Allan Engelhardt quoted on CRM during the downturn
27/11/2008: Allan Engelhardt, Solutions Director at The PCA Group, is quoted on MyCustomer.com by Jennifer Kirkby in her new article on CRM during the economic downturn. Allan makes two points on how B2C businesses need to change their thinking to prosper in this climate:
Allan Engelhardt, Solutions Director at The PCA Group, is quoted on MyCustomer.com by Jennifer Kirkby in her new article on CRM during the economic downturn.
Allan is quoted on two points on B2C businesses in the article:
- You can no longer use the same old propensity modelling approach to churn. This is because the economy has fundamentally changed for the consumer and historic behaviour is therefore no longer a predictor of the future.
- You need to build your products for customer flexibility. Insisting on a 24 months contract may feel good in the short term but is just setting you up for credit problems in the near future. Short contracts and prepaid arrangements are what you should be looking at.
Allan advocates strengthening your retention efforts with a new approach that closely couples fast product development with fast test campaigns to find out what works in the new economy. You can't just rely on the old churn propensity models and the old products to do the job, but on the other hand you can not give away all your margin on every retention. (Yes, cost-cutting is important, but is not the whole answer.) You need to adopt a systematic approach to experimentation and insights-driven product and campaign creation to survive and even prosper in this climate.
