Blog

As most of you that read my weekly rantings already know, I tend to stick to engagement themes and challenges as they relate to vertical markets, and to solving tactical issues that many of our customers have faced before they engage with us. I love writing about those types of topics since they are based on first-hand experiences and usually have very positive outcomes.

But here we are today, and I’m going to start by saying in no uncertain terms that I’m disappointed in our industry—not because of the technology or application, not because of adoption, and certainly not because of the customers, or would-be customers, they’re the best part of what our industry does. It’s the solution providers as a whole that are beginning to personally frustrate me for not internalizing what I believe that we should all be doing—eating our own dog food, so to speak. Hear me out.

As an industry, there are hundreds (if not thousands) of companies just like us that entered a market focused on providing customer engagement or personalization solutions. Ironically, for every potential new customer we engage we’re hearing the nightmarish stories of other vendors of similar solutions doing anything but the exact thing they’e selling: engaging with their own customer. And here is where I become frustrated, and downright angry at the industry at large.

Now, I get that every company is different and has its own unique business model. But the sad part is that as retailers of all kinds—grocers, restaurants, fashion, the list is endless—struggle to navigate and adopt new digital personalization tools and technologies and to fully understand the parameters of what they should and/or shouldn’t be doing, they’re often left to their own devices to figure it out on their own. Why? Because the common industry business model is that of “sign up and get started” with little to no on-boarding or even help in tackling the planning or configuration of new systems and tools.

Worse yet, I’m now seeing the same horrible approach in our industry made famous by the big players that sell marketing automation and CRMs—a collection of video tutorials and FAQ pages all designed to negate human contact with a sales representative. Something that would actually help to solve problems and answer critical questions.

In my opinion, if our industry is to say that we all actively build, market and sell customer engagement and/or personalization solutions, shouldn’t we be engaging our target market on a personal level well before we sell them something at all? If I’m to use the analogy of “eating one’s own dog food,” is this not the equivalent of trying to sell someone pet food that people in our industry would otherwise not feed to their own pets? I mean … really?

Here’s the part of the rant for which I expect no kudos, because it’s not self serving, it’s literally cathartic. omNovos has purposely gone out of its way to provide free services, including strategic and tactical planning sessions to help the retail industry. You know, personally engaging with people just like the industry positioning states (excuse my sarcasm, again I’m ranting and I’m yet to have my morning coffee). Call it what you will: pandemic or otherwise, people deserve to be treated as special—because they are.

Implementing any type of new customer engagement approach is a big step for any company. And if they’re reaching out to professionals for help, they deserve every bit of help that a vendor can muster. Personally, I take great pride in how closely we work with our customers to help them achieve their goals. Working side-by-side and seeing great things come to fruition for people should have nothing to do with corporate goals or business models—it should always be about the human element of people helping people.

As for me, I’m going to continue to engage with people, as is our whole team. We’re living in tough times where people are uncertain of their futures and, moreover, where to invest in their business to ensure success. People deserve more than technical videos and FAQs, they deserve to be engaged—personally—as a customer. Period.