PART 2: Chapters 5-7

Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital
Concept Synthesis and Local Application:

I am a Production Planning Manager at Asurion, a leading provider of device insurance, warranty and support services for mobile phones, consumer electronics & home appliances in North America. In the Philippines, we do the refurbishing of mobile phones in Calamba Laguna and then send them back to US for our subscribers. For 20yrs, I gained my Planning experience in Supply Chain Operations on industry leaders like Asurion and Intel.

Part 2: New Frameworks for Marketing in the Digital Economy

5. The New Customer Path

1.    Understanding How People Buy (from 4As to 5As)

For the case of our company, we continuously communicate with our subscribers even after availment of our insurance (from 4As), we make it appoint that we have conversation with them, whether call them or send reminder/messages on their mobile phones. We also have FB page aside from our own web page, where they can give us feedback on top of the surveys we are sending as well. Using their good experiences from our services they share it to their friends and family wherein they became our advocate (to 5As). It was manifested on our 80% market share in American Region.

2.    Driving from Awareness to Advocacy (the Ozone3)

Since we are offering mobile phone insurance(service), which is not a one-time offering, our goal is to have continuous subscription from us by our customers. We usually start with the awareness campaign of what our company’s offering (1)replacement of damage and lost phone (2) secure and keep the handset protected against phishing, viruses and malware back-up (3)restore content of handset (4) support on mobile applications. Then, we ensure that our customer gets the excellent service from us once they claim insurance or not, by constantly communicating with them like informing them on how to maximize the use of mobile applications and reminding them if the memory of phones almost full. Having said that, our focus would be on the Own Influence, our goal was to completely satisfy them with our good service putting emphasis on building post-purchase customer experience to ensure that they will be our advocate to promote our company. From what they experienced they can share it to their friends and family and even share on social media.

3.    Summary:  Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocate

a.   How can your brand identify and leverage the most critical touchpoints in the customer path?

We make it appoint that we do walk the talk, from our name Asurion (pronounce ass Assure-ion) using the root word assure which means guarantee or promise. We ensure that the services we offered will be given to our customers. Customer experience (Act) is the most critical touchpoint in the customer path, this is to ensure that they will continue to avail of our insurance.   

b.   How can your business improve brand favourability and optimize marketing efforts by evaluating the three main sources of influence across the customer path?

          Own-this is the most important influence amongst the 3, since our company put                       emphasis on building the post-purchase customer experience so that                                 eventually they could share it and be our advocate to patronize our brand.

          Others-the feedback from our customer matters, that’s why this type of influence
                 also important, we need to ensure that they will share the good experience 
                from us, to influence other to avail of our insurance.

          Outer-awareness of having mobile insurance in US is well-known, since we are 
                 expanding globally, in some country we need to continue to build our brand 
                 but before going that, we need to ensure that the mobile insurance industry 
                 will be known to them.

6. Marketing Productivity Metrics (PAR Purchase Action Ratio and BAR Brand Advocacy Ratio)

1.    Introducing PAR and BAR

     For us to have good score in the PAR of our mobile insurance, we must ensure that our subscribers will avail once they bought their mobile phones from our carriers (like Sprint, Verizon and AT&T) or even in Amazon and Ebay and at the same time renew their insurances once it lapsed. We can do it by good brand management to make sure that all our customers were aware of our brand and should have be available and within reach everytime our subscribers need them.

     While for BAR, we need to ensure that we give excellent customer service and at the same time customer service innovation so that our subscribers will be our advocate from the service they experienced.

2.    Decomposing PAR and BAR

     We can decompose PAR and BAR by increasing brand awareness until it has appeal to our subscribers, give them the right message and right information, for them to have the right level of curiosity when they ask. Until they decided to act by availing our insurance, once they avail it, we will ensure we give them the excellent customer service, until they become our advocate.

3.    Driving Up Productivity

a.   How can your business adopt the new metrics of PAR and BAR to measure marketing productivity?

     We can adopt the new metrics of PAR and BAR by focusing on increasing commitment and affinity of our subscribers. Through the excellent customer service we will render to them, it can help to achieve the said goals.

b.   How can your business trigger favourable customer conversations in order to drive awareness without increasing the marketing budget significantly?

We can increase awareness of our brand by having and increasing their awareness through the social media, Facebook can be a good means, since this is the widely used social media nowadays. Since our business is more on technology, we can send messages on their mobile apps as well.     

