“Customer Experience” was elected the hottest marketing buzzword of 2009. Yet… How can you actually measure customer experiences? How can you benchmark your company’s efforts? And consequently improve your marketing mix?

Our next Vlerick Marketing Informal is zooming into these questions by bringing you the experts in the field on Thursday January 28th, Brussels. Furthermore, the FIRST FIVE to subscribe via info@staff.vlerickalumni.com using the CODE: BAQMAR can join for FREE (instead of 30 euro).

(we do charge for no-show ).

Keynotes:

* Christophe Vergult – Director Customer Experience Research, Insites Consulting

“The Relationship Monitor”

What are today the success factors of a strong customer relationship? InSites Consulting’s Relationship Monitor reveals the answer for 8 industries based on a in-depth study in 8 countries. The answer lies in compelling experiences tapping into underlying consumer needs, consistent with the brand promise over all touch points.

* Prof. Dr. Christel Claeys – Consultant 4C Consulting, Prof. HUB

“The Naïve to Natural model”

Christel will elaborate on a home-made methodology that enables a company to determine to what extent it is offering customer-centric experiences. Depending on the position of a company on the model, different action steps are outlined to improve the extent of customer-centricity. The model is backed up with data gathered in the Belgian market.

* Case study: to be confirmed soon

More info and subscriptions.
Subscribe today!

Last week I went to the pricing-seminar of the Vlerick marketing alumni and I saw three interesting presentation on the topic ‘pricing’:

Prof. Deva Rangarajan first gave some background about the theoretical framework behind pricing. He started with the quote of Raymond Corey “Marketing is the moment of truth-all of marketing comes to focus in the pricing decision”. This supported his point that pricing is the only one of the 4 P’s where you actually take something from consumer and that despite his importance, price is the least research P. This explains also according to him why a lot of companies struggle with the pricing process. He also made twe other important points about pricing. The first was that you have other tools than price to work round price perception (f.e packaging). His second statement was that you first have to know what you consumer values before you start changing the price. Because your price is a function of the value the consumer attributes to your product.

Francois Delvaux from the House of Marketing started with some results of a survey in which 50% states that they will have to increase their prices while 62% thinks their products offer a unique added value. Building on this “contradiction” he explained some pitfalls in pricing:
-creating higher sales goals=> puts pressure on the market
-defend price-increase by offer free value-adding services=> lowers value perception of the company
-give lower price to people who ask for it=> you attract price sensitive people + existing consumers are angry
For Mr. Delvaux pricing need to be a good match between perceived value and the price so for him in economic dowturn you should add value, make offers adapted to different targets and make choices on who you want to invest.

Kurt Boons from the Belgian Post showed the best practice of his “journey to pricing excellence”. He stressed the fact that pricing needs to be something in line with strategy and the importance of consistency in the pricing policy/management.

Next Vlerick marketing Alumni event: www.customer-experience.be. Thanks to our collaboration with the people of the Vlerick Marketing Alumni we obtained a special offer for this conference for baqmar-members:
-subscription 495 euro
+
-welcome pack (book colin shaw+ bottle of the famous grouse) value +/- 60 euro for free
All you need to do is use the code thrills in your online subscription.