The partner programme was set up after extensive studies in customer contact, and the resulting outcome that organisations need to communicate even better before a call is answered – See more at: commsbusiness.co.uk
The partner programme was set up after extensive studies in customer contact, and the resulting outcome that organisations need to communicate even better before a call is answered. Last year, OnBrand Group’s audio team developed a white paper in conjunction with a PhD research team at The University of Roehampton which examined the impact of the ‘pre-answer experience’ on the success or failure of a telephone call.
Rick Kirkham, Customer Experience Manager said; ‘The white paper was the first paper examining this area of customer contact in such detail and clearly proved the link between the messages customers hear before they get answered and the likelihood of a positive call outcome. With over 80% of phone systems in the UK using recorded messages, the Partner Programme unlocks a new opportunity for Telecoms partners to get quick and easy access to new audio messaging content for their customers.
The importance of getting the recorded part of the telephone experience right is perhaps highlighted by one of OnBrand Audio’s channel partners; Charities Buying Group Telecom, part of the Charities Buying Group.
David Nethercott, M.D. at CBGTelecom Ltd tells us that once they implemented the most cost effective telephone system for their charity customers, “It is extremely important that the caller is engaged, stays on the line when the call is answered, and the callers are in the best frame of mind to help the charity. Using the Telephone Audio Partner Programme has enabled to us to offer this finishing touch to the charities we work with, enhancing their customer experience and adding value to their relationship with us.”
Daniel Graham, MD of OnBrand Group says; ”We worked hard to make sure the web portal is white labelled so there is no need to introduce another supplier into the chain, and that choosing voice artists, music and scripts was quick and effortless, reducing friction in the overall sale, adding a valuable step up in caller experience and customer satisfaction.”
This is an example of a new channel strategy that has clear benefits to both telecommunication partners and their end users. Working closely together they can deliver the product and service levels needed to succeed in the market place.
When you type this question in to Google, “what is a brand?” Google throws up two means for the term. Both are similar in their meaning, but one meaning has evolved based on its current context.
When you read these two statements, it’s clear to see that the latter of the two is the more likely of origin. But I also think it’s a very good way of explaining brand(ing) and what a brand really is.
The word “brand” derives from the Old Norse “brandr” meaning “to burn”. Branding itself dates as far back as Ancient Egypt and the Roman times. Roman glass makers would often brand there works to make them identifiable against other works. They main use of branding was amongst farmers and they would use hot iron designs to brand their cattle’s hides. It was mainly used on thick hided animals but also animals that where high in value when sold, such as horses. It was also used so that they could identify their cattle from a fellow farmer/seller. This really took off in parts of the world where there were large grazing areas for cattle, places like Spain and America really embraced this method.
What then started to happen was a rise in farmers doing this, but also in the designs being branded in to the animals. They became more elaborate and more meaningful and saw farmers using marks that represented their family names and values. They were becoming proud of how their brand would be seen amongst other famers, there direct competition. We then saw a rise in colour branding, spraying or painting them became a new take on branding. Laws then became stricter on branding over another brand, trying to sell cattle that isn’t yours under that brand, basically a lot of the same things we see now in the world of business law. Obviously the way the term “brand”, is used now is very different but it’s still has a lot of its old origins.
So, as you can see from my little insight, brand(ing) has come a long way from its origins. I thought it would be nice to look at this term from a very different angle. People always go for the obvious when they talk about the term ‘Brand’, I just thought it deserved to be talked about in its earliest form of meaning.
But, it’s always worth remembering that a brand is a passion, it’s unique and it’s yours.
Next month Adam Clark will be discussing how the term ‘arable farming’ applies to the business world. Sow, stay tuned.
Brand Audio have today announced that they are to rebrand as OnBrand Group. The rebrand marks five years since the successful restructuring of the Brand Audio business. The rebrand will bring together five specialist business units, which have already received acclaim in their own respective fields, under the OnBrand Group name:
1 OnBrand Audio
Brand Audio will rebrand as OnBrand Audio, and will focus on customer experience design in telephony for brands and contact centres, visual IVR and telephone IVR voice message services, and a partner programme for telecom distributors and resellers.
2 OnBrand Radio
Centre Radio, the UK’s leading Shopping Centre Radio service, will rebrand as OnBrand Radio, focusing on in-store radio and messaging business.
3 OnBrand Music
Its retail counterpart Captive Music will continue as OnBrand Music, providing background music in retail, hospitality and leisure sectors.
