*Shallow Talent Pool: Chief marketing officers (CMOs) at top U.S. brands place the highest value on creative thinkers and leaders in their hiring practices, but 39% of the executives revealed they are somewhat to very unsatisfied with the availability of qualified employment candidates, according to new Epsilon research profiling the American CMO.
When asked how satisfied they are with the availability of qualified candidates for marketing positions, surveyed CMOs responded with the following thoughts:
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33% somewhat unsatisfied
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6% very unsatisfied
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54% somewhat satisfied
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5% very satisfied
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1% don't know
The CMOs also identified the most important characteristics they seek in new employees, which include:
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Creative thinker: 70%
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Provides good leadership and inspiration: 64%
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Ability to complete projects efficiently: 63%
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Forward-thinking and modern in business approach: 63%
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Fiscally responsible: 40%
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Ability to find a good work-life balance: 26%
Source: Epsilon
*Consumers' Voice Silenced: According to a new study by the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, with Satmetrix, 58% of the 480 executives surveyed said their companies do not compensate any employees or executives based on customer loyalty, satisfaction improvements or analytics; 38% said their companies have no programs in place to track or propagate positive word of mouth among customers; and only 29% said their companies rate highly in their ability to handle and resolve customer problems or complaints.
The study underscores critical deficiencies in the way companies measure, optimize and leverage customer experience to drive loyalty, improve brand value and increase business performance and growth, including:
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Insufficient availability and aggregation of real-time customer experience data across touch points that should be shared across the organization;
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Poor use of customer interactions to collect insights and intelligence or maximize up-sell and advocacy opportunities;
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Lack of Internet processes and systems to track online word of mouth and drive customer advocacy; and,
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Too few compensation programs tied to customer experience, loyalty and satisfaction gains.
Among the additional findings:
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Only 38% of companies gather customer insight from customer engagement situations;
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Just 32% look for ways to turn problems into new sales opportunities;
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Only 15% introduce new products or services to further monetize the relationship;
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17% use the opportunity to identify and cultivate potential customer champions and advocates;
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13% of companies have deployed real-time systems to collect, analyze and distribute customer feedback;
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14.5% track word of mouth on the Internet; and,
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12% are using a word-of-mouth marketing platform to drive online customer advocacy.
Source: CMO Council
*Corporate Reputations Could Suffer as Online Risk Grows: A study from Weber Shandwick and the Economist Intelligence Unit, "Risky Business: Reputations Online," says that employee sabotage and misdirected e-mails are among executives' greatest concerns related to the Internet's influence on reputation management. Among the findings:
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67% of top global executives believe that their own companies' reputations are threatened by online risks;
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66% are either unaware of or do not want to admit that employees are bad-mouthing their companies online;
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34% claim to know of an employee who posted something negative online about their company;
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87% of executives have erroneously sent or received at least one electronic message; and,
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When asked about the effectiveness of the Internet as a resource for judging reputation, global executives reported that the best uses of the Internet are for investigating business rivals (64%) and partners (60%), capturing customer feedback (63%) and exploring new employment opportunities (60%).
Source: Weber Shandwick & EIU
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