Let’s have a Music Preference Service

About the only part of the direct marketing industry I’ve not worked in is the telemarketing business. However, I believe I’m qualified to comment on it, as I have been involved in choosing call centres for various businesses over the years. Besides, I must be recognised as an expert, since whenever I phone one I’m usually told that my call may be used for training purposes.

However, you’ll not be surprised that I have a few gripes with them. The first, is their poor use of predictive diallers. This should be a piece of technology they could use for greater efficiency rather than for the bafflement of their customers. I’ve lost count of the times my phone has rung and I’ve listened to a ringing tone while an operator is found to speak to me. My annoyance now outweighs my inquisitiveness over the nature of the call and I hang up before they have the chance to speak to me. Damn their dialler.

Save me from Muzak

But if you’re as grumpy as me, it’s the music you are forced to listen to while on hold you’ll find most annoying. Like pubs and bars, the music and volume seems to be chosen by the staff for their enjoyment, rather than for the entertainment of customers. Now, in a bar I can ask them to turn it down or change it, but I have no choice while I’m on hold at a call centre. And that’s why I’m advocating the establishment of the Music Preference Service.

Since most organisations I deal with ask me questions that in a million years I can’t imagine them ever using for my benefit, it seems to me that if they asked about my music preferences they might be able to start treating me appropriately. Then instead of some worn out musak from the 60’s or 70’s or the latest hip hop, I’d be treated to the soothing tones of Miles Davis or something lively from Senegal.

They could even give me a choice. “Please press one if you would like to listen to Kind of Blue; two for Orchestra Baobab; three for Charles Mingus; four for Sly & Robbie.” (I do have an eclectic taste in music.)

It would be even better if they called me back rather than have me wait on them.

A lesson from More Than
More Than, the insurance company, did this for me recently when I was feeling particularly grumpy about a policy renewal they sent me. I called them to cancel the policy and found that by pressing “three” I could be put through to someone who dealt with cancellations. I pressed, as instructed, and was told that as there was a queue I would be called back within the hour if I left my name. (They had the technology to save my number.)

Good to their word, I was called back quickly by a charming lady specially trained to deal with grumpy gits like me. I told her why I was leaving them whereupon she offered me fifty quid to stay. So I did. A great service, a great saving and not a note of Dire Straits or strangled Mozart to irritate me.

Other call centres take note because there are a couple of valuable lessons here. Firstly, like More Than, make sure you have an effective winback programme that recognises that it’s usually more cost-effective to retain a client than recruit a new one. It sounds so easy…but very few people bother to work it through and do it properly. Secondly, don’t annoy your customers with musical bilge.

However, if you have to have music, make sure you subscribe to the Music Preference Service as soon as you can.

Bring Back The Postmaster General

It seems to me that direct mail was better years ago when we worked under a more authoritarian regime. In those days we knew where we stood and what we could and couldn’t get away with. The Post Office Guide was a minefield of rules and regulations; for example, getting any words on the outside of an envelope, other than the address, was subject to approval in triplicate from a hierarchy of Royal Mail jobsworths.

But response rates soared and my doormat was rarely a landing pad for dross as it is today. Instead, we have a more laissez faire attitude to direct mail and almost anything unfortunately goes. The man running the Royal Mail typifies this. The last time I saw him, he was presenting a first prize at the DMA Awards and couldn’t even be bothered to wear a black tie with his DJ.

I believe we could junk the junk mail sobriquet once and for all if we make a return to the good old days. All we need is for all direct mail to be approved by a committee made up of some of my old chums and colleagues under the iron fist of a 21st century Postmaster General.

These experts would scrutinise all direct mail and grant permission for items meeting their exacting standards to be mailed. The rest would be subject to an overprinting with a Postmaster General warning, in much the same way as fag packets are plastered with Government Health warnings today. These would caution consumers against the ghastly offers inside.

I have prepared a few overprints in advance for some notable culprits.

