A Successful Customer Strategy in Action—Really
A week before school let out at the end of June my 10-year-old daughter, Claudia, announced that she and two of her friends decided that they wanted to go to Sylvan Learning Center in the fall to improve their study habits. After inspecting my daughter for a possible alien possession (think: Invasion of the Body Snatchers), I gleefully said I would call Sylvan and look into it.
Aside from being excited about this for obvious reasons, I was also looking forward to the Sylvan customer experience. Sylvan won a 1to1 Impact Award earlier this year (Sylvan’s Sara Costello, director of direct mail and conversion marketing, talked more about that strategy on a recent webinar), and I love having the opportunity to experience firsthand the customer strategies of the companies we write about.
So off I go to the website to poke around. I learned about Sylvan’s various tutoring options and discover that there are five locations equally convenient to where I live. Then I noted a “click here to receive a phone call” button and said to myself, “I have to try that to get the full experience,” but got distracted by an incoming call.
When I called Sylvan a short time later, I spoke to Bill, a contact center agent who represents the learning centers in my area. Bill was polite, helpful, patient, informative, and—the key for me—never once did he try to hard sell me on signing up. We discussed such topics as options, locations, and hours of operation; he never rushed the conversation. At the end he asked for some basic contact information and gave me his direct line, in case I had additional questions or wanted to arrange for an assessment session for Claudia.
The key to Sylvan’s marketing is its follow up to calls like this. Within two days of the phone call I receive a direct mail piece that included a personalized brochure directing me to a personal URL (PURL) and a DVD about Sylvan.
I went to the PURL and filled out the online form to arrange an appointment for the assessment. Luckily for me, some back-end Sylvan magic sent my query back to Bill and he phoned within an hour to arrange the appointment. Very cool technology-wise, and also because it's always a better customer experience when you speak to someone with whom you're "continuing" the conversation, instead of having to start from scratch.
A day later I received a reminder postcard from Sylvan with the PURL and a local phone number. Sylvan’s Costello had noted the effectiveness of this follow up for people who hadn’t phoned back after receiving the DVD mailer. I had, so I just appreciated the thoroughness of the follow up.
The next step is the assessment in August (because Claudia’s at camp till then). It will be interesting to see if the in-person experience is as good as the call center/direct mail/online experience. I think it will be.
