Amid the overwhelming flow of information in our digital world, there are a few keepers. Chris Brogan is one of them. I don’t know him personally, don’t have any affiliate relationship with him, and am not trying to get him to follow me on Twitter. I just like to read his stuff.

Chris wrote about his approach to New Year’s resolutions in this post, instead choosing 3 words that would help him to focus on what’s most important for the year ahead. I like the idea and am still trying to reduce my personal list of keywords to single digits. Meanwhile, I found it easier to create a 3 word list for Loyalty Marketing in 2012 and wanted to share it for your consumption and discussion.

Let me know what your 3 words would be for this year and why you chose them. I’ve started a discussion on our Customer Strategy Network Facebook page and in a few LinkedIn groups where you can participate. If you prefer, just leave comments here on Loyalty Truth.

Data

Loyalty marketers have been collecting customer data since the dawn of the business. To a great extent, that data has been under-utilized and this shortcoming threatens the trusted relationships we have with our customers. Consumer 2.0 is well aware that the portfolio of transaction and personal data that defines self is highly valuable to corporate America. Though we’ve been talking about increased leveraging of data as one of the biggest opportunities in Loyalty Marketing, 2012 might be the year that it happens.

Selecting Data as one of my 3 words for 2012 puts me in pretty strong company as I recently listened to Rupert Duchesne, Chairman of Aimia, speak about Data being the “New Oil”. And, just last week, I read that Foursquare was making public its intent to put its data to work as a tool for growing its business in 2012.

Mobile

The mobile handset has been predicted by many to become the central platform for social shopping and payments. The Google Wallet was announced last year and payment/loyalty plays including Square, Dwolla, and LevelUP seek to change consumer behavior and set a new mold for how we shop and pay.

Banks are pledging to make better use of mobile applications to bring banking products closer to the customer, in the process redefining how we view the retail banking customer experience. Groupon has responded to criticism that it is impotent beyond stimulating customer acquisition and trial and has introduced Groupon Rewards as well as partnering with Foursquare to find synergy in location based marketing and the daily deal.

The convergence of loyalty, payments, and the mobile handset will continue at a faster pace during 2012.

Social

We invested significant time gathering information and creating position papers on Social Loyalty, Social CRM, and Social Shopping during 2011. Clients as well as conference delegates wanted to absorb as much as they could on these topics and the buzz made us question if everything involving “loyalty” and “social” might dissolve away as just the latest marketing fad.

It’s not going to happen. In fact, 2012 will be the year when many brands put their PowerPoint presentations on the shelf and move to implement more social channels into their customer strategies. Consumer 2.0 is making purchase decisions differently than before and will be delighted by elegant ways to locate and evaluate local shopping offers via their mobile device. The social aspect comes in the form of interactions via social shopping networks like Zavee.com or by engagement with game-fueled loyalty programs where referral and recommendations lead visibly to purchase.

Three words that will define Loyalty Marketing in 2012: Data, Mobile and Social. I’m sure you can make an argument for others.

Let’s hear it.

Chris Brogan is going to jump all over me.

In a keynote presentation he made recently at Like Minds 2010, he rightfully commented that the chatter about social media in US conferences had become “boring” and, with tongue in cheek, suggested  “I think it should be legal that if someone says “Just join the conversation” that it is legal to punch them in the face“.

OK, Chris, you have a free swing!

I’m suggesting that marketers interested in understanding consumer purchase behaviors and retail “join the conversation” at Retail Wire.

Here’s why….

The information funnel in my offices is getting bigger by the day. I try to narrow my field of vision and manage my time by setting up Google Alerts on my favorite loyalty marketing topics and subscribing to RSS feeds that I can browse in my Google Reader.  Those two sources create an overwhelming volume of information at times and so, I have chosen a very select few reads that are allowed to hit my inbox.

Three current favorites have been on a roll lately.

• Chris Brogan brightened my day with “I Could Totally Do That” and shared an entertaining video that you should see.
• Christopher Penn switched up his interesting stream of information with an inspirational post “Renewing Faith”, also kicking a day off in the right direction.
• Tim Sanders served up “Why I seldom reply to Tweets Publicly” which presented an opposing viewpoint to something Chris had written about earlier.

