Do you enjoy talking to robots?
Do you enjoy having a conversation in the dark not knowing if someone is there?
Before we look at automated phone calls, consider online marketing: In an attempt to turn online marketing into a formula Creative Agencies have learned to work outside the standard industry time schedule. The world of work, i.e. factories, offices, retail… are all typically open and working 9:00am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday – so what have they done? In order to speak to you in your precious free time, you get automatically pushed social media posts. Filling Twitter with clever quotes at 8:00am, scheduling pictures on Instagram at 7:00am, organising content on Facebook for 8:00pm, even pushing company updates on LinkedIn for your 6:00pm bus ride home.
Are they killing the social web, filling it with noise in the vain hope it connects with you?
Those automated phone dialers are SPAM for the phone line (did you opt-in to receive them? If not then they are breaking the law) So why do I like them? They ensure that people in the business of cold-calling are slowly coming to the end of their life; we no longer answer the phone unless we recognise the number or caller. On the other hand when we see a phone call coming from a connection we recognise or trust, we listen, we pick up, we pay attention.
Could those Creative Agencies adopt a different approach, one that Tony Hsieh was doing 10 years ago? Instead of spending vast sums on TV, Radio, Sponsorship… he invested in people (forget advertising, let customers spread the word). With a strict recruitment policy he (his team) identified characters that would speak (through Phone, Twitter, Facebook…). There’s little or no attempt to sell the product it’s all about connecting personally with the customer by answering problems, resolving queries, making suggestions or introducing the customer to another supplier that might be able to help!
Wait what!?! A post for another time, promoting products you don’t even sell in order to gain consumer trust.
I’m suggesting you (Agencies and inhouse marketing teams) start recruitment drives to find connected and demographically appropriate people to live and work by the SIESTA timespan. They will be at their desk for 7:00am, logging off at 2:00pm, back at their desk for 5:00pm working through to 9:00pm – of course they will only be working a three day week.
Could the continuous use of SPAM both online and phone calls change the working week?