Making love in the contact zone

I recently went with a client to an IDM seminar on telemarketing led by Jon Epstein and Simon Roncoroni. They argued that call centre staff are too often ignored by marketers and that much more can be done to exploit every contact opportunity with customers. By working with the telemarketing team (this equally applies to the sales force) and involving them in the marketing campaign there will always be a signficant uplift in results. This, they said, is both because you’ll get valuable feedback from them and they’ll understand much better what your objectives which means they’ll be able to have a stronger dialogue with customers and be better equiped to respond to their needs.

They key to finding the right customers is by identifying the ‘triggers’ which indicate they are now in the market to buy. The analogy used was the customer service offered by the corner shop of old. They know their customers inside out because they listened to them and undersood their needs. So when posing the question whether ‘a kiss is just a kiss’. The answer was an emphatic no – it’s a contact opportunity to be exploited!