We started Homerun after two decades in the customer experience and marketing tech world. Learning from both successful and failed projects, we have seen two things:
On one hand, the companies have gotten great tools, tons of data and skilled teams. They have worked hard to set up systems to handle big volumes of automated communication.
On the other hand, the customers are overwhelmed by communication in all channels and the tolerance of non-meaningful content has gone down to zero. We just don’t read those automated messages anymore. But they keep coming…
Anyone can automate communication these days, but clearly very few make it meaningful. Meaningful interactions with the customers happen mostly when it is manual. The challenge is to automate communication and keep it meaningful and relevant. That rarely happens, but when it does the results are amazing, because it scales!
We actually don’t know that much about baseball, but we see some connections. To win the game in baseball you need to win the runs. Winning the game represents the large transactions in the marketing world, while the runs are the smaller conversions and interactions with the customers. Most companies have focused on winning the games without knowing (or caring?) about how to win the runs. We think we have an idea on how to win the runs and we sum it up in three fundamental points:
Everybody talks about this, but very few walk the talk. If they did, they would not keep blasting out communication the way they do. Often, the end user focus is translated into a couple of standard data points or A/B testing. Which doesn’t really measure the experience of the end user and doesn’t tell you how to improve. And no, measuring NPS is not enough.
Most companies actually have meaningful and relevant things to say. Somewhere. It is just a matter of making that content actionable and finding the right timing and channel to say it. It is also possible to actually ask the customers what they would like you to communicate about. Lastly, when you don’t have anything meaningful to say, don’t say anything!
It’s not about collecting or using as much data as possible; it’s about using it in a smart way. Whenever data or AI helps you become more meaningful and relevant it serves its purpose. It can be just as much about timing, frequency, and channel rather than personalized content or offers.
What do you think? Get in touch for a discussion!