Delivering the best value proposition using segmentation is a multi-step journey with 6 main steps and some critical differences from other analytic approaches:

Define Segmentation Objectives
The first step - deciding why to build a segmentation scheme - is important but often overlooked. Reasons may include declining financial performance, changes in strategy or market trends - the [...]

1:1 had a nice piece on the growing role of loyalty programs in retail. This noted the “Growing sophistication in loyalty programs” among retailers and, in particular, the use of loyalty program data not just to calculate lifetime customer value but also to build competitive advantage. This second aspect is the one I always find [...]

My second set of thoughts were prompted by notes on a presentation by the CMO of Walmart.com, Cathy Halligan. She began by noting that they no longer see a digital divide  - there is a big percentage overlap between their online and offline shoppers.In addition, online activities are increasingly influencing offline purchase patterns and [...]

Reading 1:1 today I saw a great story about Gulf Bank called Overcoming Customer Interaction Roadblocks. This bank has a problem because it’s customers can’t get mail. How does it address this? By using it’s ATMs as a delivery device for messages! Putting relevant, timely, personalized information on the ATM when you use it. No [...]

A collections session next with folks from Adeptra, Fair Isaac and GE Money talking about GE’s vision for virtual collections. The collections environment is extremely bad this year with massive growth in the need for collection agents. Delinquencies are up, problems are up, consumers are stressed. Scores are worsening (credit profiles are worse), payments are [...]

Erik Klein from the WebSphere Commerce group at IBM and Scott Young from a consultant. Erik started by discussing the inhibitors to moving to multi-channel and customer-centric. These include:

Siloed business units
Applications that don’t integrate or support multi-channel operations
Redundant data in multiple systems, no single version of the truth

The different domains - web, store and enterprise [...]