Michael’s ta-da story: get smarter with every customer interaction
The expertise of those who work for our company and their diverse professional backgrounds is the main reason why Orange Business is so resourceful. The wide skill set of our employees is what enables us to meet the expectations of our customers, right when they need it the most. We like to call it the “ta-da!” effect.
What makes a digital and data project successful is the humanity that we put into it.
"As Director of Marketing and Innovation for the Digital and Data division, my role is to monitor market trends to anticipate the new challenges facing our customers. My career path has been a bit unusual: I enhanced my business school education with an Engineering degree in databases and a second degree in Economic and Social Ethics. Of the three degrees, the most useful one for me is Ethics – by far. When someone asks me what the key is to a successful digital and data project, notably in Artificial Intelligence (AI), I tell them it’s not just technical, but also human, skills that are needed."
Businesses are drowning in data. What can we do about that?
"When you look at the dazzling success of companies like Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber and others, they all have one thing in common: they are all 'data-centric' companies, whose business models are built on a foundation of data that they work to grow and develop. Studies show that marketing departments still spend 50-60% of their time seeking out data, when their role should be analyzing the data and coming up with targeted initiatives."
Our ambition is to help customers identify their data and extract intelligence, knowledge and value. By improving their mastery of this 'data capital,' they gain knowledge and agility.
How do you get to know your customers when products are sold in stores?
"This was the issue faced by one of our customers in cosmetics. It’s hard to sell perfume and beauty products online; touch and smell are important here. Cosmetics sales basically operates in B2B2C mode by passing through distributors. The cosmetics group turned to us to help them interact with their end customers and learn about their tastes and expectations to improve sales and strengthen loyalty. The project covered 30 countries with different characteristics, both in terms of sales pressure and data use regulations."
Six months to learn about customers and personalize the relationship
"Our team, in close collaboration with the customer’s marketing team, broke down the project into several steps. First, an online loyalty program, promoted in product packaging, allowed us to multiply by 15 the number of end customers in the database and to get to know them better. Second, we extended the customer database through a sponsorship program. The third step centered around data intelligence. Analyzing the data in this base led us to a more-accurate customer segmentation. Building on this knowledge, we were able to set up an extremely personalized marketing automation program and help our customer establish a genuine relationship of trust with their customers. It’s a win-win process for everyone. There is less sales pressure for our customer, who gets access to useful information, spends less money as a company and has a lower environmental impact."
"Six months went by between the project planning and the first e-mail campaign. The mission involved around ten people: experts in data architecture, marketing segmentation, online interface development, business experts with our customers. This diverse range of skills and different perspectives helped to boost our collective intelligence."
The ta-da effect: a return on investment of 300%
"Personalized marketing solutions enabled our customer to generate a return on investment of 300%. In addition to these hugely satisfying results, the project also increased their understanding of their end customers by leveraging data, with several tangible impacts. Being able to analyze online reactions a few hours after a product launch helped our customer to anticipate the product's success and improve management of the logistics and production chains. That’s enhanced agility. That’s the ta-da effect!"
