Part one of the discussion
Please respond to the following:
The executive management team of a medium-sized business wants to be more customer focused in the marketplace. Because you oversee the CRM, you have been assigned to support the newly created social media marketing plan:
- Describe the best steps to identify customers and the different ways they contact your company. Defend your answer.
- Explain to the executive management team how the steps you recommended will be incorporated in the organization’s ERP.
- Be sure to respond to at least one of your classmates’ posts.
Camelia Thomas
RE: Week 6 Discussion
Hello class and professor,
The best steps to identifying customers when it comes to social media would be to survey the customer, find out all the information we can about the competitors and advertise our company. Create a Facebook page for the company and have the customers do surveys to see what needs the customer would be wanting. That way we would have a general idea of what the customer is looking for. Doing this would create more of an advantage against the competitors and it would bring customers to our company instead of the competitors. Checking the competitors’ reviews would give our company an idea of what customers’ likes and dislikes are. Being able to see this would help our company be customer-oriented and would be beneficial to our customers. Therefore, it would bring more business to us. Advertisement is always good on social media. It is not very costly to do it online. Any type of advertisement is better than none and I think social media is a good platform for advertisement. Having a social media account for the business the customers would be able to contact us through that with any questions or concerns that they may have. We would be able to be readily available to the customers immediately. We could put a link on there that the customers can click on with our phone numbers, emails, and a chat option to be able to contact someone in the company. Explaining the steps to the executive management team would be being able to explain the advantages to these steps and the benefits we would gain by using them. Being able to identify the customers’ wants, giving them a platform that is easily accessible to them and advertisement. Being able to prove how this would work with data to show would also be beneficial. Creating a spreadsheet with the marketing strategies and the financial gains from using these steps would prove that this is a valid option to do. Explain to the team the importance of knowing the ccompetitors’markets and understanding the clients’ needs and being available to the clients would be the wanted outcome for our organization.
Denise
Angela Gammon
RE: Week 6 Discussion
Social media has become a great avenue in locating customers near and far. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, and Instagram have become some of the worlds most highly used platforms. When finding a customer base, using these plaforms could be an invaulable tool in reaching potential clients. As far as experience goes, my company gets nearly 50% of its clientele from Facebook alone. We are able to post adds, create polls and surveys, and offer discounts and coupons towards our services. Most of our clients are directed to our website that allows them to fill out a questionaire for a quote, or potential employee, and we describe alot of our services and what we provide for our clients. Most contacts are driven my email, Facebook Messenger, and Facebook adds. The other 20% is word of mouth and cold calling. My work truck is wrapped with our logo and advertising. We get about 15% of our first time calls from my advertising truck alone. The other 15% is generated adds though AdWords with Goolge which is another great advertising tools to target a specific audience. We are able to track and monitor the types of people that our team is reaching out to for our services and what types of services they are inquiring about and we are able to scale our metrics from the data we collectly from each potential client. Understanding who our clientele are and the demographics they represent is easily explained to the executives when you already have the metrics you need to decribe to the their target audience at hand. Campaign Management, like what we use in Adwords, is a great system to employ that runs in the background all the time. It takes a liitle while to locate your niche audience by the keywords you are utilizing, but once that is refined, it usually becomes an invaluable marketing tool that normally pays for itself over time. Also building customer relationships through positive services and post-relationship efforts also is a great avenue in retaining customers for future services or reoccuring services. By exceeding their expectations and generally caring about our clients we build a family base that extends well past our initial service with them. This brings them on as future clients, and encourages them to tell their friends and family or our services if the the need ever arrises.
Shannon Martin
RE: Week 6 Discussion
There are many ways to identify customers, but the best place to start is through customer analytics. Customer analytics is the gathering, classifying, comparing, and studying customer data to identify buying trends, at-risk customers and potential future opportunities” (Baltzan, 1, pg. 236). We can use the analytics to figure out exactly what our customers want when the are most likely to buy, emerging trends and ideas of new markets to expand into. Our goal is to retain and attract customers and the better we understand their behaviors and what we can do to improve their experiences, so they keep coming back (Hogan, 2, para. 63). The analytics can also track all communications between the customer and the company. This is important because it will give the company “a detailed understanding of each customers products and services record” (Baltzan, 1, pg. 236) so we can provide the customer with a personalized experience each time they reach out to us.
The CRM steps will fold neatly into the existing ERP. Because the ERP is already gathering data, it will be easy to add these data points. Once the CRM is incorporated, the benefits will be seen immediately. For example, our contact centers will be able to see a customer’s purchases and prior contact; sales will be able to monitor current buying trends and be able to drop unpopular items or add new items and marketing can see when purchasing is at its peak and target its efforts to maximize its reach.
