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At this present juncture, we are confronted
with the grim reality that the economy is in
the throes of a slowdown. What is particularly disturbing is the sharp decline in
all key indicators of the economy and
industry. The specific revisions that many
Best-in-Class companies have made to their original
marketing plans for 2009 in response to the
economic downturn are multifaceted, affecting
everything from the number, scope and types of
marketing campaigns that companies intend to launch to
the deployment of new technologies and analytic capabilities to ensure that the
campaigns undertaken will achieve the desired results. As
the restructuring plan unfolds, the decision
makers must be prepared to leverage a customer
self service technologies, integrate application
of customer data, condense and increase the effectiveness of the training, enhancing
trust through transparency, profitable customer retention, leasing on-demand services,
empower service and support activities and last, but not
the least, is to listen to customers' views through
Web based customer interaction management.
Indeed, latest data points towards disturbed and decreasing sales, sluggish
industrial production, declining exports, reports of
job losses and subdued performance of the stock market. All this is causing immense
concern about the prospects of the economy in general
and industry in particular in the current year.
The economic downturn is forcing the businesses to face unprecedented challenges. Irrespective of
the industry and the organization size, most of
them have arrived at a decision of `cost reduction'.
Cost-saving strategies for better customer service: As recession deepens, many of the
top performers have chosen to revamp their
marketing budgets. Recent researches have identified
that 82% of the corporates have planned for cost reduction in marketing and have restructured
their marketing plans for 2009-2010. The reflection
of recession is happening in the aspects of
number, scope and types of marketing campaigns, and
it has also influenced the corporate to apply new technologies and analytic capabilities to
achieve the desired results at optimal cost.
One major trend relates to the migration of marketing spend from high-cost channels like
TV and print to low-cost channels like e-mail that tend to be more cost-effective in yielding
the desired results and can also be more closely tracked and measured, which is imperative from
a performance management perspective. |
