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Tag Archives: telemarketing

A simple phone call goes a long way in good and bad times…

14 Thursday May 2020

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Advertising, Branding, Customer Service, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Sales, small data

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

customer service, marketing, marketing technology, martech, selling, small data, telemarketing

As most of you readers already know, in tough times the marketing rule of thumb is to keep investing in your marketing. Though it’s easier said than done if your business is closed and your customers don’t have jobs.

But that being said – there has never been a better time for real contact, as against digital contact. As I’ve shared previously, there is a heap of COVID-CRAP in our inboxes, most of it is a complete waste of effort and completely ignored.

So I ask you folks, “How many of you have rung your customers recently to have a real conversation?” Just put in a call to check in and see how your customers are and if you can help them – with anything?

If not, may I suggest you consider a phone or video call – sooner rather than later. The reason is simple: if you’re not, your competitors are probably doing so. If you are claiming as you read “I cannot afford to call my customers” – you may want to revise your business model. If you can’t afford to call or mail a letter to your customers, you will lose quite a substantial amount of business – in good and bad times.

Why didn’t you call?

Most SaaS companies lose huge volumes of clients because they never call them – they rely on marketing technology (martech for the buzzword lovers) to deliver their personal communications, immediately de-personalising the experience for their customers.

LinkedIn is guilty as charged. I tried the “Premium” service and after a year of not enjoying any premium service, I didn’t renew. All I got from LinkedIn was email to remind me to pay my renewal. Now, because LinkedIn is not very good at its “small data” I keep getting offers to trial the Premium service.

How hard is it for LinkedIn to pick up the phone and ask why I left them, or to block advertising a service I cancelled, so as not to irritate me? But hey – maybe they don’t understand lifetime value?

Here’s a simple example of the value of talking to your customers:
My elderly father is a member at his local licensed sports club – he no longer competes, but visits for dinner or lunch regularly. He isn’t known, he’s just one of thousands of members. Last week his phone rang – it’s a landline. The club’s welfare officer was checking in to see how my father was doing and if he needed anything. They were checking on all members aged over 70 – a  simple use of small data that made a big impact.

Nobody from the club has ever rung my father in his life. But he thought it was wonderful that the club would consider calling him – he’s told everyone and can’t wait for it to reopen so he can enjoy a meal with a glass or three of wine.

Can’t wait to get back to the club to splurge on a Schnitty…

Imagine what your customers might say if you called them?
Here’s another example – I’ve written about this previously. A major office supplies company in Australia was keen to migrate its customers to online ordering to reduce the call centre workload – and cut some costs. They company mails annual catalogues to customers and research shows the catalogue stays on file until the next edition is mailed. Customers usually order with the catalogue on their desk.

It didn’t take them long to discover a problem with sales. The customers who moved to online ordering were ordering less per order than those who rang the call centre. They weren’t shopping more frequently either. So sales dropped as business moved online.

They company launched a new strategy – before they shipped the online orders, they called the customers (by phone) and advised the order was about to be dispatched, asking if the customer wanted to add anything to the order. Inevitably, using historical order data, the customer service representative up-sold the customer and increased the order value. The company has increased its call centre to accommodate both types of online ordering – telephone and data lines.

And by how much can I increase your order today?

So, if you’re considering migrating your business to online-only because of the pandemic, consider accompanying the service with real people on the telephone if you really want to succeed.

Receptionist is marketing genius
Another former client of mine takes orders by email and website. Each time an order arrives the company receptionist calls the customer to confirm the order. She started doing this because she thought it was good manners – you know, the right thing to do.

I suggested that during the call she agree a delivery date that was later than the earliest her company could deliver. The company now delivers each order before the agreed delivery date. The clients love the service as it exceeds their expectations and there is rarely any dispute over paying on time.

Thank you for your order it will be delivered on…

How $2 helped make $millions
Speaking of paying on time, a very successful cousin of mine sold his business for a premium, partly due to his excellent cash flow and a simple phone call. Geoff (his real name) would ring the accounts payable department of each of his debtors and confirm who was responsible for the processing of his invoices – most were small to medium size companies.

Each month he would mail his invoice in a personally addressed envelope to the accounts payable clerk – complete with a $2 scratch lottery ticket attached. His debtors loved getting his mail – and they paid his invoices ahead, or on time, every month. His cash position added enormous value to his business when he sold it.

Thank you for paying my invoice on time…

So, regardless of whether you are able to sell anything or not to your customers, due to lock-down or delivery issues, make and keep real contact with them. They’ll appreciate your effort and the investment will pay off – either immediately or in the “new-normal”.

It also allows you to gain some knowledge about each customer. Because the old adage still applies:

One thing you know about your customer is worth more than anything you know about your product or service.

That ‘one thing’, gives you a reason for a conversation – and that conversation can turn into business for you.

The other reason you should keep talking with your customers is also very simple:

If your customers don’t make you rich…who will?

Gotta go – the phone’s ringing, I wonder who it is…

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Does Marketo believe all marketers are idiots…

02 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by Malcolm Auld in B2B Marketing, Content Marketing, Copywriting, Digital marketing, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Social Media, Telemarketing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

B2B Marketing, content marketing, copywriting, Dave Chaffey, digital marketing, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing automation, Marketo, telemarketing

Some of you may have seen this subject line recently. It’s a Newsflash so it must be important:

Capture 5

It’s from Marketo and it’s close to being the most insulting subject line ever written about marketers. Either that or it reveals the Marketo team is comprised of fools.

