Business Analytics for Sales and Marketing Managers: How to Compete in the Information Age

RESULTS OF THE PROJECT AND THE NEXT STEPS

The project took off in September 2004. During January 2005, the churn rate came down to the magic 2%. As mentioned, 2004 was a year with a deficit of $1 million. Figures for 2005 showed the value of the project as the company realized a profit of $55 million. The results were published in July 2005 in the national press.

The forward CRM strategy went from a focus on closing the gaps in the bucket to increasing the strengths of its sides or from minimizing churn drivers to maximizing loyalty drivers; one of the differences is that you stop rewarding disloyal customers and start rewarding loyal ones. This happened via customer loyalty programs given to customers who had a minimum spend (silver and gold customers, see Chapter 2) and who earned the right to a number of advantages. Marketing automation concepts were introduced (see the maturity models in Chapter 8) in the form of automated communication with current customers, so that campaigns no longer were executed on a monthly basis, but when the customer behavior indicated that communication should occur. This meant that customers who logged on to the Internet portal never saw the same content because the Web site was optimized based on customer history and their profiles. The lead information was still obtained via data-mining models. The results were similar to the displayed decision tree; depending on their age, subscription, and consumption habits, customers would be offered various ...