102. Curious about...The Benefits & Challenges of Gaining a Line of Sight to your Brand's Marketing Plans for Contact Centers

👁️This week I’m Curious about...Benefits & Challenges of Gaining a Line of Sight to your Brand's Marketing Plans for Contact Centers. Episode #102 of the @my curious colleague podcast. Topics covered include:
·        🛣️ Navigating the Marketing Landscape: Understanding your brand's marketing plans in a contact center is crucial for success. It allows managers to anticipate call volume, ensuring proper staffing and effective communication with consumers. This foresight helps align the team with the company's objectives. 

·        🧠 Empowering Contact Center Agents: With a clear line of sight into the marketing plan, agents are better prepared. They can familiarize themselves with new products, receive relevant training, and be ready to handle customer inquiries confidently. This preparation leads to a more seamless customer experience. 

·        🤝 Bridging the Brand and Consumers: Having accurate and timely marketing information benefits both the brand and its consumers. Brands can prepare FAQs, training materials, and gather feedback to improve future initiatives. For consumers, this results in a more positive experience with informed and confident agents. 

 

TRANSCRIPT LINK: https://dashboard.transistor.fm/shows/my-curious-colleague-cpg-cx/episodes/102-curious-about-benefits-challenges-of-gaining-a-line-of-sight-to-your-brands-marketing-plans-for-contact-centers/transcripts

SPONSORSHIP: My new website – mycuriouscolleague.com -  is sponsoring today’s episode. Do, check out my new website at www.mycuriouscolleague.com for more content, including past podcast episodes, YouTube videos, and even a free official sticker! Show your support for our function and for the My Curious Colleague Podcast. Let's keep learning together! 🙌 

#cpgcx #contactcenter #customerfeedback #cpg #socap

Episode Transcript

Denise Venneri (00:01):
Welcome to the My Curious Colleague podcast
with your host, me, DeniseVenneri. We'll be talking all
things consumer relations with afocus on consumer product goods
organizations and the brandspecialist and analyst roles and
responsibilities. So if you likeCPGs, like I like CPGs,

(00:22):
marketing, insights, and caringdeeply for your consumers, Well,
take a listen.
Hello, my curious colleagues. Inthis week's episode, I'm curious
about the benefits andchallenges of gaining a line of
sight to your brand's marketingplans.

(00:43):
If you're lucky enough likemyself to have been part of a
contact center, you may have hada responsibility or had
responsibility for gatheringyour brand's marketing plan
details for the year. I havefound out, in my opinion, that
this, at times, can bechallenging, but a noble task at

(01:04):
that. Let's begin with the whyon how this information helps
your manager, your contactcenter, your consumers, and
ultimately, your brand'sbusiness. Understanding the why
can help you sort of impartthose reasons to your marketer

(01:26):
or other internal clients thatmay not quite understand this
this piece of of the business.So for your manager, this helps
your manager anticipate thevolume into your contact center,
and that goes directly toprojecting staffing to
appropriately support thevolume.

(01:47):
Now your manager is going tolook at other things, past
volume, things like that, inorder to adjust the volume
appropriately. But a manager mayevaluate the staffing model at
some, you know, frequency, couldbe minimally annually. It could
be even monthly. I'm not sure.Knowing the types of initiatives

(02:07):
that are going to be launcheddown the road helps.
Now I say that because it's it'sthen once you understand what's
coming down the pike, thatthere's this opportunity to
expand or contract the staffingas needed. Now for your contact
center and you, what are thebenefits? Having this

(02:29):
understanding of the what andthe when of the marketing plan
initiatives allows you to planfor many activities. First one
is ensuring that your knowledgebase or the database that the
agents use, ensuring that thisknowledge base is up to date
with all the products, images ofthe packaging front, back, side,

(02:53):
and information related to alaunch so that your agents can
leverage this information easilyand feel confident when
interacting with your consumers.Now the second reason is it
ensures that you can identifybeforehand any initiatives that
require training for youragents, ideally, by the brand so

(03:16):
that they can personally educateand engage with your agents.
And the 3rd point is thisprovides information pretty much
kind of on the back end so thatonce you understand the
initiatives and the relatedUPCs, they can be added or
deleted from your producthierarchy in a timely manner.

