Tag Archives: MBA

Important Customer Data

Posted on by Uğur Özmen

One of the first assignments I gave to those who attended the CRM course in the MBA program at Istanbul Bilgi University is as follows:

For the sector you choose please specify the 5 most important data and why it is needed:

Apart from

      • Name and surname
      • Age (or Date of Birth)
      • Gender
      • Job
      • Education
      • Address / place of residence
      • GSM number / e-mail address
      • Income

Apart from those, you will briefly explain what the 5 most important data that can be obtained are and why they are important.

Important points:
When I say the 5 most important data that are OBTAINABLE, if the income or salary information of the gas purchaser will not be disclosed when asked and if you write “income is important”, the homework will be considered incomplete.

Unfortunately, some MBA participants focus only on promotion (hence communication) in studies for various sectors:

  • E-mail address: It is used to transmit all kinds of information and campaign news to the customer.
  • Phone number: It is used to transmit all kinds of information and campaign news to the customer.
  • TR ID: Used to unify customers in a customer-focused database.
  • The credit cards they use: They are used to organize campaigns with banks.
  • Marital status / Number of households: It is used to know who we can make customers except himself.
  • Media preferences: Used to position the customer’s preferred media space for marketing efforts

I doubt some of these are even ‘available’ for many industries. How many people say their “marital status” or “media preferences” when buying air tickets.

However, it is necessary to focus on the information required to get to know the customer better and thus increase the lifetime value of the customer, not on promotion.

Let’s give examples from a few different sectors:

The good and bad examples in the article are compiled from the homework of MBA participants. I thank those who prepared good examples.

Airline:

  • Flight frequency
  • Frequent destinations
  • Departure place (does it always leave the same place?)
  • Total expenditure per year
  • Preferred class (Economic, Business, etc.)
  • Ticket time (last minute, discounted offers, early booking, etc.)
  • Is it through agency or personally?
  • Is he alone or flying with someone with the same last name?

Note:
There are many participants who write

  • Travel purpose
  • Job

However, we cannot know them either. It is also unlikely that we will ask every customer and expect a response. We may need to interprete over other information if it is very important to us.

“From what information do I deduce that there is a business trip?” We can ask ourselves and add that information to this list.

Gym:

  • Expectations from Exercise: Weight loss / gain, fit in a bikini and wedding dress, fit body and healthy life, socialization, etc.
  • Time to Spend for Sports: How many days & hours per week and hours of arrival
  • The Sports Branch he / she wants to focus on: Fitness, swimming, group work, etc.
  • Health Status: Is there any obstacle to doing sports? Should he exercise for a specific reason?
  • Sports Background: How many years, what sports
  • Break Activities: How to use the training breaks; magazine, TV, music, chat…
  • Private trainer / Group work preference: Do you work with a trainer, prefer group work, or work alone?

In airline,  “Why are you traveling? Work or vacation? ” you cannot ask or you cannot get the answers. However, those who come to the gym often tell why they came.

GSM Operator:

  • Invoice amount: Cost-benefit analysis is needed to provide more reasonable offers and / or to estimate the level of income.
  • Air time and number of SMS: It is necessary to get an insight of why the customer’s preferences are phone calls or SMS and to offer better offers accordingly. It helps us learn how much of his/her time she/he spends on the phone in one way or another.
  • With / without Internet: Opportunity to cross-sell to customers based on Internet usage; online campaign offers; It is necessary to learn the most frequently used internet platforms.
  • Hours of use: The hours when the customer is busy, what hours of the day, with whom he talks
  • Numbers he speaks frequently: We can create special packages among our customers with certain numbers.
  • Phone brand: We need this information as the packages offered by the operator may vary depending on the nature of the devices. Device replacement speed also gives an idea of ​​the customer’s level of income or spending.
  • Voyage to abroad: It will be advantageous to know how often the customer visits abroad in order to avoid surprise invoices. It will allow us to provide information in advance.
  • Churn exists or not: Whether it comes from other operators, for how many years it has received service from the same institution.
  • Customer request / complaint status: It is important for behavior management towards the customer how many “problems” were opened to the customer, how many requests or complaints he made from which channels until today. What are the status of his complaints (open, solved, closed, etc.)
  • Places where he frequently speaks: School / courthouse / hospital / shopping mall / airport etc. This information is needed to make special offers using the locations where the customer is at that time.
  • Packages used: family pack, school pack, fan pack, tariffs, etc …
  • Value-added services: vehicle tracking, lost-stolen insurance, etc…
  • Sensitivity to campaigns: Personal data can be used more, it can increase income through agreements with business partners.
  • In corporate (B2B) agreements, how many people will enter the system at the same time, possible income can be estimated according to their demographic data.

I know there are more than 5 examples for each industry. Any 5 of them are considered TRUE – including other important information I couldn’t think of.

If you don’t have this information, it won’t work well, even if you have full contact information. If you do not know the customer, you can only send spam messages.

You suggest me shampoo [1] , hair curler, breast lift bra, pink face mask [2], best places to go with my deceased mother in Mothers’ Day, gifts I can buy for my deceased father for Fathers’ Day.

Your industry or homework topic may not be an airline or a gym or a GSM operator. However, by looking at the examples above, you can find out what the important information is in whatever industry you are in. You should be able to parse the “important information” that is valid even in hosting or electricity distribution companies that are thought to have a single product.

There is another important issue…

The third (or fourth) assignment of the semester is mostly on breakdowns used for segmentation. If you noticed, those who did the first task correctly actually did the third task as well.