4 OnBrand Digital
OnBrand Digital will absorb Centre Buzz services of content creation, aggregation and syndication of online content for retail and shopping, and continue to offer bespoke web and mobile development.
5 OnBrand Marketing
Activities conducted as Talkabout Group will fall into OnBrand Marketing, which provides outsourced marketing support, content management, promotions sourcing and event production and management.
“The rebrand marks the scaling up of our business and the ability for our customers to identify with other opportunities within the group.” said Daniel Graham, Managing Director, OnBrand Group. “This transition marks five years of vertical growth and prepares the business for further expansion. It heralds a new direction and desire for OnBrand Group to become the number one agency in cross platform content production and content technology”.
OnBrand Audio work with organisations to ensure that their telephony is on brand and easy to navigate, so that every call strengthens the relationship with their customers.
Adam Clarke works with new customers to help them get this right, and here are a few of his thoughts on why and how to do it.
When people think of a brand, they don’t necessarily think about how they should sound. When customers or clients ring, the pre-agent voice is the first thing they hear, so the way you sound is a lot more important than you think.
When we talk to people face-to-face, we tend to analyse how we might sound or come across, and choose to construct sentences in a certain way to fit the environment we are in. This is exactly how we should look at how our company sounds too. It could also be that person’s first encounter with you, and first impressions really do count.
Tone of voice is more than just a voice. It’s rhythm, intonation, pace and the language used. Companies often have this in place for other channels of contact (postal marketing, websites, social media, etc) and it is just as important (if not more so) on the phone, because sound is all you have. The sound of your brand is your customer experience!
Your tone of voice should set you apart from others and make you stand out. Drilling down on the brand, the personality and how you see yourselves is what ultimately will determine this.
Look at your products, the market you’re in, your competition and the demographic of people looking to communicate with you.
You also need to be clear about what types of calls you receive on each phone line and make sure that your tone is appropriate to that department. For example; you wouldn’t want to sound too upbeat or humorous to someone who is making a serious complaint as it may infuriate them further. You may still choose to use the same voice as the other lines, but slow the pace slightly, adapt the tone and remove any marketing content to keep it appropriate.
Writing for the telephone is also an art and sentences are often written in a different way so callers understand what they are being asked to do in that context. If the instruction is ambiguous, people will mis-interpret them and may often press the wrong option. This could lead them to the wrong place, causing caller frustration and higher costs for the business.
When writing for the phone, it’s important to think carefully about every connotation it could have before signing off the script.
There’s a lot more to consider, but if you follow the above, you will start to find your writing will change and your tone of voice will become more engaging and effective for customers, strengthening your relationship with them on every call.
To learn more or give us your thoughts please get in touch at adam@onbrandgroup.co.uk or call 03333 220022
The first step should be a nice up-to-date desktop website with a suitable modern graphic design, logical navigation and quick loading times. Obviously your website will have integral social sharing buttons to publish your content on the popular social media channels too.
So now that’s settled, what happens if your site doesn’t work correctly on a mobile device? All that lovely design and up-to-date content will be lost on the customer that is looking for you on the web. For instance; How many times have you searched for opening hours for a store on a Sunday or Bank Holiday to find that a website doesn’t load properly on your phone, or that you can’t zoom in and click links to that all important opening hours page (which sometimes crashes and displays a map to a store in the next large town.) This is an all too-common occurrence to which the consumer may get quickly fed up and find somewhere else that has a site that offers store information in a plain and simple way.
Now that mobile traffic is at such a high-level (around 45% of users in the UK now use mobile to access the internet), having a mobile website that works on a smartphone, whilst it’s in the hands of your shoppers is vitally important. Customer satisfaction and loyalty is key to running a successful business so delivering the right information where your consumers are now demanding it will mean increased opportunities for your business by staying competitive in the modern technological marketplace.
The mobile age is still reasonably new and while 96% of marketers are planning to incorporate mobile into their marketing mix an awful lot of business have not yet adapted to the change. Creating a mobile website for your business now means you will be putting yourself ahead of any competition that has failed to provide suitable mobile optimised sites.
A quick word about websites vs apps – Simply put, mobile websites work across all platforms, while apps are device-specific, requiring a business to develop an app for each particular platform (e.g. Apple & Android) Since a mobile website is essentially a different front end for a website, the development is considerably less than building an app.