(03:39):
This way, your agents will beable to pick or select in your
CRM the appropriate UPC whenthey receive their first
contract. Now, of course,there's gotta be something in
there for your brand becausethey're the one who's helping
you understand their plans. Andthis really gives your brand an

(04:00):
opportunity to prepare any FAQsor frequently asked questions,
prepare any training slides, andthis gives you this opportunity
to to review and provide anyguidance beforehand regarding
the documents. It also ensuresyou and the brand that feedback

(04:23):
can be provided back to thebrand so that all can understand
and assess the consumer reactionand acceptance of those
initiatives through variousreports, databases, and
analyses.
And how does this benefit orwhat's the reason for your
consumers? And that is havingaccurate and timely information

(04:46):
to share with your consumerscontributes to an experience you
can be proud of. And improvingthe confidence of your agents
that I mentioned earlier comesthrough definitely when engaging
with your consumer. This episodeis sponsored by the launch of my
very first website atwww.mycuriouscolleague.com.

(05:08):
There, you'll find links toepisodes of all my podcasts,
YouTube videos downloadables,and links to the podcast
accolades and rankings.
There's even a store feature forfuture products. Right now, my
official sticker is available.It's It's the official sticker
with the hashtag CPGCX tag onit, and it is free. So go now to

(05:32):
the website to order sticker andshow your pride in our function
and share your support of MyLittle Podcast.
So to recap, we spend a coupleminutes here talking about some
of the whys you need to to gainthis line of sight to your
brand's marketing plans.
Now, next, let's talk about whatyou should be gathering for this

(05:53):
line of sight to the marketingplans. And you may be surprised
at the granularity that you mayneed as you're going through
this exercise yourself. So I'mgonna run through, like, the
types of information at a highlevel, and then perhaps I'll dig
into the specifics in a laterepisode if you all are
interested in that. There'sabout 9 types, but your

(06:18):
business, of course, could varyon the types and the
granularity, as I mentioned,that may be needed. So the first
sort of type is what I'm gonnacall new brands and sub brands.
The second one is lineextensions. Notice that this is
different than the new brandsand sub brands. Line extensions
in my mind is sort of that youhave an established brand or you

(06:39):
have a brand already, and youare adding to the line, hence
the name, with maybe a variationin flavor or or some sort of
attribute that you're adding tothat particular line. 3rd is
changed products. Reformulationsis in here in my mind, you know,

(07:01):
any product changes, but alsoany packaging changes would go
in this particular section.
4th is discontinued productproducts, which I think might
might surprise some of themarketing folks. It really helps
you when there's a where to buywith the consumer and any cross
sell opportunities that could beestablished. Pricing changes is

(07:25):
number 5, and this directly canimpact your reimbursement
process. The next few typesreally could be considered part
of the communications piece ofthe marketing plan. So number 6
would be advertising.
Of course, that's standard TVspots or even linear TV spots. 7

(07:49):
is digital posts. And it'simportant to understand this
because the timing could impactthe responses that you provide
on content. 8 is promotions andsweepstakes. Often, this is
missed by the marketer becausethey're not aware of the
potential impact, albeit small,to your contact center.

(08:09):
So holding their hands andasking for that type of
information is important. Andthen lastly, website refreshes
and revamps. Now I realize thisis just a top line of my
thoughts on this topic. And ifyou have a responsibility for
gaining a line of sight to yourbrand's marketing plans and want

(08:31):
to share on a future episode, doreach out to me on LinkedIn.
Thanks so much for your time.
If you've learned even a kernelof an idea or was inspired by
this episode, please considerrating and reviewing the podcast
on Apple Podcasts. Be sure toshare out the hashtag CPGCX

(08:54):
because CPGCX really and trulyrocks.

Doug Venneri (08:59):
You have been listening to the My Curious Cali
podcast with Denise VenneriThank you for your time.