Unlike other approaches, this model places the emphasis on sensing the customer’s mood and adapts the response to the customer throughout the entire interaction.

The customer’s mood can be sensed easily in a face-to-face environment, but for a call centre it requires the integration of voice recognition and tone identification. Whilst presenting a greater challenge online, a number of simple questions may be incorporated into the log-on procedures for web interactions.

The information gathered is used by the analytical engines to determine the next actions. They analyse the new information in the light of customer knowledge, known behaviours and the anticipated context of the interaction. The resulting next steps might include simply listen; gather additional data; provide service or make offer.

Employees are empowered to select an action that appears the most appropriate at this stage in the interaction. Alternatively, business processes can be configured to trigger automatically the most appropriate action - particularly for web-based interactions.

During the action phase, the emphasis is on delivering the requested service swiftly, seamlessly and effectively so as to exceed the customer’s expectations. In many cases this phase will involve multiple actions that should be instantaneously available, selected on demand and executed transparently.

It should be stressed that for the many companies that have invested in 'straight through processing' this phase in the Sensory Interaction Model should be a core strength and one that delights customers. However much of the benefit will be lost, if the business misses the opportunity to gather feedback.

Whilst hard data is collected during the feedback phase, the 'soft factors' kick in big time in the mind of the customer. The information gathered within this phase represents merely a snapshot of a customer’s perception at this time but nevertheless delivers essential input in the interaction management.

Through the Sensory Interaction Models companies will have the chance to demonstrate real customer intelligence at the point of interaction resulting in increase sales.

This being the case there exists the opportunity to solve the customer relationship puzzle - is it really achievable? Using Interaction Optimiser from Portrait Software, for the first time companies can engage in Intelligent Sensory Interaction Management to sense and deliver actions that match the perceived mood of the customer throughout every interaction. Head of Sales and Chief Marketing Officers now have their moment of truth and indeed the answer to the puzzle of how to truly understand their customers and make every customer interaction count.

Sarah Haskell is Group Marketing Director at Portrait Software. Previously, Sarah worked for IBM in the direct marketing, sales, business partner and call centre environment throughout the early 90's and has worked as a management consultant on customer relationship management for both Sophron and McKinsey clients. This was followed by the position of VP of Marketing and Alliances for POINT Information systems then as a senior analyst for the Hewson Group, advising companies on their business development strategies and utilizing her expertise to develop vendor strategies in Europe, the USA and Far East. Portrait Software