Category: General Information

 

This past holiday season brought a lot of flash sales to customers – flash sales can be announced in advance or completely random, giving customers special discounts during a specific time frame. There are a few goals in this type of marketing:

 

1. Drive sales during a specific time frame. When announced, it can create word of mouth advertising, as customers may tell others, and gives the company a simpler way to track the effectiveness of a marketing strategy.

 

2. When unannounced and completely random, it can keep customers more closely tied to a company’s website or social sites where they are known to make such offers.

 

There are a couple of ways flash sales can be done, and I’ve seen them offered by a variety of businesses, including retail and gas stations.
Gas stations? Yes.

 

Gas prices have been falling across the nation, and in the Chicagoland area, we are celebrating the almost $2.00 per gallon prices. I recently became a loyalty card member for Thorton’s, as they tend to offer the lowest prices in the area and are convenient to me. What I didn’t know is that part of being a member included flash sales. Imagine my surprise when I randomly received an email that let me know that if I purchased gas the following day, I would receive an additional $0.10 per gallon. It’s happened once since that time, but I will admit I do look forward to those emails, never knowing when they will come.

 

In the retail world, there were many flash sales offered during the holiday shopping season. I personally received many of these emails offering high discounts over a short period of time. Depending on the sale and the retailer that is offering the sale, this could be a successful way of increasing sales.

 

Below are some tips for creating a successful flash sale:

 

1. Random vs pre-planned: the first time around, let customers know ahead of time that you will be hosting a flash sale. Give advance notice and build excitement. If you are sharing the flash sale on social sites, such as Instagram, let customers know that this is the first one, but you will randomly offer additional flash sales in the future. This way, if they cannot make the first one, they will be checking your social site more frequently in hopes of hitting a deal.

 

2. Keep the window short: keeping the flash sale to a two or three hour timeframe is a good idea; any longer and it may not be as effective as you’d like. The idea is to build excitement and offer great deals over a short period of time. The longer a flash sale is live, the weaker the participation. Studies show that the most activity comes within the first hour to hour and a half of a flash sale.

 

3. Keep in mind the time of day: historically, evenings have proven better to host flash sales. Weekends are no exception. By offering such sales in the evening, there is a chance for better participation.

 

4. Be very clear in the announcement: it’s the little things, such as identifying the times of the sale by time zone and creating a page for customers who visit outside of the designated time that indicates the flash sale is over, will go a long way in preventing issues and/or dissatisfied customers.

 

Flash sales can be a fun way to reward customers while increasing sales. It can also help gain traction on social sites if this is where you choose to host your flash sale. Careful planning and consideration are needed to ensure a seamless experience for the company and customers.

 

 

 

Numbers are important to businesses – metrics help companies know what’s going well, where they need to improve, and a variety of other operational statistics. Making sure you are measuring the right metrics is a vital component.

 

I came across a great article written by Ekaterina Walker in Forbes that talks about one metric that is often overlooked; she termed this “relationship capital.” This measures the overall customer experience, and as she states, it is something that is not often measured, but should be.

 

She explains that relationship capital revolves around delivering consistently great experiences, which can lead to customer loyalty – after all, customers tend to stick with businesses where they feel valued and receive strong service each time they do business with a company.

 

One sticking point Ms. Walter talks about is consistency across channels and empowering staff across all channels to be able to handle customer inquiries. Long gone are the days of departments only handling specific tasks; customers want to be assisted quickly and efficiently, going through as few touchpoints as possible to have their issues resolved.

 

How can a company measure relationship capital? There are a few ways to effectively do this:

 

1. Ask your customers: when customers call, email, or live chat with your staff, follow up with them to find out how their experience was. When problems arise or issues aren’t met, use this information to find out where the disconnect happens. This insight can go a long way in learning more about what customers experience when they interact with your business.

 

2. Put your customers in the driver’s seat: sometimes the best ideas come from customers. If you ask for feedback from your customers, ask open ended questions to allow them the opportunity to offer suggestions on ways to make the process simpler from a customer’s point of view. What would make the experience better next time? What was the one thing that could have changed during the interaction to make life easier? Customers want to be heard, and incorporating this line of questioning into your feedback surveys offers the double benefit of letting customers have a voice and potentially learning ways to streamline your process for increased relationship capital.

 

3. Be a fly on the wall: by utilizing a mystery shopping program, companies can get objective, third party data on relationship capital. Mystery shoppers can contact the company in a way that mirrors a true customer in order for businesses to see how these interactions play out. From here, you can learn valuable information about your operational processes, what is working great, and where you can improve.

 

Relationship capital is a vital metric that companies need to pay attention to. Keeping customers loyal to your business is difficult, but the rewards are plentiful to the bottom line.