Why some customers are just not that into you

When brand communications become intrusion

A Pitney Bowes White Paper

Introduction
As with any good romance, great brands seek to enable a lifetime relationship with their customers. The profitable ability to iteratively create delightful experiences across a long period of time begins and ends with each customer touch point. Customer communications play a vital role in developing the customer experience.

Key findings
A good customer experience is essential to business success. But defining what this experience entails and implementing the appropriate marketing and service techniques is a core brand challenge. Communications play a critical role. Channel choice and an abundance of customer data may tempt businesses to increase the amount of interaction, but consumers are becoming jaded with too much contact. Consumers identify common marketing techniques that are intrusive and annoying. Consumers also point to stand-out marketing techniques to boost customer relationships. Metrics, data quality, customer analytics and personalization are power tools for marketers who are responsibly investing in their customer relationships.

The proliferation of channels and customer touch points available today - mail, social media, multimedia, texting, email and instore interaction with sales staff - gives brands a huge choice of where, when and how to contact customers. Channel-choice, combined with the ability to apply data, customer analytics and personalization often tempts businesses to simply send more and more communications in order to engage with customers at as many touch points as possible. At what stage does a businesss attempts at creating a brand experience become an irritation for customers rather than a help? Interacting with consumers requires brands to perform a delicate balancing act. Too many one-way communications, and consumers turn off; too little, and a brand risks missing key opportunities to drive sales and engender brand loyalty. Is there a definable tipping point where communications and attempts to second-guess the customer actually start to irritate rather than enthuse? To answer these questions Pitney Bowes surveyed consumers across France, Germany, the UK and the US. The findings clarify what customers expect and desire from interactions with businesses, and also, which interactions irritate them. For marketers and strategists, the results shine a well needed light through todays communications jungle, providing a clear insight into the mindset of todays consumer. For a brand to create a delightful consumer experience, they must investigate at every opportunity - what comprises the consumers idea of one.

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A Pitney Bowes White Paper

Reality check
The Pitney Bowes survey findings deliver a reality check best summed up as Your customers are just not that into you. Attempts to engage and develop the relationship and to further immerse the consumer in the brand in order to create a positive experience are, in many cases, serving to produce the direct opposite effect. What sounds like a smart idea in the boardroom or planning meeting may not be met with the same enthusiasm out in the field. Consumers are clear about what they want from their business interactions and many of the techniques and initiatives being deployed are simply not having an influence. Worse, misdirected communications often diminish a brands pool of available prospects and customers as targets opt out of the brand conversation altogether. The research examines consumer opinions on just when customer interaction crosses the line from helpful and welcomed to intrusive and annoying. The survey, like customer interactions, covers a range of channels available to consumers today and the many different ways in which brands commonly interact with customers. The results show that consumers are open to brand interactions. However, they are quite specific about what level of interaction is acceptable, and many commonly deployed marketing techniques cross the line. Of all the techniques and practices surveyed, six stand out as particularly irritating to consumers. These six annoying marketing techniques are unacceptable to a high percentage of those surveyed. The good news is that marketers have the tools and technologies to remedy these irritants and get their customer relationships back on track for loyalty and growth.

With the high volumes of branded email sent to consumers with or without permission, email is the channel where brands inadvertently annoy their targets most. The failure to provide an opt-out is not only irritating, it is also illegal. The second is the usually innocent overload of emails by one brand either due to poor customer communications management, silod business units targeting simultaneously or campaign management which is uninformed by metrics. The remaining annoying techniques that are turning off consumers follow a clear pattern. Asking customers to support a brands charity or ethical concerns (84%); sending offers from third-parties (83%); encouraging interaction with other consumers via an online community (81%); and encouraging customers to attend branded lifestyle events (71%) were cited as irritating by the consumers surveyed. These types of marketing communications can each be effective at the appropriate time within the context of the customer relationship. However, each of these attempts for a new interaction can be intrusive if the customers immediate needs are not being fully addressed first. In short, the brand is not given permission by the customer for one of these more intimate activities until the customer is fully satisfied, or better yet delighted. Often, timing is off. Better targeting, real time data and customer analytics will go a long way to helping determine which consumers are ready for this next level of interaction with the brand. Once brand permission is more visibly granted, many of these techniques work very well and are welcomed by a significant proportion of consumers. Live events, for example, can bring in a valuable return on investment, with each person who interacts in a live brand event likely to tell 17 others.1 It is a matter of balance and timing, and of listening and responding appropriately to customer preferences. Like any twoway conversation, there is a rhythm to the relationship that must be respected.

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1 Experiential Marketing by Shaz Smilansky

A Pitney Bowes White Paper

Satisfied customer
When asked to nominate interactions most acceptable in the customer communications realm, three consumer preferences emerge. Three-quarters of customers say customer satisfaction surveys are perfectly acceptable. This presents a real opportunity for brands to use surveys to get to know their customers, and to then use their findings to broaden the brand experience, removing the need to second-guess customer desires and concerns. Customers respond well to a certain level of personalization and familiarity from brands when it appears in the right channel at the right time. For example, consumers are not averse to seeing their name appear when they log in to a website. For transactional sites where purchases are being made or have been made in the past - it can be reassuring to know that the site recognizes your details and has a record of your interactions. Brands certainly need to keep in contact at a frequency that doesnt upset the customer. These findings indicate that once a month is generally considered acceptable, certainly for postal offers. For mail, 74% of consumers welcome a monthly offer. One benefit of postal communications is that they are often opened at leisure, while email tends to inspire instant, and often more fleeting, attention.

Graph 1: Most acceptable customer service techniques (average across UK, France, Germany and USA) Percentage of respondents finding communication technique acceptable

75%

74%

59%

Asked to complete customer satisfaction surveys

Monthly special offers through the post

Website is personalised with your name

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A Pitney Bowes White Paper

Conclusion
The average consumer is bombarded with some 3,000 messages a day2, across all channels. Brands that listen to customers at each interaction and act accordingly will stand a far better chance of breaking through and winning a competitive advantage. Results reveal that consumers are becoming jaded as a direct result of receiving too much information across too many channels. Achieving a sensible level of interaction, and avoiding damaging intrusion is essential if customer relationships are to be maintained and developed. In general, annoying branded communications are often about making the mistake of assuming the consumer cares about your brand as much as you do. A good customer experience is achieved through treating the customer with respect and ensuring that every interaction is adding value or making life easier for the consumer. When customer communications never annoy and always delight, a customers first, tentative brand interactions may well develop into a long-standing loyal relationship.

2 Deloitte www.deloitte.com/assets/Dcom-UnitedKingdom/Local%20Assets/Documents/ Industries/Consumer%20Business/WICM/UK_CB_ShopperMarketing.pdf

www.pitneybowes.com

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2011 Pitney Bowes Ltd. All rights reserved. Delivering more than 90 years of innovation, Pitney Bowes provides software, hardware and services that integrate physical and digital communications channels. Long known for making its customers more productive, Pitney Bowes is increasingly helping other companies grow their business through advanced customer communications management. Pitney Bowes is a $5.4 billion company and employs 30,000 employees worldwide. Pitney Bowes: every connection is a new opportunity. For more information visit www.pb.com