Clients just want to be loved

By Helen Vause

It's called nurture marketing.

And if you think that sounds like a saccharine philosophy straight from an American marketing expert ... you would, at first glance, be partly right.

But, says the man behind the message, ignore it and you could be the poorer for it.

James Cecil is a Washington-based expert on customer relations management who specialises in showing big businesses, notably Microsoft, how to attract and keep customers. He was brought to New Zealand for the annual Armstrong Jones roadshow to impart his wisdom to financial planners.

Son of a struggling Kentucky farmer, he learned early in life that nurturing equals growth.

"My dad used to say that if you want to keep squirrels on the place you grow nut trees ... if you want to keep neighbours coming around, you learn how to barbecue mutton."

While Cecil acknowledges that nurturing is a typically feminine notion often undervalued by the "time poor" in all types of business, he cites a Harvard Business School study that has spurred US businesses to take notice.

It found nearly 70 per cent of customer defections are caused by nothing more than a general feeling that the supplier is indifferent to the buyer.

Cecil's nurture marketing philosophy is common sense plus strategy and technology. In today's pressured business environment, where best practice often stays in the too-hard basket, the good news is that technology can help maintain client and customer contacts.

This doesn't mean an electronic voice singing "Merry Christmas, Mrs Jones," he says. The high-tech solution to customer indifference and defection starts with the intelligent analysis of a database and the use of new customer relationship management software.

"It is a sophisticated way of working out what you need to say to whom, and when you need to say it," says Cecil.

"It is a way to say the things and send the appropriate messages that all people have an expectation of in all relationships, including business relationships.

"If a competitor gets to your clients and pays more attention to nurturing relationships with them than you do, you will lose those clients."

He says the communication opportunities offered by a database are frequently not recognised or used. But with the right software, telephone technology and the internet, even the most understaffed company can improve its relationship with its customers.

As a simple example of effective nurturing, Cecil cites a successful financial planner in California who recognised the value of relationship building and tailored a number of staying-in-touch letters to be automatically sent at the appropriate times.

Microsoft had to devise ways for its huge army of providers to manage customer relations.

"They are technical people and not very public relations-oriented," says Cecil.

"They are the aloof wallflowers in the marketplace. They needed the skills to get the dates."

American Express needed to nurture relationships with the thousands of financial planners who clear business through it.

The answer was to research the main difficulties those planners faced and give them the tools, including model communications strategies.

"Amex realised it needed to take care of those planners in order for everyone to do better," says Cecil.

"The big limitation is not creating great product but developing relationships ... Software that lets us do that effectively makes the computer a very powerful marketing partner."

American Airlines invested heavily in keeping its best customers happy with good results, says Cecil.

The airline spent more than $US10 million developing its American Airlines Advantage programme.

Realising that the frequent business passenger is the most profitable customer in the sky, the airline put emphasis on a programme of rewards, benefits and generally keeping its best customers happy by meeting their needs.

"Nurture marketing is now mandatory for business in the US," says Cecil.

"Its value will become understood in New Zealand."

But trying to stay best friends at the push of a button has pitfalls, he warns, and your strategy has to be exactly right.