Hands-up all of you who thought email was dead or gravely ill for that matter? Who among you no longer uses email to communicate with customers, because you thought email was dead?

emaildead

Were you as relieved as I was to discover from Marketo that “email is not dead“? I suspect very few of you even believed the headline. It’s the equivalent of saying “the atmosphere still exists around planet Earth“. Of course it does and of course email is not dead – what fool would make such a claim?

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Here’s the supporting paragraph:

Marketers are spoilt for choice when it comes to digital marketing channels. Programmatic, social, mobile apps… the list goes on. Despite all the latest and greatest, tried-and-tested tactics still have their place in any marketing strategy this year: when it comes to true audience engagement, email is still king.

It’s true, marketers are spoiled for choice – and tried and tested tactics still have their place in any marketing strategy. And when it comes to true audience engagement (whatever that even means) nothing beats face-to-face selling, telephone, direct mail and then of course email – the science proved it years ago. So while email may not be king, it’s certainly close in the pecking order beneath the throne.

Curiously Marketo is addicted to email – it’s the primary way they communicate directly with subscribers. They certainly don’t call their subscribers on the phone – despite the obvious profits in doing so.

images

So let’s consider why they published such a headline.

Option 1 – They believe all marketers are idiots and stopped using email for marketing purposes. As you and I know dear reader, marketers have never stopped inundating inboxes with marketing messages and won’t stop any time soon, so it can’t be this option.

Option 2 – The Marketo team members are stupid, as they thought email was dead and they stopped using it for their marketing purposes, when every other brand in the world continued to use it. I don’t think they are stupid and they certainly haven’t stopped using email if my inbox is anything to go by, so it can’t be this option.

Option 3 – Maybe a junior with no experience wrote the headline? As you can tell, I’m grasping for explanations. There is no sensible reason for making such a nebulous claim – unless the Marketo marketing team is just plain lazy and decided to be sensationalist to sell their webinar? I’m leaning toward this option.

The problem with using a sensationalist headline, is it must be believable if it is to work – like the headline in this blog. And given most marketers, including Marketo’s team, don’t believe email is dead, this headline makes no sense whatsoever and insults even the most mediocre marketer.

If you are interested in catching up on the latest in email marketing then you may want to join the webinar. Dave Chaffey is well worth listening too – he’s a very smart marketer. Though I suggest he would have written a different headline. Here’s the link to the event – so my good friends at Marketo get a free plug:)

But the headline does reveal the number one truth of content marketing – any fool can type crap and sadly many fools do…

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Two marketers walk into a bar and tell conference call jokes…

01 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Customer Service, Telemarketing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

conference calls, customer service, meetings, telemarketing

We’ve all sat in them – conference calls. They can be the most non-productive meetings ever conducted. Attendees spend their time doing everything but focus on the call – stare at their phone screens, do their emails, chat to others, read stuff, dose off and more.

This video – a conference call in real life – gets it spot on.

Avagoodweegend…

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'Nobody?! Well, since we're all stuck in traffic, we may as well do this by conference call.'

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MjAxMi1iNzM4OGFkODEzZWNiZTAw_52432bd252f40

images

index 1

'It's not easy to eat breakfast, text, conduct a conference call and drive at the same time...but I did it!'

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Teams don’t send emails, individuals do…

01 Thursday May 2014

Posted by Malcolm Auld in Branding, Customer Service, Direct Marketing, Email marketing, Marketing, Telemarketing

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

branding, customer service, direct marketing, email marketing, marketing, telemarketing

Have a nice day,
The Team at Big Brand

You’ve probably received one of those email messages? You know the ones.

They are delivered usually by auto-responder and the signature file claims the message has been sent to you by a team.

Picture it for a second. There’s the whole customer service team excitedly gathered around a single keyboard. All pointing one of their digits at the keyboard together, like one big connected finger, waiting in anticipation of pressing the send button.

The team leader starts the cheer: “On the count of 3, 2, 1…send” they hit send as one team, and then go back to their individual jobs.

"3, 2, 1... send"

“3, 2, 1… send”

Possible? Not Likely. Does anyone really believe a team sends an email to an individual?

I know they don’t, because I’ve tested it. Yes folks, I received a message from the team at a big brand in financial services.

So I immediately rang them. When I eventually connected to a human I asked to speak with the team.

The person was confused, “which team sir?” I explained the team that just sent me the email. I suggested she gather them around, as I had some questions I needed answering before I bought.

She became confused, “but I can’t connect you to a team…”. I replied “but the team just sent me a message and asked me to contact them if I had any questions, so here I am – go get the team for me please?”

Then she hung up, thinking I was some kind of nutter.

But I’d made my point. Email is a personal media – so treat it as such and write from one individual to another, not from a team to an individual. Unless of course you put each signature of all the individuals in the team, into the signature file of the message – which really only works with a small team.

And use more text than images in your message. Apart from the spam filter defaults that block messages dominated by images, most email systems also require the recipient to right-click to view images. And given humans are the laziest species on Earth, it’s all too hard, so we don’t click, we delete. See more email marketing tips here.

Curiously I received a letter this week from Telstra. The writer says “My team had recently tried to call you blah blah blah…”.

At first I was flattered – a whole team at Telstra tried to call little old me? How disappointing I’d missed the call.

But I hadn’t missed the call – it was never made. I’ll cover this in my next blog – the rise and rise of lying as the new benchmark for customer service.

Oh look I’ve just received an email. The “From Line” says it’s from “Telstra Team”.

I’m off to make a call:)

 

 

 

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