Graduation project

Posted on by Uğur Özmen

I express my expectations to students who want to prepare their graduation project with me:

  • Making projects with students who I have never met and who have not taken my lesson is not a practice I like very much. In order to ease the workload of other faculty members, I accept those who want to do a marketing thesis. In this condition, I prefer to meet with the project students one-on-one even if it is a distance education. (“I have decided on a subject. I chose you as a thesis instructor. Let’s get started” style approaches are not appreciated.)
  • I require the student to do a study that will be useful for him/her and the institution she/he works for. When choosing a topic, the student should act together with the institution she/he work with and to work in the direction that the institution needs. In this direction, I have expectations such as receiving support from the institution and using institutional data.
  • I do not accept any project with “copy-past” intention. If there will not be your direct contribution, let’s not work together.
  • First of all, I don’t want to get a graduation thesis if there is less than 6 months. (Due to the implementation of YÖK, I now accept it for 3 months. But…) I am positive not for a thesis like a simple student assignment, but for a study that both the student and I will be proud of. I do not listen to and do not accept the stories of the students who left the whole thesis to the last term “I had a lot of work, you know what happened to me, the company does not allow us anyway, etc.“.
  • When we agree on the subject of the thesis, we need to start discussing that the student has prepared something about the content [at least the outline] within two weeks and how we can turn this content into a final thesis.
  • Thus, both the backbone and the content of the thesis become clear. Then I want to be reported regularly. In addition, I talk and direct about the progress of the thesis.

These are my “must-haves”. I want these conditions both because I took lessons from my past experiences and because I do not want to hear the story, “I was going to finish the school, but Uğur Özmen did not pass my thesis“.

😮

See some testimonials:

An MBA participant’s request:

Ugur Hocam;

I took a digital transformation course from you last semester as part of the MBA program.

I may have done the worst homeworks of the period, perhaps the lessons you have taught so far. I do not want it to stay that way.

Before the end of the school, I want to make use of your comments, which destroy the feeling that «this is a great homework, I think it was very good» in the student’s mind.

😉

Another comment:

I remember 2011 just like yesterday.

While I was preparing for your exam, I saw an article on your web page. Then I showed you what I expect with the project. I asked you “Should we do final project together?” When I said this, Şule hoca said, “Are you crazy? It is very difficult to make a project with Uğur ”. After all, in all my different school experiences, the best was with you.

In the meantime, the project had provided the company with a benefit close to a million TL with its current value.

🙂

Do I want so many things? I think YES… When I look at the responses sent after my comments, I say CONTINUE SAME. When I look at the results of those who completed their theses, I think I did well.

;-)

Note: You may see some of the final projects at the final part of that article

MBA’de Final Sınavı Yöntemi

Posted on by Uğur Özmen

CRM dersini sınıfta yaptığımız takdirde [1] , final sınavı gerekmiyor. Zaten dönem içinde 8 – 10 ödev yapılacağı ve her haftahazır gelineceği için, öğrenildiğini yeterince gözleyebileceğimi ve değerlendirebileceğimi varsayıyorum.

Bir de uzaktan eğitim e-MBA kısmı var. Onlara da 5 – 6 ödev veriyorum [2] (ve ayrıntılı geri bildirim yapmaya çalışıyorum [3] ama…) ama maalesef çoğunlukla ilk yüz yüze gelişimiz final sınavlarında oluyor. Eksikliği gidermek için geçmiş yılların final sınavları sorularının bir kısmını önceden yayınlıyorum. [4] , [5] , [6] .

Bu davranışımın 2 nedeni var.

  1. e-MBA katılımcıları nasıl sorular sorduğumu öğrensinler.
  2. Aynı soruları sormamak için bana zorlama olsun. Yeni sorular bulmak zorunda kalayım.

Bu şekilde yararlı bir iş yaptığımı düşünüyordum ama… Geçmiş yıllarda edindiğim tecrübe şunu gösterdi. Tamamen farklı ve ezbere dayanmayan sorular verdiğim zaman, öğrencilerin çoğu yapamıyor. Ödev notları yüksek olan öğrenciler bile düşük notlar alıyorlar.

Bu nedenle şöyle bir uygulama yapmaya başladım. Soruların %60’ı eski sorulardan veya benzerlerinden oluşuyor. Böylece her bir der malzemesini satır satır aklında tutanların da en azından geçer not alması sağlanıyor.

Soruların geriye kalan %40’ı ise, CRM kavramlarını bilenlerin yorumları ile yanıtlayacakları şekilde soruluyor. Bu sorular için ezberleme işe yaramıyor. Kavramların anlaşılmış hatta içselleştirilmiş [7] olması gerekiyor.

30+ yıldan beri iş hayatındaki biri olarak, soruların hiç ezbere dayalı olmaması gerektiğini biliyorum. Hepsi iş hayatı vakaları olmalı ve gerçek iş ortamı gibi – kitap, defter, internet, ve her türlü erişim serbest olarak –  sınav yapılmalı.

Geçmişte, bir uygulama sorusuna verilmesi gereken yanıttan fazlasını yazdığı için 20 üzerine 25 alan da olmuştu.

Ama o zaman “kendince çalışan” ama aslında ezberlemekten başka şey yapmayan pek az kişi sınıfı geçeceği için kıyamıyor(d)um.

Burada şimdiden ilan edeyim. Artık tüm final soruları uygulamaya yönelik olacak. Örnekleri [8] de [9]  var.

Sonra da bu yazının linkini, dersin nasıl olduğunu anlatan [10] , [11] , [12] diğer linklerle beraber okulun sitesine ekleyeceğim.

Bence MBA iş hayatına hazırlamalı. Ezberlemeyi değil öğrenmeyi öğretmeli. Artık final sınavı soruları ezbere değil anlamaya ve uygulamaya dayalı olacak. Şimdiden uyarıyorum.

5 Şubat 2014

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