At the beginning of July this year Expolink took on a loyalty campaign for The Daily Mail. The paper was launching a promotional campaign across its weekend editions to encourage sales and long-term customer loyalty. It needed a contact centre to complement its online presence and anticipated that 4% of contacting customers wouldn’t have access to the internet or would need support filling out the web form.
More than anticipated, out of 30368 calls in July, 13.9% were responding for those very reasons. 65% of those callers were making contact to ask for advice or support relating to the promotion. These figures show unequivocally that there is still a very real and enduring need for human contact options.
Readers were encouraged to collect tokens from The Daily Mail which would allow them to accumulate discount rewards from major retailers.
The results reflect the fact that a considerable chunk of the paper’s market base, while still active consumers, still required support with the promotion. Imagine if the lines had not been in place and a potentially loyal customer of the paper had been unsure of the functionality or benefits of the scheme and had fallen at the first hurdle? That’s a considerable impact, not only on the paper, but on the paper’s retail partners, who we can be sure have their own loyalty strategy to fulfil.
The Office of National Statistics estimates that internet usage almost doubled in the UK between 2006 and 2010, a perhaps unsurprising figure given the proliferation and popularity of internet shopping and social media. However, on closer analysis, socio-demographic factors come into play. 60% of those aged over 65 had never accessed the internet compared with just 1% of those aged between 16 and 24. A cursory scout around one of The Big Four or any shopping centre will tell you that it is not just this latter age group that should be a target for consumer loyalty.
Turning to regional demographics, while 83% of folks in the capital are estimated to have their own internet connection, just 59% in the North East say the same. Perhaps most enlightening of all is the reasons households give for not having their own web connection; 39% said they just did not need it and 21% said they did not have the skills. These are two facts that businesses cannot ignore when reviewing their strategy for a campaign. Making your communications as inclusive, user-friendly and coherent as possible is fundamental in achieving profit, loyalty and optimum customer care. Our campaign continues to enjoy success for our client due to the commitment we have to our client’s customers. The response has also proved a vital exercise in customer awareness and will help the paper continue to achieve loyalty successes within their market base, in what are very uncertain times for our national press.
