Where have you read that sentence? Remember?
I recall seeing a phone number (toll free, mind you!) and an email ID on the back of a tea bag sachet on a Jet Airways flight. It asked people to call that number for feedback.
As I opened a pack of paste today, I saw that they claimed they’d love to hear from me and added a helpful email ID to boot. Another tea brand pack said, ‘Feel it? Say it!’ and helpfully included 3 modes of contact – a snail mail address, a phone number and an email ID.
Would they…really? I mean, they have left me an email ID so people must be mailing them by the droves right?
Isn’t it strange that brands seldom reveal the number of feedback mails they get? Or the calls?
Here’s the deal – all this was one-to-one communication. Brands now have a one-to-many/ many-to-many communication opportunity that they do not seem to have warmed up to.
It’s time brands mean it when they say, ‘we look forward to hearing from you’ and not treat this communication channel as a fine-print, back of the package after-thought. But they should do that not with a one-to-one communication mode like a phone number or an email ID…they should ideally be doing it where the world can see the feedback – moderated or unmoderated, as the product category may demand. It also proclaims the fact that the brand is confident about the quality of the product.
And, why is this necessary? Because, this is a powerful tool to influence others. The tone of this call-out needs to change from the current, tentative, ‘…and one more thing…if you, by any vague chance, have a suggestion or a complaint, please do email us or call us’ to ‘Here’s where our customers share feedback on our product(s). Feel free to join in!’.
Oh yes, your first question then is, ‘What if someone leaves a terribly negative comment and the world sees it?’. Yes, I saw that coming.
Think about a brand’s options when they face a negative comment anywhere on the web, leave alone their own media. They have 2 choices – ignore the comment or address it.
If they choose to ignore, the world hears only one side of the story – the aggrieved customers’.
If they choose to address the comment, the world not only sees 2 sides of the story, but also weighs the brand immediately on how well they handle the situation.
Two more observations – one, brands have been trying desperately to build owned-media on the net and get people to populate it with their opinions and feedback. But they have ignored one of their most powerful tools – product packaging and advertising, to communicate the existence of owned-media. It could well be fear of negative comments, but think about the opportunity of influence they can create out of this exercise!
Two, how many people would leave a comment about a tea bag sachet? Not many, I agree. For that matter, for many low involvement products like tooth paste, chewing gum, chocolates and so on, people may not want to spend time on commenting…when you show them a phone number or a email ID (unless there is a serious problem with the product). But imagine how people may react when they see, along with the email ID or phone number, a Facebook group (Facebook is just an example – a community is what I mean)!
Now, that changes the entire equation, since people, who may otherwise not bother spending time commenting on the tooth paste, would be curious to know what others think! The only caution…brands need to ensure that the owned-media vehicle is populated with at least some comments and is not a clean slate. Running it informally through strong word-of-mouth and without overt promotion for the first few weeks would help.
Imagine all the billboards and advertisements you saw recently – almost all of them carry a website URL. That is oh-so-last-decade. Carrying a community address is the new way of communication – it calls for attention and induces interest…not in wanting to know what the brand’s managers and advertising agency think you may want to know about the product/ service…but in wanting to know what other customers, prospective or existing, think about the product/ service.
And if, as a responsible and intelligent brand, you have addressed customer’s comments/ queries well, you have one of the most personal and powerful influencing mechanism at your disposal right there!