So what’s this have to do with Retail Wire?

I’ve been reading the site for a while and find they continually pose questions on critical issues, current events, and future trends in retail loyalty, online retail rewards and broader aspects of retailing. And, they share the information in a conversational way, with daily questions posed and members of a Brain Trust Panel chiming in along with anyone else who feels the urge.

I’ve recently joined the Brain Trust and you can find a compilation of my comments on a variety of topics in my Retail Wire Blog here.  I’ve got my favorite industry specific information sources for banking, card marketing, airline, hospitality, as well as a few more for general marketing topics. Beyond the self – promotional aspect of this post, I had to let you know that Retail Wire is my favorite for staying current in this segment.

Join the conversation at Retail Wire.

OK, Chris, you can have your swing now!

Over the recent holidays, my friend Bill Hanifin pointed out a post written by the person arguably at the forefront of the whole social media movement, Chris Brogan. In the post, Brogan said, “People are slowing down to turn their thoughts to family and to their own development, and to what worked and what didn’t in 2009. Not me.”

While he did leave an escape hatch for those choosing to bail out during the holidays “You don’t have to do it this way”, Brogan was working as hard as ever, holidays or no holidays.

It got me thinking about Napolean Hill, author of the classic Think and Grow Rich. Although it was first published in 1937, the book’s message about gaining monetary success through hard work, determination and positive thinking, still rings true today. The popularity of the book endures as well, as it ranks in the top 1,000 books on Amazon.

What a lot of people may not know is that in 1967, three decades after the publication of his magnum opus, an 80-year old Hill put out a book with a more expansive view of the role of work in our lives. Its title: Grow Rich—with Peace of Mind.

While offering many of the same valuable lessons on self improvement as Think and Grow Rich, Hill adapted his message to basically say, grow rich—but have a life, too. We’re not talking 4-hour workweek here, but Hill did suggest we “make a time budget”.

Spread out over a 24-hour day, his time budget looks like this:

• 8 hours a day for sleep and rest
• 8 hours a day for work at your business or profession (but as your success grows, less work)
• 8 “particularly precious” hours “devoted to things you wish to do, not have to do”

Hill’s suggested list for the final 8 hours includes: “play, social life, reading, writing, playing a musical instrument, tending a garden, or just sitting and watching the clouds or the stars.” (I would add “spending time with family.”)

Hill further amplifies the point with this passage: “Do not let a day go by without taking some time for yourself — some time you spend in pure pleasure, as you see it.” He adds, “With increasing success, increase your hours of pure enjoyment, do not allow these hours to be eaten away by business or anything else.”

God bless Chris Brogan, he’s an inspiration to all of us. But there’s something to be said about the whole work-life balance thing. And while I have personally set business goals for 2010, following Hill’s lead, I’ve set leisure ones as well.

The bottom line: Sure, let’s get rich. But let’s not forget that success is measured by more than the balance in our bank accounts.

Tom Rapsas is a 20 year direct and loyalty marketing veteran and heads up Creative Services at Hanifin Loyalty. He can be reached on Twitter @tomrapsas

Editor’s Note: Tom’s post made me think that the most desirable rewards in loyalty programs are often the experiences and exclusive content or access to an event which can be earned as a freebie, but aren’t always available for public consumption.  It seems that learning more about what drives human emotion, happiness, and satisfaction will lead to more effective marketing strategies as well.

It’s probably no surprise that the great brands are able to combine excellent products with a superior level of customer service. After all, it’s this magic combination that makes them great brands in the first place.

Go to an Apple store to purchase their (in my opinion) superior products, and you get service from friendly, helpful sales reps who truly know and love their stuff. I’m also a big fan of Credo cell phone service. Not only does part of my bill go towards support of worthwhile social causes, every time I talk to customer service I find their reps are some of the nicest people in the world.

Then, there are certain products or services we use and like in spite of their customer service. Like the cool hotel on the beach, with the nice rooms and fantastic ocean views, but the less than accommodating staff. Or the pizza joint with the best pies in town and the never-on-time delivery.

