Switch Hack

I went to test drive a car last month – an experience I’d been looking forward to for some time. Everyone had been telling me the car I had in mind was THE car to get and the write-ups all supported their entreaties.

The marketing guys had certainly done their work as I had already pretty much bought into the dream. It was therefore, quite a surprise when my local dealer didn’t seem to really want to sell me the product. The person who was “selling” to me was so inept at building up a rapport or answering my questions, that I became completely turned off the product and consequently decided on another brand.

I am gob smacked that a prestigious company that spends so much money developing an exclusive brand, can be so nonchalant about matching up to expectation, letting down the people who have actually made an effort to engage with their products. It’s the same situation with call centres when businesses spend millions of pounds on “above the line” marketing but then skimp at the point where they are actually talking to their clients and prospective customers!

It’s worth remembering just how important customer advocacy is. People really do talk to each other about their experiences – just as I am here. Not only did I feedback my experience to the original advocate of the stricken brand but I also re-counted my experience to more than a handful of people. Interestingly, this case in point converted me to a different category of car, as I changed my mind and bought a different brand  altogether. It ended up being a case of cheap promotion for the other seller and a customer relations disaster for the company I had eagerly approached.

You really can’t service customer needs without effective communication.

If an enterprise really understands how to send out the right message using the right communication medium at the right time, it will dramatically increase its revenue, reduce its operating costs and increase its word of mouth advocacy by making many customers happy. This is why multi- channel marketing techniques (such as TLC’s EPI applied via its call centres) can play such a significant role in improving the prospects of a business.

One dimensional communication relies on a once-only opportunity to transmit a message, whether it is an entreaty to buy or an attempt to resolve an issue. This is often very complicated and certainly not the way we conduct most of our day to day communication. If we want to build up a relationship with a particular someone, it is done over time and the quality and timing of the communication is pretty crucial. Building relationships in business is no different.

An effective communication normally consists of a series of interactions demonstrating a mutual understanding , then arriving at a mutually satisfactory conclusion. Thus, if you are running a proactive sales campaign the conversion rate from one channel in isolation will be significantly lower than if the channels were combined to deliver a series of interrelated communications. For example, we have found that the intervention of using web chat on a website can increase conversion rates by over 100%.

Let’s take the example of the travel industry:

A potential client might browse the web to investigate a holiday destination and then check out flights and accommodation on the web. At some point they will want more information, on such things as quality of available hotels for example. So, they need to be able to open up communications by email or phone. The respondent will want to communicate with someone who has both good knowledge of the products and has the skills necessary to retain their interest. Ideally, such an agent should also be able to respond with email, phone or with via another channel such as SMS and then sustain a dialogue using whatever medium is preferred by the customer.

Once the transaction is completed, a welcome letter may be dispatched thanking the new client for their business, providing factual details about the trip along with useful information about the holiday location which should all come across in a personal manner.

Just before the holiday an email can be sent acting as a reminder of the holiday details along with any relevant information for the trip on jabs, visa, passport requirements or similar. After the trip a questionnaire can then be emailed back to the client, followed up with a phone call to iron out any possible issues that may have been relayed. The business now has a valuable profile of the new client and other holiday opportunities can be sent to them via a mix of email  and/or brochures combined with SMS prompts.

This simple transaction involves a multitude of individual communications across a number of channels which work to create a complete transaction and to establish a long-term relationship. The transaction needs to be delivered via an all encompassing system that can be used to create an audit trail of the communications and a holistic view of the customer. This in turn generates a greater understanding of what works for each individual.

I think that when people talk about the emergence of new channels they miss the big point:

It is the seamless, integrated use of channels to deliver multiple communications that add up to a successful transaction which makes the difference, not the use of each communication channel on its own. It’s not surprising that an unsolicited SMS promoting a single product will have a very low response, but as a follow up to another conversation once a relationship has been established it becomes a very important channel linking various communications together.

It is inevitable that offline and online disciplines will merge and businesses will start re-organising their plans to accommodate this. Mobile marketing is a case in point; a single use of SMS or call to mobile can be useful but if combined in a multi-channel strategy which takes into account the wider functionality of the application allowing the use of phone, sms, video, web, then it becomes a very powerful application with which to communicate in a professional yet personal manner. If it is just used as a platform to conduct single channel campaigns the returns will be lower and the consumer is more likely to be turned off by what seems a more mechanical and impersonal approach.