Steve Jobs' "One More Thing" & the Power of Giving Something Extra

Steve Jobs was famous for closing his presentations with the phrase "One more thing" where he would announce a new feature or product that would leave his audience with the feeling that they were just treated to a fancy dessert.  (Watch a summary of these moments on YouTube.)

When you think about your daily interactions with your customers do they leave with the sense you just went above and beyond their expectations?

Building on the "one more thing" approach, Andy Sernovitz writes in today's Damn I Wish I Would Have Thought of That blog about how companies provide "Something Extra" to their customers to differentiate their brands and products.  By giving "some little extras you didn't see coming", companies are able to create a unique experience that can ultimately lead to word of mouth marketing including referrals.  This happens of course because the customer has experienced something out of the ordinary.

Does your business have "One more thing" or "Something Extra" that has been effective in engaging your customers?  Please share in the comments below.

About txtMovies

txtMovies enables you to send Redbox DVD & Blu-ray Movie Rental Codes to customers and prospects as a token of appreciation.  Codes delivered by text message are only $1.99 each. Visit www.txtMovies.com for more details or a free demonstration.

Read More»

Can Integrating Text Messaging (SMS) into your Sales Process your sales by 328%?

A recent study by Velocify suggests that including text messaging in the sales process can increase sales by 328%.

Mobile phones and by design text messaging has become so much a large part of our daily lives they are literally indispensable. Consider the latest statistics from Pew Internet Research:

• 91% of American adults have a cell phone. (5/2013)
• 56% of American adults have a smartphone. (5/2013)
• 87% of US smartphone owners regularly send and receive texts on their devices (Harris Interactive 1/3/2013).
• US consumer sent over 2.3 TRILLION text messages in 2011. (CTIA 5/17/2012)
• 67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. (4/2012)

So how can this help your business? It's clear your customers’ attention is focused on their phones. If you can find a way to have a presence on your prospects and customers' phones, at the very least your phone number, email addressor website, you have a much better chance of getting their attention.

• “30% [of survey respondents] have used their phone to “Decide whether to visit a business” in the past 30 days. (Pew Internet 5/2012)

Let’s just text them! ~ Not so fast…While it’s obvious from the statistics above that texting could help engage prospects, marketers would be well advised to consider how to avoid being viewed as a spammer.

• 69% of those [mobile phone users] who are texters say they get unwanted spam or text messages. Of those texters, 25% face problems with spam/unwanted texts at least weekly. (Pew Internet 5/2012)

The Velocify study cited above actually suggests that texting without permission can hurt your sales conversions.  So just as Permission Marketing is the rule of thumb for email marketing, your prospects and customers CAN BE PERSUADED to give you permission to text them and in the process you’ll get to establish a presence on their phone.

Tokens of Appreciation

What would persuade a prospect or customer to allow you to text them?Offering a small token of appreciation (less than $2) or gift sent via text is the perfect way to get permission to text a prospect. For example, at txtMovies, we enable businesses to text a Redbox(tm) Movie Rental Code good for 1-Day rental of a DVD or Blu-ray disc. 

Redbox(tm) is the leader in movie rentals having rented over 3 Billion DVDs and Blu-ray discs via 34,500+ locations nationwide.  As a bonus, a custom message and business contact information can also be sent allowing you to establish your presence on the prospect’s phone.

There are a number of common business activities where using a text message incentive/reward could make a huge difference in prospect/customer engagement. Consider the following use cases:

• Converting Phone Inquiries to In Store Visits – A salesperson trying to convince a phone prospect to come into your business could tell the prospect he/she will text directions to your store with a map, the salespersons contact information and a Redbox Movie Rental Code as an incentive if they agree on the phone to come in for a visit.
• Converting Visits to Test Drives – A car salesperson could offer a Movie Rental Code as an incentive to take a specific car for a drive.
• Post Purchase Follow Up – A business could reward a customer with a Movie Rental Code for taking making a purchase.
• Service Department Completion – A service department could use texting to notify a customer that their product is ready for pick up and deliver a Movie Rental Code as a token of appreciation for their business.
• Customer Appreciation - Businesses could send out a the Movie Rental Code as a 'Thank You gift' as part of a Customer Appreciation program.
• Customer Birthdays - Everyone loves receiving presents on their birthdays. Delivering a Movie Rental Code on your customer's birthday reminds them how much you care about them.
• Volunteer Gifts - Businesses and not for profits that rely upon volunteers can easily and cost effectively acknowledge a volunteers efforts.
• Customer Satisfaction - When doctors and other healthcare providers make patients wait too long for their appointment, they use txtMovies as a simple strategy to overcome patient wait times.
• Survey Incentives - Increase your customer satisfaction survey response rates.

These are just a few of the innovative ways to incorporate a permission based texting program into your business. You are welcome to try a demonstration of how easily texting could be incorporated into your business by clicking here.

With over 80% of cell phone users texting (Pew Research Center 11/2012), now is the perfect time for your business to incorporate texting as a sales tool.

About txtMovies

txtMovies enables businesses to deliver customer appreciation via cost effective, easy to use tools for businesses and salespeople. In addition to texting Movie Rental Codes, we offer custom texting solutions. Our customers come from a variety of industries including healthcare, automobile, financial services, retail, associations and not for profits. For more information please visit www.txtMovies.com.

