"Canguro", the Spanish word for kangaroo got me thinking. Well, not just because it has a sweet ring to it - but it is also the Spanish word for babysitter. And what does a babysitter do? A canguro, or babysitter cares for our young. Now take a logical broadjump and ponder "caring" in the customer sense.
After several conversations with Marketing Science Professor Kalyan Raman, of Northwestern University's Kellogg School, it became more apparent that as we strive to exceed our customers' expectations and address some of our burning business themes - "Customer 360", "Customer Experience" or "Customer Support" - we often overlook caring, which truly is this business unifier.
In his words:"Caring is a differentiator-done well, it sets a company apart from its rivals; Caring is unifying-it unites the organization through a shared vision."
From what I know of Professor Raman's work in Integrated Marketing and Communications (and he is specialized in computational advertising and allocation modeling) he applies evidence-based approaches to decision making, and requires students to take real world projects with real data to model, analyze and then create information. He has proven that this approach can be applied to most any problem, which may be the reason that he's been involved in solving problems in disciplines as far afield as the medical profession.
But back to the theme of Caring in business practice, how do we know when we're doing it right - and how can we find the ROI within customer insights and truly affect the bottom line?
Raman says "Caring opens a new way of looking at business practices, because today's customers - socially outfitted in the driver's seat - are equipped and prepared to challenge conventional or traditional marketing tactics. Social customers have become suspicious of marketing devices developed in times that were entirely different from those of today."
"Caring is central to connecting with customers and earning their loyalty. We all understand caring intuitively - and paradoxically - that can get in the way of being truly caring. Caring is a subtle and elusive concept because it means different things to different people, it is culturally determined, socially influenced and dynamic because it's meaning changes over time even for the same person. Caring is influenced by the organizational structure and therefore visionary leadership is a key element in caring."
On November 9th, ecenta and SAP hold a Chicago-based customer event where we (I work for the latter) will have the pleasure of inviting Prof. Kalyan Raman - to continue this dialogue amongst our customers. He'll share how a new scientific understanding of Caring can be harnessed to improve the process of connecting with customers, engaging them, improving customer satisfaction and dramatically increasing profitability.