7. Industry Archetypes and Best Practices (Channel, Brand, Sales and Service Management)

1.    4 Major industry Archetypes

a.    Door Knob

-     A pattern where there is great awareness, slightly lower appeal but there is low curiosity i.e. ask. Acting is leveled with appeal and advocating is at level with ask. This situation is typical for low cost products that have a lot of competitors and simple characteristics. Based on first impression, the best course to ensure phase Act i.e. buying the product, would be to just have the product look really nice. Example: Consumer Packed Goods (CPG) like softdrinks, noodles and chips.

b.    Goldfish

-     Pattern which is very problematic (at points A2, A3, A5 meaning appeal, ask and advocate). High awareness as you inform the public. Low appeal is due to high competition on the market meaning, hard to distinguish yourself from others .Hard to convey a quick message.This leads to a high Ask rate as customers try to find what customers needA5 or advocacy is also a great problem. Example : Business to Business (B2B) situations (automobile industry)

c.    Trumpet

-      When it comes to act, meaning buying it falls flat. Only slightly higher amount of customers will advocate the product. Not a lot of people can afford the product yet more people advocate it even though they never bought it. Example:  Rolex, Louis Vuitton.

d.    Funnel

-      The only pattern which involves the customer on each stage to reach advocacy as the dispersal rate of the customers is standard and steady. Customer experience is the greatest factor since they are a part of each stage. Each stage must be taken care of at all times. Example: Telecomms (Globe, Smart, Sun, Touch Mobile).

2.    4 Marketing Best Practices

   a.   High Median Bar and Narrow Bar Range – success is determined by            channel proximity and accessibility to key markets

  b.   High Median Bar and Wide Bar Range – key success factor is brand           management

 c.    Low Median Bar and Wide Bar Range - key success factor is service    management

 d.   Low Median and Narrow Bar Range- key success factor is sales-force  management

3.    Summary: Learning from Different Industries

a.   Which archetype best describes your industry?

              The best archetype that describe mobile insurance industry is Funnel. We              need to ensure that we focus on customer experience since they are involve            on each stage from awareness to advocacy.

b.   What are some of the key improvement opportunities for your business  based on that archetype?

              Customer innovation and Branding, need to have more focus on R&D                     (technology) to better understand how we can serve well our customers,                 increase commitment and increase affinity from our subscribers.

c.    What is the key success factor in your industry? How can you learn from     other industries?

              The key success factor of mobile industry is Service Management. We can                learn from other industries by benchmarking specially on services. 

CHAPTER 7: INDUSTRY ARCHETYPES AND BEST PRACTICES

The topic assigned to me on my Digital Marketing class was The Industry Archetypes and their Best Practices, how marketers need to keep an eye on the shifts in their industries and adapt their strategies accordingly.

PART 1: Chapters1-4

Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital
Concept Synthesis and Local Application:
 I am a Production Planning Manager at Asurion, a leading provider of device insurance, warranty and support services for mobile phones, consumer electronics & home applianIces in North America. In the Philippines, we do the refurbishing of mobile phones in Calamba Laguna and then send them back to US for our subscribers. For 20yrs, I gained my Planning experience in Supply Chain Operations on industry leaders like Asurion and Intel.

Part 1: Fundamental Trends Shaping Marketing
1. Power Shifts to the Connected Customer

1.      From Exclusive to Inclusive

Exclusive: When we started the insurance business, we only offer road assistance which we only have exclusive interaction with our customers.

Inclusive: Our company is now offering device insurance, warranty and support services for mobile phones, consumer electronics & home appliances, wherein we will be more connected to our consumers since we are using digital resources (web page and hotlines).

2.      From Vertical to Horizontal

Vertical: When we are doing our promo before, we are only using TV and print ads, this is just a one way communication with our subscribers.

Horizontal: We are not limited on TV and print ads anymore, since we have the social media we can use to promote and at the same time get the feedbacks of customers (2 way communication).

3.      From Individual to Social

Individual: employee evaluations solely rate their leaders on how their leader perform their tasks.

Social: Unsatisfied employees post their opinions on social media wherein some of their colleagues have read their posts and might have impact on the impressions of their leaders and they even discussed it. As a result it may have impact on the ratings of leader during survey.

a.   What are the trends in your industry that demonstrate the shifts toward a more horizontal, inclusive and social business landscape?

Before, insurance were only on house/buildings, car, education, health and person, but now, almost all can be insured, like in our company, aside from mobile phones, we also offer insurance on laptop, home appliances, electronics (drones, camera, etc.), televisions. Consumers can post their feedback on social media on the experiences they have with our company whether it’s good or bad and they can send us feedback online.

b.   What are your plans to embrace these shifts in the marketplace?

