The Living Dead in Your Database...

At the end of last year, a world famous Asian-based hotel chain that shall remain nameless changed the format of their long-standing loyalty programme. They reached out to all their members by email to communicate the changes and all the wonderful benefits that they would bring to their loyal frequent stayers. Or at least they thought they had communicated with everyone, until that is, I met them at their corporate offices in mid March of this year.

“But we emailed you and sent you a new membership card? Didn’t you receive the email? You must have got your new membership card.”

“No,” I replied, “and I had no idea until today that the programme had actually changed!”

“Neither did I,” added my colleague who was attending the meeting with me and who is also a member and a frequent stayer.

Despite having been a member for close to a decade, and having stayed at two of their properties in Asia since the rebirth of the programme, nobody, not even the call centre operative that took my credit card number and membership details for the bookings, nor the front desk staff to whom I gave my membership number at check-in, nor the cashier who swiped my AMEX when I checked out, actually mentioned the new programme at all. Nobody.

The head of CRM was a little shocked. And with a material cost for every card sent that the consumer never receives, he was likely wondering how much of his marketing budget he had wasted.

A week or so after the meeting, the CRM team contacted me to confirm my earlier suspicions that they had sent the email to an old corporate email address, and had mailed the membership card to an address that I had not lived at for more than five years. They said they would update my details and send the card again.

That was two months ago and to date neither my colleague nor I have received anything.

So, what’s my point?

It is a fact, or more correctly put, my belief, that consumers care far less about their relationship with the brand than the brands actually think they do. When I move house or job, I like many will notify my bank and credit card companies and perhaps my frequent flyer and loyalty programmes – but it is highly unlikely that I will update other membership and loyalty programmes with all the brands I interact with in any given year; and so these will only get done on a need-to-do-basis and as and when the brand reminds me to. There is no easier way to substantiate my theory, than by looking at the lifecycle of your customer database and the accuracy of the information that it contains. From email address to postal address and even employment details – they all tell a story, and are fundamental to the success of any CRM or loyalty programme. But when data is managed in silos, organisations are creating more problems than they are solving, and this lack of a ‘single customer view’ that is managed proactively with its value clearly in mind, can only negatively impact the customer experience.

While I like the brand in question and the membership card is always in my travel wallet, there was clearly a gap in the customer experience for me both before and after the programme changed. If I was an advocate of the brand and had fully bought in to their approach to the marketing conversation, and was anticipating their communications and offers from the original programme, I would have updated my contact details with them the moment I changed email address or moved house. The same would likely be true of most brand advocates of any consumer brand. With this hotel chain,if a solid customer experience marketing framework was in place across the organisation, my contact details should have been validated at check-in and triggered a notification of a new email address and mailing address, and a warning that I may not have received the original communications and membership card. But it wasn’t and it didn’t, so I am still cardless.

This also highlights another important point: marketing and how the communication experience is managed is not just a back office function, particularly in the services industry; it should run through your entire organisation with staff perhaps even being incentivised to confirm basic, but very important information in your consumer files.

When you make changes to long-standing programmes and have invested hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in rolling them out, think beyond single independent channels of communication, and more importantly invest wisely in ensuring your customers actually know about the changes that you are making. In a drive to be efficient and communicate by email instead of telephone, for example, this high-end hotel chain has actually become less efficient.

In the last 14 years, one thing that has not changed is my mobile phone number. And in an environment where mobile numbers are now portable, I imagine I am not alone. If they had just picked up the phone to confirm my contact details before spending upwards of U.S.$3 to mail each and every card, they would not only have better utilised their budget, but they would also have invested in the resurrection of the living dead in their database, and more importantly created a better customer experience for all.

In the modern marketing ecosystem of ‘tweets’ and ‘likes’, the data you hold on your customers is a large part of the revenue equation. And it goes without question that any brand must be doing all they can to keep their database clean, fresh, and alive.

For now though, I will not proactively update my details with this hotel chain, but will continue to be one of the living dead, as the whole experience makes for a great case study in how to get it wrong!