Chrisco urges customers to save for a magical Christmas using customer-friendly, cost-effective SMS reminders
Christmas hamper company Chrisco is taking the direct route to its customers with outbound SMS campaigns that are winning response rates the company had previously failed to achieve even from TV advertisements — and at a fraction of the cost.
Chrisco’s hamper business has been a mainstay of the Kiwi Christmas experience since the early 1990s. In recent years Chrisco has been even more efficient and responsive to its customers’ needs. It makes it as easy as possible for them to request catalogues and place their orders, but had a problem: a relatively transient database that changes address but neglects to update contact details with Chrisco, causing delays to deliveries.
Chrisco wanted an SMS offering to provide a means of sending customers direct ‘calls to action’. It had previously used a third party supplier to run outbound SMS campaigns, but was interested in a more cost-effective and efficient way of keeping in touch with its growing consumer-base that they could run in-house. It was also important for them to enable customers to respond to SMS messages and for Chrisco to manage the response in its contact centre.
“We approached a couple of providers who made presentations and submissions to us,” says Annemarie Masterton, Chrisco’s sales and customer contact centre manager. “Our decision was based on a number of factors: cost, efficiency, inbound and outbound capability and a user-friendly front end.”
The alternatives were not as user-friendly as Datasquirt’s presentation of its CONTACT application, says Masterton, which provides everything organisations need to send and receive SMS messages via their contact centers. “Datasquirt offered solutions to all of our requirements, and we have the potential to expand to other channels such as email in the future” she says.
One, two, send
Chrisco’s selection of Datasquirt as preferred supplier was rigorous but rapid. In launching its new 2008 hamper catalogue Chrisco wanted to be able to quickly offer text as a response option to its customers. “We needed to get it all up and running within a two-week window,” says Masterton. Even for Datasquirt, that was a tight turnaround, but Chrisco is delighted with the results: “CONTACT is brilliant! It’s really easy to use and the billing is straightforward, too.”
It was a simple task for Masterton and her commercial manager to win buy-in for the implementation of CONTACT from Chrisco’s board because additional channels for catalogue requests and order placement increase customer activity. “The benefits to our business were so compelling that buy-in was easy,” she says.
Apart from Datasquirt, no other organisations were required for deployment, piloting, rollout, training or ongoing maintenance, so the project was uncomplicated — enabling it to be completed within the two-week timeframe stipulated. “It was so simple! Datasquirt did everything for us, including getting our ‘2808’ short-code.” Short-codes are four- to eight-digit numbers businesses use as a unique mobile address and need to be set up so messages can be delivered across all required networks. “Datasquirt did all that very quickly and seamlessly for us,” says Masterton.
The immediate benefit was a much higher response rate to Chrisco’s outbound SMS in September 2007 than the company had experienced with any previous marketing effort — most of which had also been considerably more expensive. “It was a message to all customers with an order due for delivery at Christmas. We had a 14.6 percent response rate.”
The purpose of the campaign was to urge existing customers to advise Chrisco when they changed address. “Our database is quite transient, and often customers move without advising us or without us being able to contact them when mail is returned to us.”
Cost-effective comparisons
Chrisco can now run tactical SMS campaigns in line with its marketing strategies. In previous years Chrisco has run television commercials asking customers to call when they change address. However, there had been no noticeable increase in call volumes while its TV commercials were running. “If we had a 1 percent response rate from the TV ads we’d have been lucky,” says Masterton.
By contrast, the success of the SMS campaign took Chrisco by surprise. It requires customers to call a 0800 number so it can security check and verify callers before their address details can be amended, says Masterton. “The response was overwhelming — so much so that we had to start using CONTACT’s capability to phase message sending so it was in line with inbound call volumes.”
Via inbound SMS, Chrisco is now able to let customers use the keywords ‘order’ and ‘book’ to place an order or request a free catalogue. Masterton says the inbound campaign has also been working really well. “We use CONTACT to collect all this keyword information, we then export it to a file and import it into our Q-Master phone system as an outbound campaign before we call the customer.”
CONTACT is now in daily use by Chrisco’s contact centre staff. At the outset Datasquirt trained a small group of Chrisco users, but there was no need for a user deployment or training coordinator. As a ‘power user’, Masterton now trains her team-leaders as needed. “I’ve been able to manage it with minimal training and minimal time-input,” she says.
Instant customer response
The success of the system is measured in both return on investment and increased productivity. “The cost is minimal and is fixed each month. We do pay for each outbound text; but the value of the extra customer activity far outweighs the cost of this solution,” says Masterton. “We view CONTACT as a neat little tool that we can use to get instant customer response. It’s certainly a brilliant call to action.”
The key gain for Chrisco since implementing CONTACT is in the flexibility it’s able to offer its customers. This, along with instant customer responses to special offers and the ability to up-sell without voice calls to customers makes it a vital element in the customer relationship toolkit, says Masterton. “Datasquirt’s customer service is great. The team has been efficient and professional from day one. When we’ve had questions they’ve always been more than happy to assist.
CONTACT has certainly added a new dimension to our contact centre and has become a core tool. It’s efficient for both inbound and outbound SMS traffic and it’s extremely easy to export data.”
Key solution features/benefits
• Approximately 13% increased response rate to customer calls to action.
• Fixed monthly cost.
• Instantaneous customer contact via friendly, informal medium.
• More cost-effective than other media, such as print and broadcast advertising.
• Fast and efficient means of keeping tabs on customers and keeping a full history of the interactions.
• Up-sell to customers without the resources required to make outbound phone calls.
About Chrisco
The Chrisco story began in 1978 in the UK, when Richard and Ruth Bradley launched a Christmas hamper business. Five years later, the Bradleys sold their business and moved to New Zealand. In 1993 Chrisco as we know it today was born, when Richard and Ruth set up business in their Auckland home. Within two years, they had outgrown it and moved into larger Auckland premises, before expanding into Australia in 1997. Chrisco Christmas Hampers has continued to expand into the 21st Century, on its mission of “helping everyone save for a magical Christmas”, establishing an office in Vancouver, Canada. Chrisco’s parent company has since acquired Melbourne’s Castle Hampers. Its market continues to grow as more and more people realise the benefits of the concept.
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