Now that the Web Summit is over, it’s time to take stock and draw a few conclusions from what was discussed.
Ragy Thomas, the founder of Sprinklr, a unified customer care management platform, for example had some very interesting things to say. Businesses, he said, are wasting money to the extent of spending €463 billion in 2017 on advertising to new customers but only 2% of that amount is being invested in customer care.
In his speech at the Web Summit, the boss of this customer care management platform noted that 80% of company billings come from 20% of loyal customers and that the focus must be placed on this 20%. According to Marketeer, Ragy Thomas asserted that “These are the best customers. They are the customers who prefer a brand’s products over any other even if they have a few errors or defects. And most companies spend more money on trying to attract new customers than on keeping the ones they already have.”
One example he gave is brands which present new products on social networks. Instead of receiving feedback from possible buyers, the feedback they get is mostly from customers relating their bad experiences with the brand. In 9 out of 10 cases, these comments have an effect on the brand’s perception amongst possible/future customers.
For that reason, Ragy Thomas argues that customer care is the new marketing and that brands need to allocate greater investment to keep their current customers. The founder of Sprinklr also remarked that “This has to be done in conjunction with the customer care and marketing teams. And at most companies these teams don’t talk and don’t share information or tools. And that translates into a waste of money.” Whatever the size of the business, combining customer care and marketing information and using it jointly will create an increasingly interlinked world and a greater volume of data, and that is a company’s best marketing strategy.
