Blog posts in Customer care

What's the best way to reach your customers?

How do you talk to your customers? The choices are many — by email, by letter, on the phone, by text, via Twitter, Facebook or any number of social media sites  — or even, shock horror — in person.

What works best for you? If you are like one in four British adults, you may avoid picking up the phone at all costs — preferring to text rather than actually speak to someone (Daisy Group survey).

Perhaps you prefer emailing. Or are you one of the 6% of people that have totally lost control of their inboxes? (research by Varonis).

If you like your communication informal and online, you may prefer building relationships on social media sites.

But enough about your needs — the real question is, how do your customers like be approached? Let’s face it. You might be mad about Twitter but if your target market doesn’t tweet, you need to find a way to reach them that works on their terms.

New research by Ofcom could help you to understand your target market a little better, thanks to its investigations into the different communication habits of British people.

It has highlighted five types, from the “always on” to the “detached”. Now this may seem simplistic but if your marketing is totally excluding one or more of these groups, you could be missing out on a lot of business.

What it makes clear is that in a multi-channel world, everyone has their favourite ways to keep in touch — and no business can afford to take a one-size-fits-all approach.

Here are the five groups:

Always on (22% of adults)

• The youngest group, with half (50%) aged under 35, they communicate a lot, especially with their friends and family.
• They are almost twice as likely to use services such as Twitter (28%) than the national average (16%).
• They are more likely to own a mobile phone and have access to a computer than average — they use new technology to keep in touch.
• They use their mobile phones especially for texting (90%) and calls (88%) and are more comfortable about sharing information online.

Enlightened (19% of adults)

• A young group, with 44% aged under 35, these enlightened communicators like to keep up to date with the latest technology.
• They are more likely to say they are knowledgeable about the internet and are careful about sharing personal information online.
• Enlightened communicators use text and email to keep in touch with friends and family, and around a third say their use of email has increased in the past two years.

Middle-of-the-road (22% of adults)

• Generally aged 35-54, their levels of communication are much more in line with the general population.
• Middle-of-the-road communicators tend to use a range of methods to keep in touch, with face-to-face (78%) their favourite.
• They are most likely to be hesitant about sharing personal opinions on social media and will tend to let others try out new services first before they give them a go themselves (11% say they are the first to try new products and services compared to 21% overall).

Conventional (21% of adults)

• The oldest group, with almost half (47%) aged over 65, conventional communicators tend to be retired and live on their own.
• Conventional communicators are more likely to have a landline phone (81%), rather than a computer (39%) or mobile phone (73%).
• Their top preferred methods of keeping in touch with friends and family are meeting face-to-face (75% compared to 67% nationally) or calling them on their home phone (16% compared to 10% nationally).
• On special occasions such as birthdays, they are more likely to send their friends or family a card or present in the post (69%) than the overall population (58%).

Detached (16% of adults)

• More likely to be men across a wide range of ages, communication isn’t a priority for them.
• They are least likely to choose to meet someone face-to-face, with only 42% saying it is their top preferred method of communicating with friends and family compared to 67% nationally.
• They are more likely to use newer quick form text methods of communication, such as Twitter, than the overall population (19% v 16%).

Isn’t it time you found out more about the communication preferences of your customers?

• Rachel Miller is the editor of Marketing Donut.

Some cold hard facts about customer service

Exceptional customer service is a badge that everyone wants to wear, but few people get right. In my opinion, it isn’t difficult to provide a service that customers find exceptional.  The answer is easy — put your customers at the heart of everything you do. 

Satisfied customers are the Holy Grail for any business. With high levels of support, customer churn is minimised and existing customers not only buy more from you, they recommend you to others.  

The service we provide (gritting and snow clearance) is critical as it keeps organisations operating in the worst weather but, by its nature, is delivered in the toughest conditions. Yet, last winter, our annual end-of-season survey of clients revealed 99.2% satisfaction with the service they received. 

This satisfaction led to us being listed as the 37^th fastest growing business in the Sunday Times Virgin Fast Track 100 in December 2011, on the back of an 83% increase in sales.

The secret is simple — build your business around your customers’ requirements and continually listen to them so you understand the challenges they face and can respond with innovative ideas to help them.

After happy customers, your second biggest asset is your staff. Having motivated and passionate people representing your business will mean they’re always doing the best job they can for you and your customers and they’ll often go the extra mile.

The importance of ASK

We select everyone we work with based on their attitude, skills and knowledge (ASK) — in that order. Having a can do attitude is essential for us. We believe it’s easier to teach people the skills needed for the job, than it is to change a person’s work ethic and the team continually prove to us that this is the best approach. 

Our staff go above and beyond the call of duty for our customers. Last winter, one of our guys was clearing snow from walkways in the middle of a freezing night and noticed that someone had piled snow up against a fire escape door as a prank, preventing it from being opened. It wasn’t part of the contract to clear snow from that part of the site but his conscience couldn’t let him leave it as it was, so he spent additional time clearing it, much to the customer’s delight.

It’s not just customer-facing staff who should be relied on to react to customers’ needs, everyone in the business should be focused on it. There needs to be an internal culture that promotes and rewards innovative thinking.

No more computer says “no”

It’s also vital to have robust systems and processes in place, which enable every member of the team to do the best job whilst being as flexible as possible with customer needs.  As technology improves, the possibilities become endless – so never again should staff need to say “computer says no”.

We are extremely proud of the partnership we have with our customers and it’s all down to putting them at the centre of everything we do. And of course it’s not all about the bottom line; there is nothing more satisfying for you and your staff than a customer being delighted with the work you’ve done.

With the recession leaving a legacy of consumers and businesses demanding more value for their money, customer service has never been more important. Those who will thrive will not just make customer service one of the things they do, they will ensure their service delivery is based entirely around the customer.

Alastair Kight is managing director of GRITIT, winter risk management specialists.