Overloading Your Customers
Providing a constant stream of updates and information by email, text or letter is a good thing, right?
Maybe not… Here’s an
experience we’re having with my daughter’s school. They’ve installed a new emailing system which
lets them reach out to all parents by email instead of printing out hundreds of
letters, flyers and information sheets.
This saves printing costs and is much more environmentally-friendly.
So far, so good.
Unfortunately, what they’re doing now is sending emails for everything
all the time. To make things more
interesting, if you have more than one child at the school, you get one email
for each child, so someone with three children gets three messages – all the
same.
What the school hasn’t grasped is that:
·
Not all emails need to be sent “on the spot”;
·
Not all emails need to be sent to every parent;
·
Too many emails create “clutter” which those
with a very full inbox may ignore or not see until it’s too late;
·
Too many emails mean that they may not be
prioritised by those reading them;
·
Too many emails use system resources, increasing
running costs.
Now put this in a business context. Everyone is busy and receives emails from
different sources. How do you make sure
that they notice (and read) your email? To start with:
·
Email only when necessary;
·
Make sure the email goes only to the people it’s
meant to, rather than to your general distribution list.
·
Use electronic bulletin boards, weekly or even
monthly updates which people can access in their own time.
What’s the solution?
The school could:
·
Target emails to whoever needs to act on
them;
·
Create/maintain different distribution lists for
sports teams, for example;
·
Respect that they don’t need to send out every
notice immediately;
·
Encourage staff to plan ahead for
distributing notices that aren’t time-sensitive;
·
Send out a weekly update with links to news
items or notices on the school website which could even have a “latest news”
page.
Yes, it will take time, but if it
means that your message is more meaningful and targeted, this is a good thing
and shows that you and your business respect other peoples’ time.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in the world financial services industry running different service, operations and lending businesses, I started my own Performance Management Consultancy and work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email . My website provides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Productivity, Selling, Strategy
posted by William Martin @ 08:55
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