Try something. I just did this and its actually kind of funny. First, a flashback.....
I was sitting today at my Acura dealership getting my car serviced (found out I had a slightly bent rim - someone else once said that - about me, though - not my car) and was reading some magazines I brought as I sipped on their pretty customer-friendly a.k.a. decent coffee. The TV was blaring in the background about heavy rains on Long Island (CNN was on) and there were at least a dozen fellow Acura partisans sitting around the place with me. I read an interesting little article in Business Week on Sony v. Samsung more or less.
What become apparent to me when reading about the two companies was the absolute cultural differences and the lack of customer friendly chops that Sony presented. They are about as corporate as it gets - especially given their market tripe around the "Sony Lifestyle." In fact, if you try to find out about Sony technology products you run across their ironically labeled website www.sonystyle.com. But how does this apply to a company that thinks that to turn around its problems, it has to do the following:
- Cut 10,000 employees
- Close an unknown number of factories
- Reshuffle management (as a means of getting what BusinessWeek called "famously fractious" divisions to work together)
This is the way a company that is supposed to provide next gen products to a voraciously consuming market. Know what the problem is? They are not customer-centric. They are engineering and marketing driven and arrogant to boot and this is creating a BIG problem for this company that created the now HA HA primitive Walkman.
The divisions compete with each other; the engineers lock themselves away and do something that is anathema to this volatile marketplace with the networked customers we all know and love/fear. They PRESUME that the customers want things that Sony engineers make the decisions to produce. They don't ASK the customers, they tell the customers. They don't involve them, they simply tell them, you're going to like this.
For example, BusinessWeek points out that the music division battles with the movie division battles with the gadget folks. The best example, The consumer electronics division, due to piracy fears at the music division, couldn't make create an MP3 player. This from Walkman's parents. Hopelessly old school.
Does this mean that Sony has no triumphs? Hardly. We've seen the Playstation 2 and the wildly successful Portable Playstation (PSP) of which I am a proud owner (Madden 06 rocks for an old guy like me - coaching mode of course. I am not one with dexterity). But they are less innovations than improvements on products that had a market that was already there with Nintendo.
Samsung - Pass the Chips Pleasel
Contrast Samsung's outlook to Sony's. In an article that appeared on Destination CRM in 2002, called "Customers Really Matter"written by Ginger Conlon, one of the more awesome CRM gurus - now the executive editor of 1to1 Magazine The article was an interview with Samsung's Peter Weedfald, Samsung's VP of Strategic Marketing (then, I don't know about now. Hold on a sec....okay, got it. He's now the Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Consumer Electronics - at least as of February 2005). Weedfald said "CRM...stands for... customers really matter. And that philosophy must be present throughout an organization, from the receptionist all the way up through the CEO." Samsung sees every person, product and ad as a customer touchpoint that has to be impacted by a CRM strategy. They are gathering consumer data all day and night, involving the customers directly in the creation of products, and making sure that they collaborate with their partners to create the right ecosystem for their customers. They have 25 well defined touchpoints aka customer interaction points that they have specific approaches and processes that they associate with each. They understand the various points of the customer experience have to be:
(Caveat: This is MY definition, not theirs. Emptor)
and they should
In fact, they utilize their 4000 North American dealers to work their potential customer base (they see it as 265 million consumers). They have a knowledgebase that provides a consistent "information experience" across all touchpoints, regardless of where the customer intersects them. They understand advocacy and equally importantly, they understand verbal terrorism (Weedfald: "If you lose one customer, you may lose hundreds more.") Weedfald back in his younger days of 2002 even called the numbers in his ads and went shopping at his retailers to find out how much they really cared about the customers. They are looking at each customer who have previously purchased Samsung somethings as their prime target.
What a difference between them and Sony. Umm. Umm. Ummmmm. Jeez.
Now for that funny thing I mentioned above:
I did a Google search for Sony, CRM and for Samsung, CRM: Here's what I got as the top single response for each:
SONY, CRM
Sony CRM 80 CD-R 80 min : Read reviews and compare prices at Ciao ...
Perfect for audio recording, the CRM-80 80-minute CD-Rs provide great sound quality of prerecorded Compact Discs - and...www.ciao.co.uk/Sony_CRM_80_CD_R_80_min__5771797 - 25k - Cached - Similar pages
SAMSUNG, CRM
destinationCRM.com: Customers Really Matter
At Samsung it is. Samsung's CRM mantra can be summed up in 11 words: Every form ... Currently, most of Samsung's CRM initiative is focused on the business ...www.destinationcrm.com/ articles/default.asp?ArticleID=2455 - 70k - Cached - Similar pages
Judge, jury, counselors, I rest my case....
Both Sony and Samsun realize and need Identification of what customers value most in their experience with during “Moments of Truth”(interactions). Where opportunities to define either dissatisfaction or satisfaction and customer loyalty are important. I know they know this too but do the get it down to the streets where customers use their gadgets extensively? That's the million dollar question I pose you now.
Posted by: Mcgill | August 01, 2007 at 01:46 AM