My key contribution to my company is to ensure that we deliver our monthly commit (Buildplan), this is to ensure that the customer requirement will be satisfied, right phone models should be on their doorstep the moment they file for claims. I will do the possible means to hit our monthly target, both the volume and SKU (phone models) requirement. If in case we will have misses on delivery for whatever reasons (delay delivery of parts, quality, etc), I’ll make sure that we will have the immediate recovery plans.

2. The Paradoxes of Marketing to Connected Customers

1.    Breaking the Myths of Connectivity

Aside from the typical insurance of replacing the damage or lost item, our company offers other services like 1) secure and keep the handset protected against phishing, viruses and malware 2) back-up, restore content of handset 3) support on mobile applications, because of this offerings we are more connected with our customers than before. There’s like a personal touch with our service with them (specially support on mobile application. Even the senior citizens can call our hotline to ask for support if in case they are having hard time to explore the apps on their phones.

2.      Summary: Marketing Amid Paradoxes

a.     What are some cases in your industry that capture the paradoxical nature of    connected customers?

 Example of the case was the acceptance of insuring our subscriber devices since  this is not the usual thing accepted by the society. Usually we are only insuring  houses, buildings, cars and health.

b.    How do you plan to embrace the paradoxes?

We can embrace this paradox through the use of digital promotion, by increasing awareness of subscribers they will know the importance of insuring their devices, which are part of our daily lives. We usually use them in communicating our loved ones, in business, in any organizations we have. Like our tag line  “Asurion Life’s Operating System”.

3. The Influential Digital Subcultures

1.   Youth: Acquiring the Mindshare

Our product is a refurb mobile phone, we all know how active users the youth are when it comes to mobile phones and other devices (which we also offer insurances as well) like laptop and IPAD . We make it appoint that our company is present on all social media, aside we have our own Asurion page, we also have our own FB page, where we keep our subscribers updated, we also have accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and You Tube. We will encourage them also to share their insights /views with our offerings so that we can understand their needs and how we can improve our services and products.

We will inform them on how our company is helping to do recycling (electronic waste) since we are doing the refurbishing of devices.

2.   Women: Growing the Market Share

On top of all the social media accounts we have, we make it appoint that we’re part of social group activities where women were highly involved to promote our brand. In addition, since we also offer extended warranty on appliances like TV, washing machines, dryers, etc., we make it appoint that the normal day to day activities at home will be supported in case their appliances broke down by just calling our hotlines. Some additional features we’re also offered like the linkage of their appliances to mobile phones, where they can control them even if they are not present (like turning them off in case they forgot it, and at the same time set timers to control and monitor them, even they are outside).

3.    Netizens: Expanding  the Heart Share

We will inform them how our company is a big help in recycling (electronic waste) since we are doing the refurbishing of devices.

We make it appoint that our company is present on all social media, aside we have our own Asurion page, we also have our own FB page, where we keep our subscribers updated, we also have accounts on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and You Tube. 

4.    Summary: Youth, Women and Netizens

   a.How can your business acquire greater mind share by leveraging youth’s roles of      early adopters and trendsetters.

 Aside from keeping them updated on the current offerings and benefits of   
 acquiring insurance on mobile phones, laptop, home appliances, electronics  
 (drones, camera, etc.), televisions. We will also share them the latest technology  and how they can enjoy using them without too much disruption if they will call  our hotlines once they avail our insurance. We can do campaign with regards to  importance of communications/connectivity to our loved ones, just like our tag  line -“Asurion, Life’s Operating System"

b.   How can your business grow market share by leveraging the household influence of women?

We will continue to invest and continue to do R&D on how we can support women’s day to day activities at home even when they are out (working moms). Like the linkages of appliances to mobile phones so that they can control it.

c.    How can your business identify and utilize netizens to win greater heart share?

          We will inform them how our company is helping to do recycling (electronic 
          waste) since we are doing the refurbishing of devices. Also, we will be involve,     
          participate and sponsor on some community activities. We will continue to  
          research and test the latest technology to help customers get the most out of 
          theirs.

