Our Customers' Stories
Campaign:
SMBs Rely On Customer Success Stories To Learn & Gain A Competitive Advantage
Background:
UK Online and its parent company, Easynet led the march on providing innovative and competitive broadband through pioneering Local Loop Unbundling (LLU). They were the first to offer a national unlimited broadband service at up to 8Mb. Following acquisition by BSkyB, the challenge was to focus the positioning of the brand for SMBs with less than 10 employees and high end consumers.
Objectives:
- Reposition the brand to target micro businesses, professionals and high-end consumers
- Educate and attract this target market on the benefit of 'professional broadband applications and service'
Strategy & Plan:
- Create a flexible customer advocacy programme to engage this tranche of SMBs, many of whom are time-poor owner/managers
Results:
- First and foremost, the programme was tailored to deliver a free marketing service to premium customers with benefits such as marketing advice and professional collateral. This was in return for these customers being advocates of the UK Online brand.
- During the first 12 months of the programme relationships have been developed with over 10 premium customer advocates. Incentives for participation in the programme include additional customer service and market intelligence through to new product development insights and promotion of their own organisations in the media.
- The benefit to UK Online has been equally strong, with multiple customer endorsements integrated into the business and marketing mix - for example, valuable feedback and ideas for new products. Debbie Robertson, marketing and sales director at UK Online and Easynet Connect commented, “It is the depth of customer advocacy we have gained that has been most important to us. This is illustrated through customers’ willingness to provide invaluable stories of their own business experiences in a number of ways: one to one directly with a myriad of potential customers and other key stakeholders as well as one to many in on the web, the media, or at conferences”.
If you want to find out more, contact us