But what about the opposite scenario? Can great customer service overcome a product or service that is deficient in some way to the competition?

Regular readers of Loyalty Truth already know where I’m going with this: right to my television set and Comcast. On these very Web pages, I recently wrote about my efforts to get my hands on a digital converter box from Comcast in order to receive a couple of channels that had dropped off my set.

You see, back in April, I was informed that I needed to pick up a digital converter to continue receiving MSNBC and AMC. But after going to my local office, I was told, “we’re out of them, come back in January”. A 9-month wait. After checking back in September, I received several conflicting responses, and after a lot of back-and-forth, I was led me to believe a converter would be sent to me in two weeks.

Fast forward to September 26th: two days after my last Comcast blog entry was posted, I received an online reply from ComcastMark of Comcast National Customer Operations. After answering a few questions, I was turned over to ComcastMike (or was it ComcastRich?) who e-mailed me with a few more questions. He, in turn, had a Comcast customer service rep named Cynthia call me.

I wish I could tell you the story had a happy ending, that Cynthia stopped by in a Comcast van to hand-deliver the converter box to me, and I was now writing this from my bedroom office, Countdown with Keith Olbermann playing in the background. But no such luck.

You see, instead of bringing me good news, ComcastCynthia reverted back to the original story. She told me there was in fact a 9-month wait for the digital converters, due to a delay by supplier Scientific Atlanta. She would call me as soon as they came in, probably in January.

To me, a 9-month wait to get the converter box means that someone in the offices of Comcast had really dropped the ball.  A 9-month wait means these devices must be in demand. Yikes, can’t Comcast put a little pressure on Scientific Atlanta to ramp up production? After all, in my town, a place where Comcast had a monopoly for many years, their share of market has dropped below 50%. Surely, there had to be a quicker way, Comcast. You’re bleeding customers!

It got me thinking about a recent post by Chris Brogan who pointed out that when a customer service rep tweets “some kind of comforting or informational note to someone who’s having a problem in real time, this information doesn’t exactly travel (easily) through the rest of the system to the people most likely to be directly in front of that person.” Or, in my case, to Cynthia, my designated Comcast rep.

Yet, I don’t really blame ComcastMark or ComcastMike or even ComcastCynthia. Sure, I was passed down the line once, twice, but that’s okay, as they all got back to me in a prompt and courteous manner. Cynthia also gave me the straight story, contrary to my previous encounter with a Comcast rep who said I’d have the converter mailed to me in a couple of weeks.

But despite their best efforts, I’m still in the same place I was back in April, before the Comcast National Customer Operations crew got involved—in essence, waiting 9 months for a part. (Which makes me glad I didn’t lease my car from Comcast.)

It just goes to show you that all the great customer service people in the world often don’t translate into happy, loyal customers—unless you have an organization behind them that gives them the tools, and great products and services, to back them up.

Tom Rapsas is an independent Creative Director/Writer/Strategist. He can be reached at tomrapsas@gmail.com and via Twitter @tomrapsas.

One of the blogs I enjoy reading is written by Chris Brogan. He’s got some interesting takes on social media and a huge following.

Today he stepped in the Loyalty Marketing sandbox with his post The Myth of Brand Loyalty. I won’t recount the story here and encourage you to read it as well as take in the comment stream which follows. There are a few good ones and you can read my take as well in which I reference how Airlines Take Flight Without Data.

To be fair, the airlines and Apple (Chris’ example) aren’t alone. We see it all the time….companies that have accumulated tremendous stores of data and are not using it to market efficiently and effectively. Or, as I witnessed this week in client meetings, there are banks with reams of customer satisfaction research, customer profile information, and transaction history that have studied it all, developed recommendations, but inexplicably have not put into action a measurable marketing campaign based on this information.

It’s not about capacity, it’s all about willpower. Corporate commitment to Customer Loyalty from the top down is needed for success and, where I can identify that commitment, I would personally invest in the related equity issues. These will be the winners in the market over the next 10 years.

