Scotts Opens the Door to Sales Opportunities

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is the world's largest marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products with a full range of products for professional horticulture. Each year, just under one million consumer calls, more than 80,000 e-mails and more than 40,000 letters pass through the Scotts Help Center by way of its consumer interaction and relationship management solution: Astute Solutions' ePowerCenter.

Scotts Miracle-Gro presently has more than 1,600 reason codes in its system to accommodate complex issues and an extensive family of brands and products. It is designed to enable contact center agents to capture the best possible information during a consumer interaction, while enabling managers to get actionable, real-time customer insights from its alerting and reporting capabilities.

Distinguished by scope and granularity, ePowerCenter's reporting enables Scotts to view -- among other things -- patterns of insect or weed/disease infestations in very specific parts of the country. The company started the Consumer Insight Alerts (CIA) program to respond to these highly targeted revenue-generating opportunities.


Consumer Interaction Data

Utilizing data collection and reporting capabilities, Scotts configured ePowerCenter to alert analysts of unusual occurrences and trends from the tremendous amount of data captured. On a daily basis, CIA analysts review normalized reports for patterns and trends. With access to high level and finely detailed data, they can pinpoint opportunities to alert consumers about specific problems in focused regions -- down to individual zip codes. Once an event is identified, such as an infestation, the CIA team immediately notifies sales and the marketing liaison of the opportunity, assembles the necessary sales support tools and prepares an e-mail alert for affected consumers.


CIA in Action

When Scotts' CIA analysts discovered an increase in reports of swarming fire ants in particular zip codes, they initiated a flawlessly executed series of events.

After confirming affected areas, CIA analysts assembled a sales execution kit, which included:

• A PowerPoint presentation for the sales team
  
  
• Detailed instructions on how to engage local retailers in the process
  
  
• Reports (showing impacted areas by zip code) for sales to share with retailers
  
  
• Maps outlining the scope, intensity and movement of the infestations
  
  
• An e-mail alert for affected consumers
  
  
• Product signage
  
  
• An order form with recommended quantities (by product) to ensure enough product is available at individual retail locations to meet the impending demand

Once equipped and informed, Scotts sent a blast to those consumers (approximately 750,000) who subscribed to its value-added e-mail reminder service. It outlined all pertinent details surrounding the infestation and recommended specific products to remedy the problem.

The initiative was seamless and came together in less than a week. Thankful for the "heads up," impacted consumers went to well-stocked retail outlets for a quick and easy fix. Grateful retailers forged even stronger relationships with Scotts that are expected to facilitate future initiatives. And within two weeks, the proactive fire ant infestation activities generated an additional $400,000 in sales.


Quick Hits, Deep Impact

Consumer packaged goods companies strive for product innovation that reflects the wants and needs of consumers. When an organization understands the importance and function of "voice of the consumer" insights, they can make effective business decisions to strengthen customer relationships, drive revenue and enhance brands.

Scotts has demonstrated the power of extending the contact center and leveraging customer insights for highly effective sales and marketing efforts across the entire enterprise.

"We knew that we could not accomplish what we wanted to on the sales front if we were tied to a complex program that was difficult to use," explains Ed Billmaier, senior director of relationship and interactive marketing, Scotts Miracle-Gro. "With Astute Solutions' ePowerCenter, we gain the critical advantage of being able to respond on the fly -- without involving IT. We can collect incredible amounts of data, analyze it and serve it to sales and marketing on a silver platter."