Services Marketing

This perspective addresses a challenge presented in a ServicesRevenue business case listed under Case Studies or Relevant Links This is a scenario that we frequently see in our current economic environment. Tough times demand managerial flexibility. One test of the strength of a company’s management team is their ability to react to change quickly.

This perspective addresses a challenge presented in a ServicesRevenue business case listed under Case Studies or Relevant Links As a marketing manager for a regional CPA and consulting firm, I’ve had to fight long and hard about this issue. Accountants definitely don’t like to spend money without seeing an immediate return, which just isn’t practical for professional services. I certainly wouldn’t consider myself an expert, but can attribute a cultural change towards sales and marketing in our firm to some of the efforts I’ve implemented. Professional services are about relationships. As such, our sales cycle is painfully long making measurement extremely difficult.

This perspective addresses a challenge presented in a ServicesRevenue business case listed under Case Studies or Relevant Links Jon should accept the ad offer only if he is able to establish proper expectations with senior management and only if he receives approval to fail. This is an excellent test and a good investment. He’ll have to educate and present them with a well-reasoned argument. There are three possibilities: unqualified success, qualified success, and failure. Criteria must be established to set campaign goals such as changing attitudes or creating awareness. Setting clear criteria for the test is of paramount importance. Jon and his management must also realize this is an investment. Should this test fail, the firm is still enforcing its brand.

In spite of all the investments into customer relationship management tools, service organizations struggle to maintain complete and accurate customer data particularly the invaluable service contract data. For one enterprising group at Cisco, cleaning contract data paid off big. Once a customer buys, the information about the customer, related transactions and service entitlements disappear in corporate IT’s black hole. The resources required to find, clean and maintain contract data has been a low priority that is tough to justify. After you read this story, you may want to raise data maintenance to a higher priority.