I have always made a big deal about strong customer retention programs in my career, and I thought I was in line with my peers.
Perhaps not. A recent survey by the CMO Council (yes we marketing types do get the C-Level treatment occasionally) of about 500 senior marketers at major corporations discovered that:
"Of the executives who responded to the survey...only 33%
said their companies claim to be good at handling
customer complaints."
"...only
23% said their companies track or measure customer emails, and only 17% use
that feedback to identify potential customer advocates."
These were matched by other similarly dismal results.
This boggles my mind. If it is "marketing gospel" that retaining a customer is much more profitable than acquiring a new one, why pay no attention to the key points of contact with those customers???
Of course, if you are competing with these CMOs, you could be in great position to steal their customers!
Click here to read a good summary article on the survey from
MediaPost.com.
