Question

Answer all of these questions

1. How can marketers use technology to improve customer retention and enhance their bonds with customers?
2. Locate two websites that you visit regularly and discuss how they track your behavior and enable marketers to target you more effectively.

Answer 1

Answer 1- There's no denying the fact that customer service is important to a small or mid-sized business. The quality of that service will either enhance or degrade customer loyalty to your brand and your business. With the economy in recession, customers have more alternatives than ever. The business that proves to be responsive to customer questions, complaints, or other needs can gain a clear competitive advantage.

Explanation:

Customer retention is a vital part of any business's success. And there are some very good reasons for that. Did you know that increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits 25-95%, according to Bain & Co? And that gaining a new customer is five time as costly as keeping a current one?

For businesses that want to improve their retention rates, it's important to look at customer behaviors and trends. In order to best court their customers, businesses have to meet them where they are. More than ever, customers are shopping, browsing and communicating on their mobile devices. Adopting mobile marketing strategies can enhance customer satisfaction by leaps and bounds.

Here are the top 5 ways to use technology to improve customer retention and enhance their bonds with customers-

Optimize your website for mobile

With more and more business being conducted on mobile sites, if your website isn't optimized for mobile usage, you're likely to see users abandoning your page in favor of a competitor's site that is mobile-friendly. Customers expect a webpage to open within a second or two, and they can abandon a website that takes longer than that to load.

In addition, customers are more likely to purchase on a mobile-optimized site. Customers perform a variety of tasks on mobile sites, from browsing merchandise to looking up addresses to booking reservations to making purchases. If your site isn't ready to receive their business on mobile, you're likely to lose customers. That's why running tests to check the mobile friendliness of your site is a must.

Send deals via mobile

Customers would benefit if brands delivered deals and coupons to their mobile devices. This practice is becoming more and more targeted and sophisticated. Purchase histories allow you to send promotions on products or services you know a customer likes.

And geo targeting allows you to send a notification to a customer's mobile when they're near your location. Ideally, you could combine the two concepts and when your company's app detects a customer nearby, you can offer a discount on one of their favorite products.

Use convenient customer support platforms

There are lots of ways to provide customer service that complement call centers. Social media and texting are two popular alternatives. Xbox's Elite tweet fleet on Twitter has posted over 2 million support tweets since they launched it in 2010. Their 27-strong team of experts solves customers' problems and keeps them happy.

Texting is also a popular customer service venue that allows customers to read and respond to messages on their own time and without having to be connected to the Internet. In this Magic case study, the Director of Cloud Data Service says that "Implementing SMS functionality into our software has been fundamental to retaining our key clients as well as winning new business."

Use buttons on social media

The easier you can make a purchasing experience for a client, the more likely you are to keep that client. Buy buttons are one-click options that you can add to your social media pages.

For example, if you're displaying a new sweater in your store's collection on Pinterest, you can add a "Buy It" button that allows the customer to buy it instantly from their mobile device. They don't have to go to another page or fill out purchasing forms. They can buy it from the very page where the item is being advertised.

Shopify has partnered with Pinterest to create "Buyable Pins" and Twitter has adopted Stripe Checkout to allow customers to make purchases from their site.

Get the most out of mobile payments

I know, I know. Mobile payments are like New Year's Resolutions. Everyone talks about it, but nobody actually does it. But the situation can change in a flash and mobile pay transactions can gain momentum in upcoming years. People are more likely to forget their wallet at home than they are to forget their mobile phone.

In fact, most Millennials have their smartphones with them at all times, and, not coincidentally, Millennials also represent the second-highest tier of mobile payment spending, with 23% of them using mobile pay at least once a week, according to Fortune.

One company that's already learned how to leverage mobile pay for customer service is Starbucks. They managed to boost customer use of mobile pay through their mobile app by offering special offers and discounts for purchasing through the app.

Over 20% of their in-store transactions in the U.S. are from their mobile app. Those are pretty incredible numbers. So here you see a marketing strategy that integrates mobile app, mobile pay and loyalty programs. Sounds like a recipe for customer retention.

Answer 2-

The two websites that I visit regularly are EconomicTimes.com and YouTube.com. These websites are used to gather latest news and watch entertainment videos respectively.

I have noticed that the news or videos suggestions depend on the news or videos that I choose to read or see. Similar kind of news articles and videos are published which means that my search is being monitored and to make my search easy, these materials pop up.

Overall, these are tools used by marketers to analyse our preferences and accordingly market or promote their products. It is a human tendency that we are attracted to lucrative marketing deals when we are looking for a particular product or service. Similarly, marketers make full use of the technology and push attractive content to attract users looking for similar news or videos.

Explanation:

Technology has advanced over time and become a blessing in disguise for many around the world. But, the dark truth is that technology also has the capacity to manipulate our mind. This can be dangerous if we are not cautious enough and might result in our downfall.

Coming to the question about the websites that I regularly visit - Economictimes.com and YouTube.com.

Economic times.com is a website which publishes latest newsfeeds and articles covering all the latest happenings around the world. I have been following economictimes.com for the past one year mostly for the trade markets analysis and entertainment news. Off late, I have observed that the newsfeed that I receive contains mostly about these 2 topics only and I don't get to see other news articles. The reason I found out is that, the website automatically detects the most frequent topics that I have chosen to read and suggests me news related to these topics more frequently. This is a good thing to have as I do not have to search for trade news and entertainment news.

Youtube.com - I frequently visit YouTube.com to watch music videos and some comedy videos. In this as well, I get to see most of the video suggestions related to these topics.

Apart from getting relevant news and videos from respective websites, I also receive loads of promotional pop us and videos which are related to the searches that I do on e-commerce websites. Recently, I was looking for a house and did an extensive search through various online portals. I started receiving promotional popups and videos on houses, home loans and home renovation on the above mention websites.

This is how marketers collect data from online portals and start promoting their products and services. The best part is that the products and services that they promote are related to the products or services that I am looking for. They tend to know my preferences through my search filters and publish products which would suitmy requirements. Although this technology saves a lot of time and money, but it also creates a fear that we are being monitored or followed.

Marketers utilise information from website searched and design schemes which suits the individual's requirements. This helps them target potential customers more efficiently. With their highly attractive promotional strategy, they try to lure in as many customers as possible and generate business out of it.