On-Line Data Collection

As one of the most talked-about aspects of wireless business, the Internet probably already has altered your operations in some way. Perhaps your billing department is experimenting with electronic billing, or your CSRs are testing Web-based customer care. Maybe your marketing department is immersed in e-commerce. Add a little wireless Internet access and over-the-air activation to the mix, and the Internet will affect every department in some way.

But it doesn't stop there. The Internet also is changing data collection. Whether you will use the Web to collect data about existing customers, as a way to look for new customers or to conduct market research, the way you gather and use data never will be the same.

Jeff Boehm, Ardent Software director of product management, said some carriers already use their Web sites to capture information about existing customers and feed it into their data warehouses. Classic uses for the data they collect are: to understand demographic information about existing customers, to sell customers new or added services or to measure the effectiveness of new service programs.

"The Web becomes, in many ways, another collection mechanism for pulling data into the operational system," he said. "(Carriers) need to understand where there are opportunities to get more dollars out of existing customers."

For instance, AT&T Wireless uses the customer information it collects from its on-line store to find out the age and gender of existing customers, as well as their reasons for purchasing a phone. It also asks them whether they are new to the category, or if they have churned from another carrier, said Ken Woo, AT&T Wireless director of corporate communications.

Although the Web is a valuable resource of information about existing customers, Boehm warned that you must not sacrifice the quality of information you can collect over the phone or in person for the convenience of the Internet.

"(The phone) is a much more prevalent source of information," he said. "You can capture more information that, in turn, can feed more valuable data into the warehouse environment."

You also can use on-line data collection to prospect for new customers. Yancy Oshita, NCR director of communications industry marketing, CRM solutions, said the Gartner Group forecasts that Web sites will generate new sources of external data and more than double the data between 1999 and 2004. He pointed to Web sites that allow you to send free greeting cards as places where this new data will originate.

"If you look at how those greeting cards are structured, it is a lot of profiling data," he said. "Race, religion, e-mail addresses, whether people are part of the same household -- can you imagine the market value if I send a card and let them know that a household is having a baby or, more specifically, a baby boy?"

Another example of on-line data collection is Web sites that offer people free computers if they agree to receive advertising.

"That data will be organized in the next three or four years," he said. "The next trend will be to make it all available. It is just another source to collect and develop the data warehouse."

If you buy this detailed data in the future, you will be able to create targeted marketing plans based on detailed demographic and psychographic data. Boehm said on-line forms allow potential customers to tell you the products in which they are interested. Then, you can correlate that data with information you have about what similar people have purchased to make special offers to them.

Beware, however, of bogus information.

Trish Brothers, Firstlogic product specialist, pointed out that it is difficult to collect data about people who are not already your customers because they don't want to give up their personal information. As a result, they often will enter bogus names and addresses. Data-cleansing tools can identify whether the data is valid. Carriers can set up rules to filter out junk data from the main database.

"It is especially important to cleanse data on-line because people have a tendency to get distracted on-line," she said. You should try to collect clean data as far upstream as possible."

Boehm agreed, noting that the uptake in Internet data collection has created an increased demand for data-cleansing tools.

"Carriers must understand the level of that data's quality before they start to use it for decision making," he said. "The worst thing you can do is take errant data and make a decision on it. If you know what the level of quality is, your decisions will reflect that."

Also keep in mind that using data you gather on-line for your own direct-marketing campaigns can open the door for privacy lawsuits.

"We have to be very careful because of the rules that have been put out there on customer privacy," Woo said. "We only use (the data we gather) internally for our own market research and understanding what the customer needs are and to try to stay ahead of the curve as far as needs versus expectations."

ON-LINE MARKET RESEARCHThe Internet has made market research much easier, whether you decide to conduct the research yourself or through a third party. Carriers are using the Internet for measuring customer satisfaction, gauging the profitability of new products, predicting the effects of increased prices or to find new market segments, said Eric Rasmussen, Market Facts senior account executive.

Market Facts' Interactive Solutions Group (ISG) has had good luck with business-to-business response rates over the Internet, said Donna Wydra, ISG director of sales and marketing. Even now that the novelty of the Internet is wearing off, people still are willing to fill out Internet surveys because they are so fast and easy. Unlike telephone surveys, the Internet allows you to include graphics, which enhances concept, advertising and package testing. In contrast to mall-based market research, you don't have to send dozens of concept boards to malls in various markets. You simply attach a file or point the user to a Web site.

"The ease of that and the clarity with which people see it is just tremendous," Wydra said.

Rasmussen said on-line research offers the best of both worlds -- it combines the fast turnaround time of a telephone survey with the convenience of a mail study. Internet surveys are fast because customers can click their answers quickly instead of waiting for you to ask them a list of questions.