For credit card offers:

WARNING Don’t be taken in by this tosh. Get a life - pay cash. APR is an interest rate, not an abbreviation for April you big pillock.

For cars:

WARNING Look, the moment you drive this off the forecourt you can wave goodbye to 10-20% of what you paid. What’s more, you’ll be visiting the dealer for ages getting the rattles sorted. Do yourself a favour, buy yourself a six-month old model, trouser the difference and take the missus on holiday. (Or, send the missus on holiday and get yourself an 18-year old model).

For time-share:

If you believe this, you probably think that EastEnders is about real people and the Daily Mail is a newspaper and not the samizdat of the Conservative party. You have been WARNED

Collectibles:

WARNING This edition is not limited by our avarice…only your gullibility. About as much chance of increasing in value as you have of being called Dobbin and winning the Grand National. If you want to collect something try train numbers and meet people of your own stupid IQ.

I hope this gives you some idea about how effective the scheme would be.

There are further benefits. Good agencies would grow because only those with the best creative teams would get their work through the committee unscathed. Most clients would have to stop rewriting anything presented to them and get on with their job of commissioning, commenting upon, approving and organising mailings.

Standards and response rates would increase. There would be no need for the Mailing Preference Service because everybody would enjoy receiving mailings.

Please leave your own suggestions for Postmaster General warnings in the “Comments” section below. Be as grumpy as you like!

That Little Orange Button

To the right of these words you will see a little orange button marked XML. This is a link to an RSS feed. RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for syndicating news. It allows you to receive automatic updates about my blog and any other news you would like to be kept up-to-date with, without having to regularly revisit a web site. The BBC provides an RSS service, as do many other news organisations.

To view an RSS feeds on your computer, you will first need to acquire an RSS Reader – they’re usually free. Click on the XML button and find out all about them.

Then to add my blog to your newsfeed, copy and paste

http://feeds.feedburner.com/GrumpyDm.com

into your RSS application. It's that simple and when I update my blog you’ll know right away.

Help! There’s An Election Coming

Unless you happen to be a hermit alone on some solitary peak (a jolly good place to be right now), you must have noticed that we are quite likely to have an Election on 5th May.

Years ago, direct marketing folk lived in fear of Elections. In the run up to them, direct mailings fell to a trickle and off-the-page ads disappeared. This was simply because public interest in campaigns was so great that there was little time to spare to look at the latest offerings dropping through the family letterbox. What’s more, the news in the papers was more interesting than the ads, so nobody clipped the coupons. People were simply distracted by an important national event.

I think times have changed. Surely I can’t be alone in wanting the whole wretched, spin-loaded, ballyhoo to be finished and that by some miracle we can be transported to the 4th June when all is done and dusted, the flat season is with us and the Derby is run.

Personally, I have taken steps to avoid any political news. I have super-glued most keys on the TV remote so that I cannot inadvertently tune to any news broadcast. When I watch TV it will be a diet of UK Gold and the Shopping Channel. All radios have been disconnected and the newspapers cancelled. I have asked the publishers of The Spectator to tear their illustrious journal in half and send me only the review section and the humorous back of their magazine. I have made special arrangements with my postman to collect this from the pub, since my letterbox has been nailed up with a sturdy piece of timber so that election manifesto’s cannot be delivered. A machine gun nest is being erected on the roof to deter political canvassers and take care of any brave enough to walk up the drive.

In the meantime, the direct marketing community can get on with its work without worry. Not every consumer will be taking the extreme precautions that I am. I expect most people will simply avert their eyes, stick their fingers in their ears or up at the politicians and ignore as much as they can. Moreover, as a distraction from the unseemly farrago, they may take more than their usual notice in the direct mail they receive and continue to reply to ads they like for things that they want.

Further, I predict that the turnout to the forthcoming election will drop to an all time low and that public apathy for the event will be reflected in little deviation from standard response rates. So if you are planning any activity for the end of April or early May, don’t postpone or cancel it.