‘’Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!’’
Those were the words said by The Wizard of Oz is one of our household’s Christmas favourites film, The Wizard of Oz.
‘’Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!’’
But who is this grand Wizard of Oz? He must be amazing, right?
Well, it turns out the Wizard of Oz is not exactly as expected. When Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow all find the Wizard, they hear a loud voice booming all around them, telling them to come back another time. Is the Wizard of Oz some kind of deity, sending his message down from the heavens?
But then Toto, Dorothy's dog, discovers that the Wizard is no god. It turns out that he is just a man behind a green curtain pulling levers and pushing buttons. When Toto rips the curtain to the side, the ‘Wizard’ realizes he's been found out, and tries to misdirect the group by shouting through the speaker, "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"
There are similarities between this scene and what I’ve experienced in my time agency and brand side. Not that I’m suggesting that a brand is some combination of smoke and mirrors but the pulling back of the curtain is certainly something of an experience felt by anyone who moves from the agency world to working for a brand.
Having created customer programmes ( whether they be called CRM, Loyalty, D2C or Retention), with my agency hat on, of course I’m well versed with undertaking the research, benchmarking best in class case studies, running global discovery workshops, gaining senior stakeholder buy-in to the strategy and global framework. Doing this with brands as diverse as PC World, Centre Parcs, BT, Disney, HP, BMW brings many interesting opportunities and learnings.
But of course the real challenge is then working with the brand ‘behind the curtain’. Once behind the curtain the real work begins.Often my global / international roles has had to take an organisation that had
No common understanding of customer value and segmentation to one where there is a common glossary of customer numbers and a value model that allows individual markets to segment to drive engagement
No understanding of the customer experience as seen through shoppers' eyes across the customer to one where utilising customer feedback experience and revenue can be optimised
No platform for delivering tailored communications ( across may channels including email, SMS and channels more suited to for example customers in Asia : Kakao in Korea , WeChat in China and fro Japan, Line) to one where a new marketing cloud rolled out globally supported by a new single customer view
No roadmap of customer communications to move customers through the customer journey to one where automated journeys are rolled out within a global framework but allowing for local adaptations and optimization
No prioritization of technical improvements on the website to one where the roadmap now has a focus based on customer and marketing priorities.
No framework within which the global organisation can learn, develop, implement and develop their CRM and Loyalty programmes to one where a Global CRM Playbook is shared and updated regularly to share best practices, learnings and essentially ‘how to’’.
But back to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz for a moment. Her aim was of course to get back home. To do this she needs the help of the above mentioned Tin Man, Cowardly Lion and Scarecrow. She does this in the end by getting them what they need - The Tinman wanted a heart, the Scarecrow wanted a brain and the Cowardly Lion wanted courage.
Not surprisingly delivering a Global CRM and Loyalty Framework needs something similar. Key of course is the collaboration with the stakeholders across global Regions whether they be General Managers, Heads of Marketing etc. These don’t want CRM or a Loyalty Program. Well they do, but only as a means of hitting their commercial objectives. Also vital are the senior stakeholders from the teams in any global excellence centres. These often home the Heads of Data, Digital, Retail, Customer, Training and so on.
My belief is that the philosophy has to be a simple one of delivering global capabilities that allow the local regions/ business units to be architects of their own success with , of course, the support they need when they need it. Of course to facilitate this it will always be important to bring them on the journey and involve them in the design and development of the strategy and programmes and keeping them abreast of progress ( and yes sometimes the lack of progress)
After all there is no real Wizard of Oz. Just someone who knows how to pull the right levers and push the right buttons at the right time.