YouTube for All Eternity They say you can find just about anything on YouTube. This story proves the point. Heartland Cremation & Burial Society, a "post-mortem" company in Kansas City was looking to separate itself from industry competition while responding to customers who needed around-the-clock assistance. President Andrew Loos felt the best way to accomplish this was with an emotional video message.
Working with online video agency Prizm, Heartland created a website and informational videos for consumers to explore cremation and burial options online. These include a virtual host on the homepage explaining the company's services and two online videos: "How to Care for a Veteran" and "Why Cremation?" The videos were posted on YouTube in March 2007, and have been viewed more than 1,700 times. In addition, online sales inquiries have tripled and website hits increased from 747 in January 2007 to 30,811 by March 2007. Heartland's first quarter business of 2007 matched business generated in all of 2006. "We received immediate feedback from customers, who said they hired our company after finding the new site," Loos says.
-- Elizabeth Glagowski
Phone Service Standards Thank you for not deleting this email. We feel especially honored, because a new study from Goodmail Systems shows that only a small percentage of email users read all the email messages they receive. The demand for reputable messages is at an all-time high.
The study of more than 1,000 business and personal users says that consumers' biggest concern when it comes to email is the annoyance associated with receiving so much unwanted email. Most people (69 percent) say they simply delete most of their email rather than taking the time to decide if messages are legitimate (spam or otherwise). And 88 percent of respondents said they would be interested in a service that helps them easily identify both emails from reputable companies and messages they actually requested to receive. Getting through the clutter may have a big impact on how people conduct business as technology evolves to improve email reputation and deliverability.
-- Elizabeth Glagowski
INSIDE ACCESS: READER FEEDBACK
I think new airlines will set themselves apart from the incumbents for the following reasons:
1. Economics: Maximizing their total number of flying hours for their air fleet, coupled with maximizing their total number of paying passengers, reducing their operational costs per paying passenger mile flown.
2. One-to-one marketing to the individual customer and cross-selling their airline's brand name for both internal domestic flights and potential future flights, particularly based on a Miles Program with affiliated airlines.
3. Branding will provide prestige of flying in the U.S. market.
I think that from a macro perspective it is the same strategy. From a micro perspective it is the additional one- to-one service provided each individual customer -- customer care, ECRM, future follow-up selling, and cross- selling.
G. La Tournerie
President and CEO
Wexford Systems
Waldwick, NJ
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Last month I traveled quite a bit. I have a feeling that we get quite flat customer service here in North America. It's kind of a neutral, pragmatic-style service -- not superior, not bad. An average bland one.
I agree with the Forrester view that most airlines are still focused on getting people from A to B. Trouble is that the skies aren't that manageable naturally --you cannot control weather, let alone other events. It makes the whole industry vulnerable to inevitable operational bumps and delays from time to time. The majority of incumbents mainly float mainstream, responding in a product-centric manner, producing a plain 30 percent of brand loyalty across business travelers as to Forrester's research.
To elevate customer experiences in the industry, CRM in every actionable form may be a big help here. It seems that some foreign players like Virgin got the point right. They attempt to treat an average traveler like a real earthy customer at last! It's hard to argue that the skies are a special kind of environment. Though, it's yet a customer service environment where a flight operator is expected not only to move people but relate to them providing them with quite a few services alongside.
In its current state the whole industry is truly an untapped market. Two hundred loose people on a plane are potentially 200 customers willing to pay money, but almost nobody in the industry wants to see them this way. Now, if Virgin has 3,000 songs to offer these 200 loose people, bingo!
I call it 2-in-1: customer service and cross-sell. The travelers on that plane would slide into the feel of a well- treated customer. Now, do you think Virgin and the likes have a chance versus bland-service incumbents? The skies will get friendlier once travelers become customers.
Andy Lorin
Sr. Marketing Analyst
Bonasource
Toronto, Canada
*Letters may be edited for space or clarity.