Phone Spam

The importance of accurate data only grows more and more important the more connected you get to your customer. Last night I received a call from a survey company asking for feedback on behalf of my cellular phone company. Problem is that I haven't been a subscriber to that cellular phone company for over a year.

A real-life person contact is one of the most powerful connections you can have with a customer, whether in-person or over the phone. It also means that as much of an opportunity you have to build your brand and relationship with a customer; it is also a chance to tarnish your brand beyond repair.

One VP I work with will not even talk to some past service providers because every time they talked the sales person / customer service person would have no clue as to the types and amounts of services we had in our business and what they could contribute. They were only there to sell.

Seth Godin talks about robocalling in his blog Some people might like it this morning. Unlike email spam which is easily disregarded -- this type of marketing is a direct brand killer. You are immediately notified of the brand they are trying to sell (trying to keep you on the line) and if it doesn't appeal to you (which it doesn't to most) then your brand is immediately taken down a notch.

Small businesses / entrepreneurs often get caught in the scam of trying to close 1% of thousands. Instead they should spend some time on a focused segmentation exercise, identify a group of customers and make a couple of calls and debrief -- what messages engaged the customers? Which ones didn't? What was the customer experience?