Read More»

Overcoming Patient Wait Times

Most healthcare practitioners admit they unintentionally keep a significant number of patients waiting on a daily basis.  A nationwide study by Vitals revealed that "patients wait on average 21 minutes to see a physician, yet wait times vary from state to state, across regions and among major U.S. cities."

For physicians and their practice administrators, its very unrealistic to try and eliminate patient wait times. The main issue is how to keep your patients happy when a appointment delay goes well beyond the norm. Is it possible to turn a major patient inconvenience into a positive experience?

One practice management idea is to address the time delay head on.  It has been recommended by customer service expert Lee Tomlinson that after 15 minutes of waiting "have the receptionist talk to the patient in person and apologize...when it gets to a 30-plus [minute] wait, give your patients some type of gift...to acknowledge their inconvenience."

Now imagine how your patient will feel knowing that you recognize and empathize with the inconvenience of a delayed appointment.  How many of your patient's other doctors go above and beyond in this fashion?  In a hectic world, making the effort to acknowledge their time is valuable will help your practice stand out and build customer loyalty.

But what kind of gift can you give without breaking the bank?  Consider the gift of a DVD or Blu-ray(tm) disc movie rental. At only $1.99 delivered via text message, a movie rental is cost effective and can provide your patient and family/friends with a couple of hours of true entertainment.

txtMovies was designed to be used by medical offices to quickly and easily provide patient appreciation.  By simply using a computer, tablet or smartphone to enter a patient's mobile number into the txtMovies app, selecting a pre-set message (or optionally customizing a message), healthcare practitioners can easily deliver a Movie Rental Code which patients can use to reserve and rent a movie.

txtMovies uses Redbox(tm) Movie Rental Codes.  Redbox is the nationwide leader in DVD and Blu-ray(tm) movie rentals and has the largest network of movie rental kiosks with over 34,500 locations so it will be easy for your patients to find a location to rent their desired movie.

In addition to making up for a delayed appointment, Movie Rentals make excellent "thank you" gifts for patients when they refer a friend or family member to your practice.  Because the cost is de minimis it doesn't violate any referral guidelines. Gifts of Movie Rentals can also be used for employee/staff appreciation as well.

Click try a demonstration to see how txtMovies works.  If you're ready to start sending Movie Rental Codes click here to create an account.

Questions?  Visit our website at www.txtmovies.com.  Enjoy!

Read More»

Increasing Online Survey Response Rates with Survey Incentives

Studies have shown that offering modest incentives can increase response rates dramatically.  For example, researchers with the US Department of Veterans Affairs found that the promise of a $5.00 cash incentive increased response rates by 30% and actually providing the $5.00 up front increased response rates by 50%.  The study details can be found here at Survey Practice.

Unfortunately, not every business has the budget to offer $5.  And $5 can easily turn into $7 or more by the time you add labor and postage to the cost of physically delivering cash survey incentives.    

txtMovies provides a cost effective alternative to cash survey incentives that everyone can enjoy.  For only $1.99 each, txtMovie will deliver a Redbox Movie Rental Code good for a 1-day DVD or Blu-ray Movie Rental via text message.  Redbox is the nationwide leader of DVD and Blu-ray movie rentals with over 36,000 locations.  

It doesn't matter what online survey software you use for your surveys, txtMovies can be easily integrated into your survey workflow.  txtMovies will provide you with a custom link for you to redirect your respondents to BEFORE or AFTER they have completed your survey to obtain their Movie Rental Code.  Simply add that link to your survey and we'll deliver the Movie Rental Code and send you confirmation that it was sent.  It's that easy!

To start including a Redbox Movie Rental Code as a survey incentive in your surveys Create an Account today or visit www.txtMovies.com for more information.  

Read More»

txtMovies: delivering customer appreciation and more

Have you ever wanted to give a token of appreciation but you didn't have an inexpensive gift idea and easy way to deliver it?
Perhaps an employee did something worthy of praise but you couldn't spend a fortune on recognition.
We had these problems and figured every other businesses on a limited budget might too.  So we created a solution and now we're sharing it.

txtMovies allows you to easily reward your customers, sales prospects and employees with Movie Rental Codes from Redbox^tm, the nationwide leader of DVD and Blu-ray movie rentals with over 36,000 locations. txtMovies delivers Redbox Movie Rental Codes via text message.

Why text messages you ask?  
Consider the latest statistics from Pew Internet Research:

• 91% of American adults have a cell phone.  (5/2013)

• 56% of American adults have a smartphone.  (5/2013)

• 87% of US smartphone owners regularly send and receive texts on their devices (Harris Interactive 1/3/2013).

• US consumer sent over 2.3 TRILLION text messages in 2011.  (CTIA  5/17/2012)   

• 67% of cell owners find themselves checking their phone for messages, alerts, or calls — even when they don’t notice their phone ringing or vibrating. (4/2012)

txtMovies gives you the perfect reason to interact with your customers and sales prospects grabbing their attention in an attention starved world.

txtMovies can be used for customer appreciation, sales prospect rewards, employee perks, survey incentives or for any gift occasion any time.

Try our demo to see how easy it is to send Movie Rental Codes.

Read More»