Who would have bet that Manchester would have been the chosen site for the UK’s first ‘super casino’? Whether or not you think that this was a good decision, ‘betting’ on a much smaller scale could prove to be a useful incentive for your organisation.

When the chips are down (so to speak!), an office sweepstake can be a useful tool for promoting customer insight. For example, one IT company set up a sweepstake which took bets on the results of a brand tracking study. Attendance at the regular presentations became much more punctual. You might be surprised to find just how much interest levels can rise when the possibility of winning some money is thrown into the equation!

Another use of a sweepstake could involve bets on the results of Customer Satisfaction measurement. This can be a particularly key area if bonuses are already partly linked to achieving specified Customer Satisfaction levels. So, if you’re looking for a sure bet when it comes to encouraging more involvement in insight, why not give it a try? You could find that you’re on to a winner!

TIMID TIM

This is the third in a set of 'pen portraits' of different types of internal clients, and the issues you may need to address when working with them.

Timid Tim

Tim works in the brand team, is efficient and is therefore often asked to co-ordinate research or analysis procedures. He is bright, produces good briefs, and is a great team player. However, Tim hates to disappoint, and is very averse to conflict. If research or analysis results are unwelcome, he may disassociate himself from them, or even try to change or ‘bury’ them.

The key to handling Tim is to recognise the issues and to appeal to his key values. Whatever message he is delivering, you also need to try and provide him with help that will ensure that he is seen in a favourable light. This will involve good preparation, a positive ‘spin’ wherever necessary, and constructive recommendations.

To find out more about how you can handle and help Timid Tim, click here.

Next edition - meet Pedantic Paula...  

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS 

Your internal clients – particularly your Marketing personnel and senior executives – need to get closer to their customers if they want to understand them better and boost Customer Satisfaction levels and meet their needs better. This will mean observing them and interacting with them in real situations.

To achieve this, you will need to develop a programme of activities and techniques that enable your company’s executives to gain first hand experience of their customers’ situations and business needs. Some leading UK organisations have already proved the value of this approach and have established strategies for regular customer contact.

Ultimately, an effective ‘customer immersion’ programme can produce a major change in customer understanding. This in turn can be translated into increased sales or retention and profit.

If you want to know how you can help your internal clients to get closer to their customers, please click here to find out more.

DEVELOPING SKILLS

Do you want to maximise the impact of your insights? If so, you need to ensure that they are communicated effectively. Documents such as newsletters and bulletins are particularly useful tools – but only if they are well written.

For optimum impact, writing needs to be both simple and clear. Most newsletters (apart perhaps from reports and bulletins to senior executives) benefit from an informal and light-hearted style. You can learn a lot from reading tabloid newspapers (surprisingly!). They use a friendly style, with short sentences, and signpost what the article is about right at the beginning.

There are many different hints and tips that can improve your writing, but why not come along to our course on March 15th? Helen James of Insight Partners will be sharing a lot of expertise on: “How to Communicate for Maximum Impact.” Please click here for further information.

If you can’t wait for some more brief tips about how to write more effectively, please click here to see the expanded version of this article.

 THE APPLIANCE OF SCIENCE

No, this isn’t an advert for a washing machine! It’s all about the role that Knowledge Management (KM) can play within Insight Management and vice versa. KM has helped to highlight the existence of two different types of knowledge – Explicit and Tacit. 

• Explicit knowledge is readily available information held in documents, presentations or databases.
• Tacit knowledge is the information inside people’s heads – not just facts, but also ideas, principles, experiences and skills.

 One of the key roles of Insight Management is the communication of explicit knowledge to people in such a way that it becomes tacit knowledge. It can then be applied effectively within the organisation.

To find out more please click here

TIP OF THE MONTH

Taming PowerPoint Monsters

How often have you created huge (3Mb or larger) PowerPoint files and had problems sending them to people because of their size? The cause is almost always the same – lots of photos and clipart. The solution is simple. Go to your presentation, find any image, and click on it. The Picture Toolbar should appear automatically (if it doesn’t, right click on it and choose the option ‘Show Picture Toolbar’).

On the toolbar (typically fifth from the right) is a tiny symbol of a mountain with four arrows pointing in at the corners. If you put the cursor over this, it should say: ‘Compress Pictures’. Click on this symbol, and it will give you the option of compressing just this image, or all pictures in the document (choose this one). You can compress to print or screen quality (choose screen as it will compress the most). The result should be a much smaller file – but please check that everything still looks okay.

WARNING: Keep a copy of the originals in case some images don’t turn out correctly (in our experience, this has never been a problem).

This tip applies to Microsoft PowerPoint 2003. If you have another version and can’t find it, look for ‘Compress Pictures’ in Help. If this doesn’t work, please let us know and we’ll try to find a solution.  

TRAINING

Just a reminder that it is not too late to book a place on our third Insight training course in London in March this year. It is: 

How To Communicate for Maximum Impact  -  15th March 2007

Please Click here for more details

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