What is Old is New Again

I am here in the beautiful Mediterranean island of Malta at CTAM EuroSummit 2011, Europe’s gathering of Cable Marketing Executives. I am thrilled be on a panel with some key folks in the industry, where we’re talking about “Sales 2.0 — Creating the Right Environment to Make the Sale.” This is really at the core of what Leapfrog does, and I am excited to share, network and learn from industry experts who have traveled here from around the globe.

As I chat with friends and colleagues in the industry, I am struck by the reality that some of those old tried-and-true tactics we relied on in the 1980s and early 90s are, in many ways, new again. Way back then, for example, call centers were pivotal to the sales process. Then came the dawn of the digital era.

In the mid-90s, when we started helping cable companies take advantage of the web to drive sales, customers showed no interest in buying cable through the telephone anymore. Buyers were taking advantage of the web to shop, and digital marketing was an effective way reach new customers and sell new products. The entire process — from searching for the right product or service to actually purchasing a specific plan or scheduling an installation was initiated, managed, and handled online.

Today, we see an interesting shift—people are mixing and matching the ways that they buy. Consumers are shopping from their computers, tablets, and mobile devices (with over 50% of the customers we earn coming through mobile). Even more than a mash-up between desktop, mobile, and tablet, however, is the re-emergence of the call center. While many folks choose to start a product search on their iPhone, for example, once it’s purchase time, we’re seeing increased numbers of consumers opting to talk live to a trusted customer service representative. This means that today, the transition from “research” to “purchase” often happens through a “click to call” feature on a buyer’s mobile device. If you’re equipped to carry the the online experience into a seamless offline one, you have customers waiting in the hopper. If you’re not prepared, you’re losing customers and revenue that are literally waiting to be converted.

So today, in the digital age, call centers are more important than ever when it comes to completing the sale. Creating the right environment to complete the sale requires designing, testing, tracking and optimizing multiple experiences that map to your buyers preferences. After all, building a targeted customer experience is the name of the game.