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Business Class

september 30, 2009

3 Steps To Rethinking Customer Notifications

Rohit Bhargava

CEO & Founder, The Non-Obvious Company

Summary

How much of your business is about notification? In other words, when is that moment when you have to share details of some action or inacti

How much of your business is about notification? In other words, when is that moment when you have to share details of some action or inaction with your customers? On first glance, you might be tempted to minimize the answer to this question. After all, unless you are in a handful of industries such as security systems or breaking news media, chances are you don't see your business in terms of how you notify your customers about updates or changes. Yet if you sell a retail product online, the notification that it has shipped to your customer is pretty important. If you own a restaurant, the moment when you let a customer know their table is ready matters. The point is, notification is more important than we sometimes think - for almost any kind of business.

But how does knowing or understanding this fact change what you do on a daily basis? Often businesses struggle with the right use of social technologies - and this is particularly true when it comes to small businesses. Do you really need a Facebook page? Will your customers care if you have a Twitter account? The questions and options with social media seem so broad that it can sometimes be hard to imagine a real business use for them. Instead of thinking so widely, what if you just thought in terms of notification ... or, more specifically, how could social technologies help you to rethink how you currently notify your customers?

For some businesses, this may mean sending a text/SMS message to their cell phones when you are ready to deliver a product. For others this could be a progressive idea such as notifying customers when you have an appointment cancelled and can accommodate a last minute appointment request via Twitter. Another idea rapidly gaining in popularity even for businesses that don’t sell products and services electronically over the web is email alerts for everything from sales receipts to delivery and shipping status updates.

To start your business on rethinking how you send notifications to your customers, here are three easy steps:

Step 1: Set up your notification system. Whether you choose to use Twitter or text messages or email or another system, you’ll need to put your infrastructure in place to be able to send and manage your messages. Though it can seem like a large undertaking, the good news is that you can fairly easily set up tools online to manage all of these efforts, with a minimal level of engagement or time requirement. Using tools like Ping.fm, you can even set it all up to update via a Blackberry or iPhone.

Step 2: Ask your customers what they prefer.  The biggest mistake many small businesses make is solely collecting one method of contact from their customers.  If you have just focused on building your email list, what about your customers who might prefer to get a text message?  For those who you might send direct mail to – what if you know they responded far better to email. Often the answers to these questions are seen as truths you discover upon doing some text campaigns.  Instead of focusing solely on that, what if you just asked your customers instead?  Then you could not only tailor your communications better and likely save some money, but you’re far more likely to get and keep more loyal customers.

Step 3: Share proactive (as well as usual) updates. For a customer, nothing is worse than wondering how long something will take or whether you received their order or heard what they were trying to tell you. So even if you can’t necessarily respond right away, give them a strong sense that you are working on their request or feedback and when you will get back to them.  Then follow through. This formula, though it seems simple, can often set you apart from your competitors.