If there was any doubt about the need for a mobile ready website to appeal to the modern smartphone user there are 3 very simple reasons why you should be taking advantage of a mobile website
Many businesses are still catching up and you will want to provide a modern site before your competitors do. Having a mobile friendly site means that you will stay at the top of the game and provide your customers with the service that they want.
OnBrand Marketing offer bespoke development of websites with social media integration. Content management with fast execution.
Call us on 03333 22 00 22 or email hello@onbrandgroup.co.uk to see how we can help your business.
There are many ways to reach your customers for your shopping centre, but more importantly you should be reaching them every time that they visit your centre so you can strengthen the relationship you have with your customers. The most effective advertising campaigns for retail shopping centres are made through multimedia channels.
Radio marketing targets specific shoppers on different days of the week which is critical to your success and overall footfall. If you can recognise the different patterns of shopping that occurs with different types of people, then you will soon realise that consumers all like to shop differently and at different times.
Radio is an affordable medium that can reach a mass audience.
Uses of the shopping centre PA/Tannoy system
Radio Messaging Identified as a Powerful Broadcast Medium
As consumers are increasingly overwhelmed by the barrage of media messages delivered via traditional media, advertisers are searching for ways to more effectively reach and influence their prospective customers. The goals of an Edison Media Research study were to determine what level of recognition, retention, and response shoppers had to targeted advertising via this new delivery channel, and to examine the impact digitally-enhanced, custom programmed music had on the shoppers’ in-mall experience. The study results revealed that mall shoppers are not only aware of messages delivered through Mall Radio Network, but in fact demonstrate a high recall rate of those messages.
“Our research demonstrated that within mall properties, and over a demographically diverse sample, shoppers’ recall rates of ads played over Mall Radio Network were more than 50%, depending on the number of times they visited the mall,” said Joe Lenski, Executive Vice President of Edison Research.” In advertising, repetition and frequency often drives results, but compared to other forms of advertising, specific promotions delivered via Mall Radio Network had a greater recognition rate among consumers.”
Shopping behaviour: Netting Butterfly Shoppers.
“As far as getting shopper attention is concerned, we must consider first of all the psyche behind PA/Tannoy messages. Typically our mentality and thoughts regarding this media turn our attention to football stadiums and public locations like airports, where messages are of significant importance – most consumers’ initial reaction is to tune in, just in case the message is security or evacuation related… therefore your shoppers are already predisposed to listen to those messages and are tuned in, yet the experience itself doesn’t detract them from shopping itself. You don’t have to stop or read a poster or look at a screen, but instead we humans absorb this content as we go along – consider how we can eavesdrop on conversations so readily and tune in to different conversations at our own will…the same applies in the shopping centre, where consumers exact an active listen… ears prick up and focus in on keyword or triggers that we consider suitable or relevant to us (e.g. a “buy one get one free” promotion)…As a media, audio is very powerful. It is all encompassing, reaches everyone in the centre, but doesn’t stop us in our tracks. We know that retailers have enjoyed significant returns on using the audio media to drive consumers into their stores. Butterfly shoppers who haven’t predetermined where they’ll visit are certainly influenced by this type of media”.
Tactics Europe Edition Feature, Issue 111 2007
Done perfectly a shopping centre radio message is a one-to-one conversation with a single target prospect, written and produced so well that the prospect hears the introduction and thinks ‘It’s talking to me’.
OnBrand Radio provide your customers with music & messaging services to communicate with your customers. We professionally script and record your own in-store messages with a wide selection of professional voice over artists.
OnBrand Radio broadcast to 120million+ ears per month
Call us on 03333 22 00 22 or email sayhello@onbrand.co.uk to see how we can help your business.
Having worked in the communications industry for over 15 years, we’ve seen technology change out of all recognition and the sales marketplace as well.
Technology comes in many more shapes and sizes, which means that understanding your clients business objectives accurately, is of great importance.
Having precision in this area enhances your chance of winning your core sale, but the deeper understanding you have of client business needs enables you to open up wider opportunities to increase margin.
Research tells us that over 80% of UK business phone systems have a recorded message, either to welcome customers, direct them through to the right department or simply to educate and inform about products and services while on hold. This opens up a sales opportunity for communications sales professionals. Why not be the one who provides the customer facing messages as well as the system itself and make that all important extra margin?
The OnBrand Audio Partner Programme instantly enables you to offer a professional telephone audio service to your clients. You receive a white labelled web portal which guides you through choosing voice, music and scripts then quickly create quotes and submit orders. There are no set up fees or contracts, simply pay as you go.
