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Letters: Maximise the benefits of being online

Platform: Internet | Author: Andy Wood, MD, GI Insight | Source: NMA magazine | Published: 08.05.08

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Your report on research from Global Reviews into credit card websites (NMA 17.04.08) exemplifies the problem with online customer management and advertising. We know there's a steady transfer of marketing budgets to online media, but whether dealing with existing customers or enquirers who have not yet become customers, the absence of a data-based strategy is absent 99 times in 100.

The reason is, of course, the temptation to save money. The main motivation for most companies...

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... transferring customer services to the web is to reduce costs. This is no problem unless it becomes commercially irresponsible. Interacting with customers online is a golden opportunity to use the incredible and affordable powers of the web to serve personalised content, create a truly targeted customer experience and reap the customer retention and development benefits that follow. If customers are encouraged online only to find that, despite handing over information on themselves, that information is never used to provide relevant and personalised customer service and marketing, then no one should be surprised if they defect in their droves.

From Andy Wood, MD, GI Insight