Want dialogue marketing? Try listening.

November's Harvard Business Review contains an article touting the virtues of 'dialogue marketing' entitled 'The Perfect Message at the Perfect Moment'. From the article:

Turning a traditional marketing strategy into a dialogue marketing program is a straightforward matter. Begin by identifying the batch communications you make with customers, then ask yourself what events could trigger those communications to make them more timely. Add a question or call to action to each message and prepare a different treatment or response for each possible answer. Finally, create a series of increasingly urgent calls to action that kick in if the question or call to action goes unanswered by the customer.

The ability to reach a customer with a marketing message at particularly the moment they wish to hear that message is undoubtedly a goal to aim towards. Google's practice of pairing relevant, unobtrusive advertisements with the content of a search or website, being a billion dollar example of this strategy. I also agree that a well implemented customer database goes a long way towards improving customer service.

But there is something vitally important that is missing from what the HBR article calls 'dialogue marketing'. How about listening.

Without listening, all you have is a well staged monologue. A monologue is an improvement upon spouting random gibberish, however a monologue is no replacement for a dialogue. A monologue falls flat when unscripted questions are asked. Customer histories will never quite be complete as you're collecting only the information you thought was necessary. What you think is necessary and what actually is necessary are two very, very different things. Timed responses can very quickly become inappropriate and serve to drive a further wedge between the customer and corporation.

The article uses the example of an airline, in which a frequent flier who stops traveling for several months would flag an automated response in which a customer service rep calls to inquire what may be wrong. In this example, it was a poor customer service experience. Dependent upon the income demograph the customer falls into, either the customer is written off as not worth chasing or a letter of apology rubber stamped by an executive and affixed to some coupons is sent in an effort to win them back.

In my opinion, that's a crazed and ineffective system. Nothing has changed. Assuming your lucky enough to sway the customer back, how long will it be before the customer encounters the same issue that made them switch in the first place? What are your odds of winning them back a second time? A third? Unless you are in a position of a virtual monopoly, or surrounded by competition that are bumbling, incompetents, don't expect your monologue to be effective for long.

Who your customer is. What your customer needs to hear. When your customer needs to hear it. These are the key pillars to marketing. But the ground the pillars rest upon is 'What does your customer have to say?'.