Thursday, January 9, 2014

Smarter E-mail Design Can Boost 2014 Results

If improved e-mail design is one of your New Year's marketing resolutions, a recent Business2Community post by VerticalResponse may help. Start by accepting two 2014 givens: Over half of all emails are now viewed on a mobile device, and e-mail volume makes quick-read actionable design a competitive necessity. Tip No. 1: Get rid of the side column that is too hard to read in small-screen mobile viewing. Then clean up your creative act and get rid of bells and whistles in favor of clear headers, larger fonts (12 point minimum), concise paragraphs, left-aligned text and white space for easier reading. Put your design on a diet: Slim down the overall width to 600 pixels to fit better on a mobile device or inside e-mail clients, and limit text to two or three sections down the page. Add a human touch, literally, by making call to action buttons large enough for the average finger: 37-53 pixels. Put the most important stuff at the top, including your logo and call to action buttons. And don't forget to test the design on multiple platforms (Outlook, Gmail, Internet Explorer and a smartphone, for example) before you blast, looking for broken links, distortions, readability and, of course, typos. For the complete post, see http://www.business2community.com/email-marketing/5-easiest-ways-bring-email-design-2014-0721910

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Adding Customer Service to a Multi-Channel Equation

While marketers rush to embrace multi-channel marketing and shopping options, they often neglect to back up efforts with equally seamless multi-channel customer service. Common reasons for poor service rankings include being forced to repeat information, having to wait too long for service, and staff lacking knowledge of customer history -- all results common to disjointed multi-channel customer support. A recent Business2Community post by Flavio Martins,VP of Customer Support at DigiCert, Inc., gave advice on how to unite channels for an effective back-end system. Start with mobile. Is a custom app enough? Not if the app offers one-way engagement, allowing for browsing, account checks and purchasing but forcing exit to make a phone call or send an e-mail, argues Martins. Truly customer-centric apps will include an option to call or instant-message directly and will provide the service team with important customer data. Don't forget the traditional call center; a live phone conversation is still considered essential by many, especially in the case of complex issues. It's great to have a website encourage live web chat during checkout, but chat is not always a substitute for a phone conversation, so always offer a phone number for online users. E-mail is a popular communication tool, but customers often complain of delayed or absent response to e-mails. In fact, a study of American small- to medium-sized businesses found that 51% of e-mails never got a response, Martins points out. And if an e-mail requires a phone response, make sure the customer service agent knows the online conversation to avoid a maze of disjointed e-mails and chatter, he urges. How about social media? It's a great place to engage with customers once marketers realize the PR potential: Although complaints are visible to all, so are outstanding support and service! Finally, integration of online and in-store support is a basic, with services like "Click and Collect" and "Buy Online and Return In-Store" promoting channel mixing. For the complete article, see http://www.business2community.com/customer-experience/multi-channel-shopping-means-multi-channel-customer-service-0708071