"We can get our responses back and coded quickly, and people can fill it out at their own convenience," he said. "If someone finds that he will not have time to complete it until 2 a.m., he can do it at 2 a.m.. It doesn't matter to us. We don't have people on the phone waiting for a response."

Wydra said Internet users are not as wary about sharing information if you approach them the right way. The key to Web-based market research is to ask permission from people before you begin sending them surveys or asking them to visit your Web site. Market Facts has a panel of people who have agreed to participate in market research that it surveys regularly. ISG selects a sample of people from the panel and asks them to visit a secure Web site. Each user has a unique protected user identification number to enter the site.

"People are used to receiving and sharing information over the Internet, so asking them to do so is not as odd as tapping them on the shoulder in the mall and asking them to come to a site for an interview," Wydra said.

ISG has found the Internet is a great place to interview business-to-business people because they might not be willing to answer questions over the phone, and you don't often find them in the mall. They are much more likely to converse with you over the Internet because it is convenient for them, she said.

On-line data collection can offer you a competitive advantage in several ways, whether you learn more about existing or potential customers, or for market research.

"When carriers realize the competitive advantage (of on-line data collection), there will be a mass adoption of it to get that next big step forward," Boehm said. "A lot of them are playing with it today and trying to get information. It will take off in the near future as they start to recognize the benefits."

Several companies introduced new customer-relationship-management (CRM) products this summer. NCR announced its Relationship Optimizer, a CRM software solution that turns marketing planning processes from product-focused to customer-event driven. Relationship Optimizer begins with a detailed analysis of a customer's behavior. It permits near-real-time management of both customer communications and the channels through which those communications take place. Relationship Optimizer has five key attributes that enable it to provide a complete CRM solution across all types of customer channels, including the Web, call centers, ATMs, kiosks or field sales.

Riverbed Technologies announced that Oracle8i Lite will support its ScoutSync technology to improve CRM data access on portable devices. Riverbed is working with Oracle to enable sales and service professionals to travel with their customer information in a remote Palm portable mobile environment. Oracle8i Lite's open architecture enables Riverbed's ScoutSync platform to bridge portable devices and CRM applications directly with enterprise sales applications on a server.

Ardent Software's BI Blueprint product enables users to browse its PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management meta data in familiar terms and hierarchies and export that meta data to applications throughout the enterprise. Ardent's Extract Packages Application Connection Kit allows the PeopleSoft Enterprise Warehouse to be populated with data from heterogeneous sources, facilitating the job-design process for EPM implementation. The software enables you to make strategic business decisions that increase customer satisfaction, manage risk, maximize profitability and reduce costs.

MSI and Prime Response unveiled a strategic alliance to deliver a wireless CRM solution. Ceer, MSI's CRM product, integrates real-time customer usage data w ith customer-service information and quality-of-service information. Prime Response's Prime Vantage software executes a targeted direct marketing program. The new solution enables carriers to analyze, plan, execute and track 1-to-1 marketing programs.

Acxiom and PerformanceData agreed to link databases to combine credit data and real property/demographic data. The product will link selected elements of Acxiom's InfoBase list with Performance-Data's individual credit attributes. The agreement combines Acxiom's real property file of more than 73 million residential properties and demographic information about more than 95 million households with PerformanceData's credit information about more than 140 million individuals. Only records that are present in both files will be available through the new service.

Acxiom also announced an upgrade of Rapidus, an application of the company's Solvitur Market Management Solution. Rapidus enables data access for analyzing and extracting up-to-date customer and prospect information. It accesses data within each record such as demographics, product type and purchase history, allowing the creation of complex segmentation and market profiles. In addition, Rapidus is integrated with the Solvitur Planner, a campaign-planning and -management tool.

Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) and Acxiom announced a strategic alliance that will expand their respective distribution channels. Acxiom provides a wide spectrum of data products, data-integration services, modeling, analysis, and information-technology outsourcing services, as well as data warehousing and decision-support services. D&B provides business-to-business credit, marketing and purchasing information and receivable-management services.

D&B will cleanse and rationalize Acxiom's business-marketing information and allow Acxiom to offer D&B business-marketing-information products to Acxiom customers. D&B will offer to its customers InfoBase, the Acxiom business- and consumer-marketing database. Acxiom will strengthen its database with D&B's marketing information. Acxiom's proprietary data-linking and integration capabilities will become a key component of the D&B database. Both D&B and Acxiom plan to develop new solutions and strengthen existing products for marketing, direct marketing, sales and customer-service applications, each offering joint solutions to the marketplace.