The One Problem
I realised that the real problem is that most marketers have no way to engage with me after I have shown interest or done the first purchase or even a few transactions. While the brand’s properties are there and the focus of their martech investments, what they lack is a definitive approach to getting me back to their site. The one problem, the gnarly challenge, the crux that had to be solved was that brands did not have a “hotline” to me as a customer.
Sure, they had my email address or phone number – so they could mail, SMS or WhatsApp me. In some cases, I also had the app installed, so technically they could send me notifications (as long as I did not block them). But the reality is that most of their messages do not get to me. Many emails end up in the Gmail promotions folder rather than the primary Inbox. SMSes – at least in India – are only OTPs and spam. More than half of the consumers block most push notifications. WhatsApp is growing as a business channel but is no longer free; in India it can cost 25-50 times more than an email and 4 times that of an SMS.
I started thinking more about the “hotline” idea. I remember in the early 1990s using the word a lot. We had two offices in South Mumbai. (This was in the pre-mobile era.) Rather than dial the number each time, we had set up a “hotline” – a direct communication link between the two offices. When I picked up the phone at one end, it would automatically ring at the other end. No dialling needed! It was a time-saver.
What brands lacked was a “hotline” to their customers. When a brand spoke, a customer would respond. And of course, it had to work the other way also. The hotline was the prerequisite to bringing customers to the brand’s properties. In my previous writings, I have used the word “pipe” to describe this. But the word “hotline” is much more appropriate. A push pipe is important for sending messages – like a regular phone line is for making calls. A hotline is special – because it is always answered.
The hotline was the crux that brands had to solve for. Get the hotline right, and you have a 2-way relationship going with the customer. They could begin with their Best customers. And Best customers could in turn respond by ensuring they did not ignore the brand’s communications. It would be a win-win for both.
More than a shiny, new feature of the website or app, what brands need to realise is that it is the hotline that is the crux for their customer relationships. If they can shift the mindset from “delete” to “delight” in their messaging, it would solve every other problem for them.
