Marketing

I picked this from the Herman Trend Alert Herman

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Trend Alert: Building Relationships
October 15, 2003

Wal-Mart stores have a long-established tradition of greeting customers as
they walk in the door. The company typically hires senior citizens for this
important position, enjoying their maturity, dedication, and sincerity in
serving customers and representing the company. People shopping in Wal-Mart
Stores have an expectation that, if they have questions or concerns, there
will be someone right there at the front door to help them solve their
problems.

We’ve seen other retailers follow this same practice—from restaurants to
boutique shops to automobile dealers. No sales focus or other
responsibilities are involved; just a warm welcome. A number of employers,
particularly those with large facilities, employ greeters—to monitor
security as well as foster those valuable relationships.

Does this make sense? Will more employers assign people to serve as
greeters, to welcome customers and other visitors, answer questions, and
solve problems? Will these employees be solely focused on this role, or will
this responsibility be an additional task assumed by employees with other
duties? What difference will it make?

As technology fills an increasing role in consumer interaction, customers
will feel more separated from companies they do business with. This
depreciation of customer-supplier relationships will erode loyalty, putting
dependable revenue flow at risk. Wise employers will strengthen human-to-
human interaction to build loyalty and consumer satisfaction, particularly
at critical connection points like welcoming people and responding to
complaints. Whenever someone may be confused about how to interact with an
organization, opportunity for human contact will be especially valuable.

Union Regional Medical Center, Monroe, North Carolina, stations official
greeters in the lobby next to the reception desk. These greeters add an
extra welcome to what visitors already receive from the receptionists. They
answer questions, solve problems, and escort people to the correct
elevators, hospital services or facilities, or offices in the building.

Surprisingly, the people who perform this work, on a scheduled basis, are
hospital executives and mangers. Being helped by a high level executive
(yes, even the Chief Executive Officer participates) sends a clear message
to visitors and employees that treating guests (and patients) well is
essential. This is the future.

https://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/29/business/media/29clea.html?pagewanted=print

First, ESPN put its name on a restaurant chain. Then Fox Sports followed with its own branded restaurants. Now Clear Channel Communications in San Antonio, the nation\’s largest owner of radio stations, has licensed the name of the biggest local sports radio station in Minnesota to start KFAN the Restaurant.

Over the years, dot com companies have struggled to establish a presence in the ‘real’ world, to remind potential customers of their existence outside the confinements of a computer screen.

Online travel company Expedia.com has come up with an interesting solution: build ‘wired’ cafés at airports, where, after all, every passer-by could be an existing or potential Expedia customer. Each café table has a ‘road warrior’ station, with phone jacks, free internet access and electrical outlets for devices and recharging cell phones.

The first Expedia Café opened its doors in San Jose Airport in 2001, and a second one in Los Angeles International Airport last year. The food, beverage and retail services are provided by HMSHost Corp.

Online Marketing Strategies: Think Horizontally
by Richard Chambers, President, TravelCLICKinteractive

On-line hotel marketing has traditionally been built in a vertical format. That is, the hotel Website is constructed with a Home page, followed by Accommodations, Dining, Meeting Rooms, Golf, Spa and other individual pages with navigation buttons guiding the consumer through the myriad of services offered within the hotel. This approach is much like the sales brochure design that uses different lengths of paper for each capability so that when you stack all the sheets together you can read each headline. These ‘first generation’ sites were built and marketed for the early consumers who were looking on-line for hotels.

Read the article: https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/All_Latest_News/4017147.html

Belært af erfaringer fra Rank Xerox i USA, har amerikanske forskere ført bevis for, at det i et marked præget af hård konkurrence kun er den helt ekstraordinære serviceoplevelse, som skaber egentlig kundeloyalitet. Hotelkæden Canadian Pacific har testet teorierne og høstet en markant omsætningsfremgang. [Read more…] about Tilfredse kunder ? er det loyale kunder?