We’d love to hear your feedback on our partner programme and for you to tell us what we can do to help you increase margins through providing telephone audio services.
Call us on 03333 22 00 22 or email sayhello@onbrand.co.uk to see how we can help your business.
OnBrand Audio have been designing and improving the pre-agent telephone experience for our clients for over 10 years and we are bringing a new mobile solution the market which provides greater opportunity for customer and operational benefits than telephone IVR alone.
Experience tells us that call abandonment is a common problem when customers interact with IVR systems. If your customers are having difficulty listening & navigating through multiple options, and repeating information, your company is at risk from losing vital business due to a poor customer experience.
However, using visual IVR which works alongside your traditional telephone IVR provides your customers with a guided menu interface which can be launched from any mobile device, tablet or PC. Customers are now demanding mobile customer service and visual IVR delivers that experience, while creating cost saving opportunities.
Since you have invested time and money in your IVR, it’s easy to implement visual IVR with your current technology without interrupting your current customer service systems. Customers simply launch a mobile app or web page to access your visual IVR system. Instead of listening to what are sometimes lengthy call trees, your customers can scan their smart phone screens, and click the option that best suits them.
Visual IVR reuses your current IVR scripts to provide a visual menu driven interface of your IVR on smart phones and tablets. Whether your system runs on VXML scripts or proprietary code, a visual IVR solution works with most IVR formats to map your IVR technology onto mobile devices, complete with all its features.
Go visual for instant ROI
1. Customers solve their problems on their own – they can see and touch their way to what or who they need without having to listen to multiple options, repeat information, or speak to the operator.
2. Reduced calls to the call centre – By enhancing self-service, your customers spend less to no time in the IVR, taking the load off your call centre while lowering your telephony and IVR costs.
3. Shorter call times– when choosing to connect to the call centre, all information entered by the customer is visible to the agent so average handle time is significantly reduced.
4. Lower call abandonment- IVR frustrations of navigating through multiple options and being forced to repeat information often cause the customer to simply- hang up. This creates an immediate loss of revenue to the organization. Visual IVR decreases call abandonment significantly.
5. Boost your IVR investment – a Visual IVR solution will work seamlessly with your current IVR technology, so you preserve and reap your original IVR investment. This means that the time spent in developing an IVR script, is now utilised in two locations instead of one.
A visual IVR solution increases self-service to take the load off a call centre, minimize zeroing out due to better routing, and significantly lowers IVR and telephony costs as less time is spent in the IVR. Adopting a visual IVR solution will help an organisation provide customers with accurate real-time information and advanced self-service capabilities.
That’s true mobile customer service, & at no added costs to your original IVR investment.
Sales of mobile devices worldwide overtook traditional computers quite some time ago, but many high street retailers are failing to create useful mobile experiences for the shopper
The greatest potential is to attract customers for future sales in-store and not just to lead them to purchase online. Users are regularly using their devices to research, rate and engage with high street retailers, so these businesses must consider a targeted mobile and social strategy. This is vital as many users now share details of shopping offers and post photographs of their latest ‘bargain’ purchase to their friends and family on social networks
The key here is to make the most of mobile to enhance the customer experience and to develop a relationship encouraging follow up sales. Recent statistics from Vision Critical showed that 40% of social media users purchased a product after sharing or ‘liking’ it on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest. The data also showed that we are not just purchasing online too. Users of Facebook drive the most in-store buying at an equal rate as online buying.
We have seen that many shopping destinations fail to understand the direct business benefits of social media campaigns and these stats clearly show a link between social sharing leading to purchase. The technology to tap into shoppers via their devices is readily available, such as our own platform which brings together retail offers and shoppers via social media channels in an immediate solution to people who already have their smartphones in their hands.
Of course, retailers need to understand how to reward people who share and promote products to others in their social circles and there is some work to be done here. However, there has been an increase in the use of mobile coupons and redemptions by some stores which add extra benefits to users when they tell their friends through social channels.
Keeping the customer and encouraging loyalty hasn’t changed with the increase in technology and word-of-mouth is just as powerful as it always was, but the new word-of-mouth is social sharing, which drives post-purchase engagement. For the retailer it’s now about the reach and data, so we can gather what the modern shopper wants from their favourite stores.
Whilst we may not be directly purchasing from our smartphones, a combined social and mobile strategy is essential to stay ahead in the retail marketplace.
