Are marketing billions being wasted?

Service providers need to be tracking what is being said in news forums, blogs and other social media about their company, their service and their competitors so they can uncover issues and opportunities, Neale-May added. They need better IT systems to both capture and analyze this customer feedback and tighter bonds between IT and marketing to capitalize on the analysis, Neale-May said.

Among the key survey findings:

• 47% of respondents said the popularity of social networking and user-generated content is the most significant digital lifestyle shift impacting the market.
• More than 84% said the cost of acquiring and keeping customers is going up.
• 63% are seeing higher rates of churn and attrition, most due to competitive offerings, pricing, and inadequate customer service.
• The biggest sources of customer pain are: unmet needs and expectations (59%), followed by product/service usability and complexity (43%), billing errors (40%), as well as quality or relevancy of service or product offerings (32%).
• More than half of the CMOs surveyed said their companies need to improve their responses to customer pain points, and 89% said they need to get better at customer handling and response.
• More than half believe their organization is not “culturally or organizationally aligned around the customer” and that “business practices, billing policies, and personnel are not ‘customer friendly.’”
• Almost three-fourths expect back-office systems to enable faster and more effective implementation of marketing strategy, and 60% of markets provide strategic directors for system investments. But more than 35% see “deficiencies in IT, back office, or operational systems that subvert marketing claims and fail to meet customer demands and expectations.”
• The CMOs’ most common complaints about IT involved “inadequate or incompatible IT systems or databases as well as information siloed in different functional areas.”

The Customer Experience Board is a special interest group within the CMO Council that directly deals with service providers include telecom, cable, satellite, wireless, and Internet companies. The CMO Council is global organization of 4500 corporate market leaders and decision makers.