Below the Line

Use me, please! Twitter and Foursquare attempt to stimulate usage

Sites like Twitter and Foursquare know that the number of registered users is not nearly as important as the number of active users. So, it's important for these companies to communicate with users to ensure they stay relevant.

Twitter now has 200 million users, but how many are active? One year ago, RJ Metrics reported that only 20% of Twitter's users were active (then 15 million out of 75 million users). Twitter sends emails to users infrequently, so it's surprising that this one was rather uninspiring. First, it's a "Happy New Year" message that was sent on February 1 - did this email spend three weeks getting internal approvals?

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Starbucks rewards UK customers with money-off coupons

Last autumn, Starbucks heated up the UK coffee wars with free Wi-Fi. They've now started rewarding their UK customers through their loyalty program.

Coupon usage in the UK isn't as rampant as it is in the U.S., but it is on the rise as people look for ways to save money during the recession. The direct mail package includes a booklet which has a month's worth of coupons - each good for one day only. Surely by the time their customers use each coupon, they will have established a new daily ritual (not to mention a serious caffeine addiction).

Starbucks heats up coffee wars with free Wi-Fi in UK

Perhaps in response to recent marketing efforts by Costa Coffee, Starbucks is now offering free Wi-Fi to UK customers who have signed up for their Starbucks Reward loyalty program.

Reward customers already received little extras, such as soy milk or specialty syrup in their coffee at no extra charge. This move brings the UK loyalty program in line with the U.S. offering, which is a good strategy for a global brand.

Interestingly, most of Starbucks' competitors in the UK do not offer free Wi-Fi, whereas in the U.S. many do - and they don't require customers to sign up for a loyalty program in order to receive it. Surely, it won't be long before another UK chain comes along and offers it completely free.

However, Starbucks is able to use their dominant market position to ask their dedicated customer base to jump through one small hoop in order to receive the benefit. While Starbucks may lose some business to customers who just want to use Wi-Fi on occasion and do not want to sign up for Starbucks Rewards in order to do so, they will gain a wealth of customer data which, if used properly, should help them innovate to stay competitive in the future.

The e-mail announcing free Wi-Fi is below, along with a teaser e-mail sent a month prior.

T-Mobile UK uses SMS for customer feedback

I've used T-Mobile for the last few years and found their customer service to be excellent. Now they are looking to improve it even more, using a three-question text message survey after each call to customer service.

The service is "powered by" Fizzback. According to a testimonial from T-Mobile's Customer Services Director on the Fizzback web site, T-Mobile plans to use the service for their store customers and within their customer service organisation, to "fine-tune our processes and improve employee performance."

This could be a really useful customer retention and marketing research tool.

Here is the full text of the T-Mobile survey:

Hello, thanks for calling T-Mobile. We'd like to ask you for some feedback about your customer service experience. (All texts are free) 

Q1 of 3: Overall how satisfied were you with your call experience?
5. Extremely
4. Very
3. Fairly
2. Not very
1. Not at all

Delighted you were satisfied.
Q2 of 3: Did the T-Mobile agent you spoke with resolve your query on this occasion?
a. Yes
b. No

Happy to hear that. Q3 of 3: How satisfied were you with the commitment of the agent to resolve your query - from 5 (extremely) to 1 (not at all)?

Thanks. Finally we would welcome your feedback on the reasons for your ratings, or how we could improve your T-Mobile experience. Please text us your comments

Thanks for taking part in our survey. Your feedback about our service will be used to help us continually improve. T-Mobile (powered by Fizzback)

While it may not be an appropriate communication channel for all brands, if there is a fit it's a great way to connect with customers "at the point of experience". 

Have you received any SMS surveys? Would you respond to one if you did? Please leave a comment below.