Bringing Clients In-House

Challenge: 

The CRM and Website clients at Ford exhibited a risk-averse mindset, making them hesitant to adopt new approaches. Our former team lacked innovation, and a history of execution challenges, coupled with a lack of motivation from Ford corporate to pursue change, resulted in unsophisticated touchpoints. To empower my team, who craved more advanced analytics work, I focused on creating an environment that provided them with unique opportunities they wouldn't find elsewhere.

Approach:

I began by negotiating a shift from a monthly report with limited insights to a quarterly report with more substantive and actionable information. This change not only relieved the team from a despised and time-consuming task but also allowed them to showcase their expertise. Our inaugural quarterly report exceeded client expectations, generating significant enthusiasm. Leveraging this positive response, I successfully gained approval for advanced projects. As we delivered on these initiatives, we experienced a surge in client requests. To manage this influx effectively, I proposed a collaborative structure that integrated clients into our team. Through the "Effort Over Impact" framework, both our team and clients collaboratively determined which tasks the team should prioritize based on their impact.

Outcome:

Our clients exhibited remarkable enthusiasm, extending invitations to their bosses and even VPs to join our quarterly meetings. With an enhanced understanding of our business and decision-making processes, they became strong advocates for our team when interacting with higher-level management. Our quarterly reports underwent a transformation, shifting from mere explanations of past occurrences to valuable lessons learned from our experiments. Adopting a Test and Learn approach empowered my team to tackle more sophisticated tasks. We successfully resolved significant KPI drops caused by a site transition, developed an innovative methodology for identifying MVP consumers that resulted in a notable 25% lift in Incremental CRM sales, and conducted numerous AB tests to optimize both the website and CRM platform.