Sources:
1. Paige Baltzan. 2020. Information Systems. McGraw-Hill Education 5th edition. Text. p. 236
2. Steve Hogan. June 29, 2021. What is the Customer Journey and Why Do You Need to Create One? https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/customer-journey/
Part two of the discussion
Please respond to the following:
Customers use mobile devices for a wide range of shopping and commercial activities. Mobile devices are becoming an attractive way to pay for products or conduct banking. Select an organization with which you regularly do business, but not one you have used in a previous discussion. Do not repeat an example that has been posted by another student.
Describe the benefits this organization provides through its mobile computing options.
- What risks most concern you in using this app?
- How would you mitigate these risks?
- Be sure to respond to at least one of your classmates’ posts.
Shannon Martin
RE: Week 5 Discussion
An app I frequently use is the Verizon app. I use it to pay my bill and check data usage. This saves me having to send in checks to make payments and helps me curb data usage, so I am not hit by massive fees. I use the app knowing I will have to cede some of my privacy and Verizon is going to take some information from me but, when I started to research this question, I was a little shocked at what I have agreed for the app to collect. For example, my using the app allows Verizon to:
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(Verizon, 1)
This list is just a small sample of what I am allowing Verizon to do with my phone in exchange for using its app.
Unfortunately, giving up privacy is part of living and functioning in today’s world, and there is very little we can do about it. The FTC does have some recommendations on how to try to protect some of your privacy such as going into your settings and checking the app’s permissions. I was surprised when I checked and saw how many apps had access to my microphone.
The FTC also recommends limiting location permissions (“How to”, 2). If location is turned on, every app can see where you have been. Does Instagram really need to know I went to the library? If apps need to use your location, like maps or weather, have permissions set to use only while using the app.
A final suggestion is to not sign into apps with a social network account (“How to”, 2). If you sign in using one of those accounts, you are not only letting the app collect information from your social networking account, but you are also giving your social network permission to collect data from the app (“How to”, 2).
Sources:
1. Verizon. 2016. https://www.privacygrade.org/apps/com.vzw.hss.myverizon.html
2. How to Protect Your Privacy on Apps. May, 2021.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-protect-your-privacy-apps
Kelly Ruthruff
RE: Week 5 Discussion
Online banking and the use of my credit unions app have changed the entire way we bank today. We have been with Keypoint Credit Union for over 20 years. In the past having to drive to a bank to make deposits was just a way of life. Now we can make deposits directly from the phone. I currently have balance alerts set up to be aware of the need to move money from other accounts if needed. Online banking has drastically changed the way we bank. I have not been to a bank in years. We even did a virtual car loan through the bank recently and that was also a seamless process. Opening additional savings accounts through the application is easy as well. The application allows users to request assistance if needed from the bank helpdesk. Online bill pay is my favorite feature of the app. No longer having to write out checks, buy stamps and mail the actual payment back to the vendor is a real-time saver.
What risks most concern you in using this app?
- One of the main concerns I have with online banking would be if someone were to gain access to our account.
- Identity theft is something that can happen to anyone.
- Email notifications that appear to be from the credit union but are not actually from them that might lead to phishing of my information.
How would you mitigate these risks?
- When I am not at home, I don’t allow my phone to join outside Wi-Fi networks. I want to ensure that all mobile connections are secure for my device.
- Maintaining a passcode with higher security is crucial and not reusing any past credentials for a passcode.
- As emails come from the bank, I always check to see what email address the message was sent from. I will often go directly to the app instead of using any click-throughs in the email that could potentially phish my information or credentials.
David Siegrist
Don’t get lulled into a sense of full security on the phone application for banking. If location services or Siri/ Alexa are turned on in the phone it may integrate with the banking application for ease of use. US Bank is now integrating voice technology within its application. If default settings are not changed, users may end up surprised when that inadvertent voice command reveals personal banking information (1,2). In order to ensure that the banking application is not integrating those software settings make sure to turn of default settings, and do not accept third party ad-ons in the banking app for ease of logging in. Make sure that the authentication uses 2 factor and it is an approved financial encryption system such as payment card industry certified, FIPS 140-2 256-bit encryption. That may require calling the bank and asking the support team for more information about the application. (3)
Sources:
1. /c-balance-at-a-party/articleshow/64662888.cms?from=mdr”>https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/magazines/panache/alexa-siri-can-now-do-personal-banking-but-may-also-reveal-your-a/c-balance-at-a-party/articleshow/64662888.cms?from=mdr
2. https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2018/06/20/banking-smart-speaker-security-concerns/
3. com/encryption-requirements-for-banks-financial-services“>https://info.townsendsecurity.com/encryption-requirements-for-banks-financial-services
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