There is a growing debate concerning the social media space. While the cognoscenti are touting their use of Twitter, Digg, Friend Feed and other social media tools, there are strong voices of skepticism labeling those medium as unproven business tools at best, time-wasting black holes at worst. The schism could be no more than manifestation of a marketing generation gap. Still, when I hear more than one of my respected peers with 30 years in Direct Marketing raise the question, I have to pause and consider both sides of the story.

A blog post from Response Agency framed the debate: “… Some marketers seem compelled to jump on every new high tech toy, and they insist that you be so compelled as well. Your company, they say, must send text messages, must be on Facebook and LinkedIn, and now must be on Twitter……Fine, except I have yet to see evidence that any of these toys produce sales at all, much less in a cost-effective manner. Meanwhile, I see plenty of evidence that they consume valuable time — lots of it. Time that you could have spent working. Maybe even accomplishing something productive.”

My response was to comment “The opportunity to waste time in unprofitable pursuits is always present.  Since I approach these venues with my business hat on, I invest my time to build my network and to increase my visibility and personal brand. It is working……with Twitter I have encountered some strong people and valuable resources. Don’t give up on the digital just yet!”

My friend softened a bit in his reply: “If there is evidence that the social media are an effective business-building tool as measured at the cash register, I’m interested……Either way, I suspect you would agree with my two, earlier key objections: (1) That the social media are yet unproven as a selling tool; and (2) that there is great potential to waste time on them.”

If traditional Direct Marketers were to emulate Alan Greenspan, they would exclaim that the market regards the potential of Social Media with “Irrational Exuberance“.  Just as I was beginning to consider the naysayers with more sincerity, I sat in on a “Twebinar“today hosted by Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Awareness Networks (@bostonmike). The presentation can be found at the Awareness Inc. site and the results will blow you away.

Among many other examples, I learned that Marriott Hotels generated over $4 Million in room reservations via a link from Bill Marriott’s blog. Now that is called ROI in any language. The debate will continue for a while, but CMO’s are already considering Social Media as an increasingly valid element of their marketing mix. Be watchful, listen and learn. Everyone else is!

There is a growing debate concerning the social media space. While the cognoscenti are touting their use of Twitter, Digg, Friend Feed and other social media tools, there are strong voices of skepticism labeling those medium as unproven business tools at best, time-wasting black holes at worst. The schism could be no more than manifestation of a marketing generation gap. Still, when I hear more than one of my respected peers with 30 years in Direct Marketing raise the question, I have to pause and consider both sides of the story.

A blog post from Response Agency framed the debate: “… Some marketers seem compelled to jump on every new high tech toy, and they insist that you be so compelled as well. Your company, they say, must send text messages, must be on Facebook and LinkedIn, and now must be on Twitter……Fine, except I have yet to see evidence that any of these toys produce sales at all, much less in a cost-effective manner. Meanwhile, I see plenty of evidence that they consume valuable time — lots of it. Time that you could have spent working. Maybe even accomplishing something productive.”

My response was to comment “The opportunity to waste time in unprofitable pursuits is always present.  Since I approach these venues with my business hat on, I invest my time to build my network and to increase my visibility and personal brand. It is working……with Twitter I have encountered some strong people and valuable resources. Don’t give up on the digital just yet!”

My friend softened a bit in his reply: “If there is evidence that the social media are an effective business-building tool as measured at the cash register, I’m interested……Either way, I suspect you would agree with my two, earlier key objections: (1) That the social media are yet unproven as a selling tool; and (2) that there is great potential to waste time on them.”

If traditional Direct Marketers were to emulate Alan Greenspan, they would exclaim that the market regards the potential of Social Media with “Irrational Exuberance“.  Just as I was beginning to consider the naysayers with more sincerity, I sat in on a “Twebinar“today hosted by Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Awareness Networks (@bostonmike). The presentation can be found at the Awareness Inc. site and the results will blow you away.

Among many other examples, I learned that Marriott Hotels generated over $4 Million in room reservations via a link from Bill Marriott’s blog. Now that is called ROI in any language. The debate will continue for a while, but CMO’s are already considering Social Media as an increasingly valid element of their marketing mix. Be watchful, listen and learn. Everyone else is!