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Reach Out and Delete
When I was growing up, Bell had a popular tagline for its telephone service: "Reach out and touch someone." At that time, when you called someone another human being picked up the phone and spoke to you, unless there was no-one home. In that case, you hung up and tried again later. Mostly, people and businesses were glad to hear from you. Today, we are all faced with a curious dilemma: Modes of communications have increased dramatically. People have cell phones, PDAs, email, blogs, text messaging, social networking groups and phone mail. It should be easier than ever to contact customers but just the opposite is true. Today, when you reach out, no one wants to be touched.
Earlier this month The Globe and Mail ran an article on consumer reluctance to give up personal information to retailers ("My money? Yes. My address? No." by Paul Waldie, July 4, 2008). In this age of information inundation (and I have to note, identity fraud), people are backing away from staying in touch with businesses. I don't have an answer to this. We battle with it in our business too. The phone of yore has been supplanted by email. And the ease and convenience of email is balanced out by the ease and convenience of deleting emails, often unread. People have "firewalls" and "quarantines," all to keep unwanted messages out of their inboxes. I have them too.
Some people say social networking sites are the places to market your products. Should you have a Facebook page? A MySpace page? Should you have a blog? Is anyone reading this one? One of the big challenges in this age of communication is finding ways to get consumers to actually listen when you talk about your products or services. It's no longer as simple as picking up the phone.
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Lori Smith, , Editor-in-Chief
Lori Smith is the editor of Gifts and Tablewares, Canada's premiere gifts and tablewares magazine. Written for retailers of gifts, tablewares, housewares, stationery and home furnishing accessories, its objective is to help readers increase their sales and run their businesses more profitably by providing information on new products, merchandising, small business management, customer service, consumer behavior and industry news. The magazine is published six times a year by BIG Magazines, LP, a leading Canadian information company.
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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on July 14, 2008 3:14 PM.
The previous post in this blog was Is there Retail for Boomers?.
The next post in this blog is Are You the Apple of Your Customers' Eyes?.
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