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Scott Pulsipher, the former general manager of Amazon Webstore and now Needle president, believes retailers aren't taking full advantage of a valuable marketing strategy -- the brand advocate.
A new Needle survey reveals just one in four brands are tapping the valuable marketing resource. One reason for the lack of advocacy strategy may be that mobilizing the loyal shopper and customer takes a bit of work. Needle has created a technology platform aimed at easing that workload and let retailers leverage passionate fans to drive a bigger consumer base as well as revenue.
Retail Customer Experience talked with Pulsipher on what retailers need to do when it comes to mobilizing advocates, and get his insight on best strategy.
RCE: The idea of empowering retail advocates appears to be an advanced approach in customer relationship management. Yet CRM has been around for nearly decades and is still not a universal effort in retail. Why not and what's been the big challenge?
Pulsipher: CRM was initially developed with a B2B context in mind, with a relatively finite volume of customers, and a standard process by which companies marketed to them, acquired them, and served and supported them. But, in many consumer contexts, CRM has real limitations considering things such as the sheer volume of customers, the high variations among the different segments and the number of different interaction types. In retail, it is much more "transactional" than "relationship" driven.
Second, CRM effectiveness is limited because of the disparate systems that are prevalent in so many companies, which have been further complicated by the rapid rise in social platforms and their role in customer service. Having a single view of the customer, and thus the best means, by which to manage the relationship with them remains beyond...