      4. Marketing 4.0 in the Digital Economy (When Online Meets Offline, Style Meets  
          Substance and Machine-to-Machine Meets Human-to-Human)

1.    Moving from Traditional to Digital

The traditional way of applying for insurance before was that, the customer needs to fill up the form and submit it to insurance company, then when claiming, need to go back and fill up the form again then file and wait for the claims. But now, with the digitial age, when applying for insurance (like Asurion), customers can fill up the application online from website of the insurance company or the company they are buying the product (like Amazon and Ebay). While in claiming the insurance, customers will call our hotlines, once verified, the mobile phones will be delivered to their house (within 24hrs), the damaged phones will be mailed by customers using the envelope that we sent them.

2.    Integrating Traditional and Digital

When applying for insurance (like Asurion), customers will fill up the application online from website of the insurance company or the company they are buying the product (like Amazon and Ebay). While in claiming the insurance, customers will call our hotlines, once verified, the mobile phones will be delivered at their doorsteps (within 24hrs), the damaged phones will be mailed by customers using the envelope that we sent them.

The process of using phone to call from our subscribers we can have a personal interaction with them, we can feel to them how we are willing to serve them by attending to their needs as soon as possible and by using mail (damaged phones) were part of the traditional way, while filling up the forms online and the delivery of refurbished phone at customer’s doorstep (within 24hrs) were part of digital way, showing how efficient our company is.

3.   Summary: Redefining Marketing in the Digital Economy

a.   How can your brand develop a powerful differential based on human-to-human touch in the digital world.

For the case of mobile support application service that we’re offering, this service is useful to customer who are not savvy, or even senior citizens will call our hotline then ask our operator on how to navigate or use specific applications, in that way there will be a human-human touch even on the digital world.

b.   How can your business transition from the traditional 4Ps to the digital 4Cs by adopting co-creation, taking advantage of currency-like pricing, engaging in communal activation and driving conversation.

Since our business is on technology, we are investing on R&D and at the same time we are conducting survey with our subscribers to better understand their need on how we can simplify their day to day activities by maximizing the usage of their devices. The pricing of our service will be less compared before since the promotion is easy and less expensive in social media. We have high engagement from subscribers using social media.

c.    What are the fundamental changes required in your customer-service strategy to embrace collaborative customer care?

           Our company’s goal is to ensure that we attend to our subscriber’s need as fast as
           we can, we should be connected to them 24/7 (through hotlines and online). Since
           we are on digital world now, we should still make our customers feel that they 
           are important to us by giving our personal touch services. Like given them 
           reminders on their devices (need to back up files, the memory of gadgets will be 
           full in a couple of days, finding their lost mobile phones).

MY DIGITAL INTRO...

As part of our Digital Marketing class assignment, we need to create and upload our own Digital Introduction in You Tube. Upon learning this, I told myself that this is really something new, that I've never did before, I seldom watch You Tube videos.  The only person that came to my mind was my youngest daughter (6yrs old), who is a big fan of You Tube, her favorite channel is Evan Tube. She loved to do Video Blog recording on her IPAD (but never uploaded in You Tube). My realization was that I should try what my children are doing so that I can better understand and guide them. 

Just want to share to you my product, I just made my first footprint in You Tube !

MORE FILIPINOS CONNECTED...

Filipinos are well known for being close family ties, we value the importance of our family, we even live with our parents even if we have our own family. Probably this is one of the reason why Philippines top the study conducted by We Are Social SG and HootSuite in terms of Digital usage. We want to be connected always with our loved ones and even to our close friends. Unfortunately, even if we are big fan of social medias, we have the 3rd slowest internet globally. Given our current scenario, we should always be responsible in using Digital resources to get the maximum benefits it will bring to us.

Insight: Digital age is a game changer in the world we lived in, we should all be responsible in using them, whether its good or bad, since we are all accountable.

Action: I will share to my children and to the next generation on how we should properly use digital resources and make use of its advantages.

The video lecture that Prof. Bong used in our Digital Marketing classes. 

The data is as of January 2017 and the reference files are indicated below.

  Infographic Summary Posted by Prof. Bong De Ungria. 

TAKING A STEP...MY FIRST BLOG

It's a normal human thing to have each of our own comfort zone. In this dynamic and challenging world we lived in, how often do we usually try to take a new step or route for us to see what's on the other side of the road? 
Have you conquer your fear for you to be on the swim lane of the path of our learnings ?\ If yes, do you remember when was the last time you do it?

In this digital age, it's an advantage and favorable for us, as we get out from the usual things we are doing. We can make use of all the available digital resources we have, to improve our crafts and learn new things on different perspective.

As I wrote my first post on this page, I am conquering my fear, and at the same time excited to share my views and learnings I had.

I'm ready to start my digital footprints...