Jonathan Lambert (pictured) relates how a South Africa-based direct seller used a high-tech twist on an old-fashioned customer communication concept.

In today’s hectic world and particularly with the pressures of cost-cutting, many companies are looking for low-cost ways to gain extra traction with their customer base.

Unfortunately, many companies have missed the boat and instead of improving their positions with their core customers sometimes inadvertently alienate them or put them off by trying to add a promotion to every customer service-type communication.

Arcadia Homeshopping, the Cape Town-based South Africa direct selling giant, has come up with a very interesting twist . . .

Eckhard Marshing, the founder and CEO, believes his very core customers, which represent approximately 15 per cent of the total customer base, are responsible for nearly 80 per cent of his net profit. Naturally, he values and loves this customer group like no other. Because these customers buy from Arcadia on a more regular basis and also because they spend more, he was trying to come up with something where he could let them know how much he really appreciated their loyalty.

The Arcadia creative team’s early thoughts were to do some additional thank-you mailings with some special offers. In discussions with the customer service group, they concluded it would not be the best example of African hospitality to continue to try to sell their best customers something else while thanking them.

They have come up with a very novel and unique approach which takes a very old-fashioned idea but moves it up to the modern, high-tech world . . .

Arcadia has the cell phone number for approximately 90 per cent of their core customers. This, in itself, is astonishing – most marketers in the theoretically more developed direct marketing world would do handstands if they had the mobile phone number for the majority of their customers, let alone nearly all of them! Arcadia is very careful not to abuse this position, however, they also thought they should take advantage of this with a very high-touch customer communication. One advantage in South Africa is that the ID number which most customers present, includes the birth date of the individual.

Arcadia’s team developed a very interesting and highly personalised message – a singing birthday greeting delivered to the person’s mobile phone on their birthday. Not an old-fashioned card which is mailed to them, but rather an individual call with a very nice Happy Birthday song for the recipient.

The majority of their core customers are 50+ and the response to this has been overwhelming.

Eckhard reports this overall cost is under 20 pence per call and the results have been fantastic. People frequently write or mention to the customer service agent they are taking to how wonderful it was to receive a birthday greeting.

They do not ask for anything with the greeting, simply want to make the person’s birthday special. Tracking this customer base definitely shows the money they spend on this pays them back more than ten-fold!

A perfect example of how to treat your customers like you love them by giving unique, special attention everyone loves. It addresses the important issue of customer retention using an old-fashioned direct marketing approach in combination with today’s modern communication technology.

Jonathan C Lambert is chairman, Acton.