Set your brand apart with scent marketing
Most people underestimate our sense of smell and the overall effect it has on our emotion and behaviour.
For example, picking the right scent for your business can influence the customer into coming into your shop or purchasing certain products, whilst the wrong scent can drive a customer away and even put them in a bad mood.
Our sense of smell is very individualized but tests suggest that certain scents can cause changes in our behaviour.
According to research conducted by Neil Martin, Human Olfaction Labratory- Middlesex University “pleasant and unpleasant ambient odours can have an effect on human behaviour such as stress, anxiety, depression and mood.” Martin explains. “Whilst we’re still continuing the experiment, so far it seems that the smell of chocolate really does make people less stressed and anxious, and more relaxed.”
Martin also says “People can use scents to improve alertness, wellbeing and anxiety,” he says. “For example, another study showed that women in a dentist’s waiting room that had been scented with orange reported less anxiety than those in an unscented counterpart.” (Guardian, 2010)
Other UK research has also found that certain smells trigger positive memories and feelings, thus influencing the buyers purchasing decision. For example, subjects presented with a piping hot baked potato reported an uplifted mood and a rush of childhood memories. The head researcher, Dr Avinash Kant, further enlarged his findings beyond the potato to other food smells. This explains
the tactic of baking cakes or fresh bread
when perspective buyers visit a house for sale.
Studies also indicate that vanilla is considered a buying scent. According to Alan Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment research foundation, if a product smells good it’s perceived to be a good product.
A recent case study with Premier Business Audio and Simply Chocolate, World of Duty Free – Terminal 4, indicates through the use of targeted fragrancing, revenue and foot traffic can be significantly increased. Charlotte Graves, Store Manager, commented “We have found that using the chocolate fragrance has been a great way to build rapport with our customers, find out more about their tastes and identify their favourite chocolate. Also if they hadn’t thought of buying chocolate as a gift, the smell triggered the idea to buy a token for a friend, a loved one or someone they will be staying with whilst on holiday. Overall the Premier Fragrancing service has proved to be a great success to Simply Chocolate, resulting in a positive effect on the business, by increasing footfall and revenues by 15% and helping to motivate the team who run it.”
With this research in mind, it is important for businesses to consider their company’s “smell” as it can make a big difference in the consumers buying power – after all getting and retaining customers is imperative for any business.
Read more on how scent can benefit your business, or call Premier on 0845 279 7200.
Need help marketing your dental practice?
In today’s society, there are many ways in which a patient can contact your practice. In most instances, patients still prefer to pick up the phone and call your practice to book an appointment or make an enquiry.
Recent research shows that the number of practices who greet patients with an answering machine, an engaged tone or leave the phone ringing is dramatically increasing.
In the survey conducted by Converso, researchers discovered that of the 3,557 dial-outs made over a 128-hour period, they reached 718 answer machines, 630 busy signals and 202 no answers, which equates to a staggering 44% of all attempted calls. (dentristy.co.uk)
In conclusion, research shows many practices are failing to maximise these point of contact touch points and are failing to meet even the most basic demands of their patients.
The Dental Call Handler is the solution for dentists who can not meet this very basic of demands and require a simple, yet effective telephony solution. The Call Handler answers up to 3 calls at any one time in your practice. It greets patients with a professionally recorded and customised message, and then continues to play messages about your practice with soothing background music until you are able to pick up the phone.
The Dental Call Handler will also automatically switch into night mode when your practice is closed. Patients will hear your opening and closing hours, emergency contact numbers and if applicable your web address. It will then direct them to your answering machine for those patients wanting to leave a message.
With an average of 7 out of 10 patients also being put on-hold, why not utilize this time with up-to date relevant messages, rather than letting them listen to silence or ‘elevator’ music? When a patient calls and is asked to hold, those next moments are essential to your practice’s image – as first impressions really do count.
Research shows that 60% of callers put on-hold with silence, will hang up within 40 seconds. However callers who were put on-hold with music and an informative message will stay on the line on average 3 minutes longer.
You have a captive audience when your patient is put on-hold and a unique opportunity. Leave a strong impression by entertaining patients. Give them tips on a healthy lifestyle, promote new procedures or give them relevant practice information.
From the above statistics, giving the wrong message and the wrong tone could actually damage your reputation and potentially result in lost patients. Many people spend money on visual branding, but neglect their telephone audio.
Lee Pritchard states “Your sonic branding is as important as your visual branding!”
Are you making the most of this marketing opportunity?
Premier are currently giving every principle dentist who takes out their Call Handler service will get a free generic web presenter video for their website worth up to £250.
To qualify, the principle dentist needs to visit http://www.premierba.co.uk/dentists.htmand input the unique reference code: webofferfeb.
Actor Richard Wilson slates poor UK Call Centres
Channel 4’s Dispatches program, presented by Richard Wilson investigated the use of automated systems and call centres in Britain. It also outlined the importance of the ‘customer calling experience’ and clearly showed that many companies do not get this right… with typical Victor Meldrew grumpiness. Watch the documentary now by clicking on the video link below:
During the documentary, Richard put automated phone systems of some of the largest services providers to the test and created his own call centre, revealing the best and worst for queue times.
In addition, Channel 4 also ran a simultaneous poll (in conjunction with Populus) asking people to vote for which automated service – or services – gave them the biggest headache.
FREE AUDIO AUDIT:
In light of the documentary, Premier Business Audio, the UK’s leading provider of call centre audio and customer experience solutions are offering a free Audio Audit and bench-marking analysis to identify areas for improvement in your Call Centre caller experience .
For more information on what is involved with an Audio Audit please click here.
To book your Audio Audit, please click on the button below.
Or call Kate Harding on 0845 279 7200.
Reasons to buy Audio Marketing from Premier
Why we stand out from our competition.
Premier are industry leading contact specialists. We ensure that all customer points of contact are memorable, satisfying, different from your competitors and above all, help you sell more.
See below our top 5 reasons why we stand out from our competition and why you should buy your Audio Marketing solution from us:
1. We offer a large choice of voice and music including a large variety of innovative and state of the art hardware.
2. We are the market leaders and offer a managed service with a dedicated creative team and we can offer quick turnaround with SLAs. We are proactive in communicating with our customers.
3. We are an award winning company and are the only Audio Marketing Company in Europe to be ISO9001 accredited. We belong to AMA and OHMA and have a large selection of customer credentials and testimonials. We are an established business and have been trading since 1996.
4. We are the best at what we do and offer excellent levels of customer service. We are passionate about our business and we care about our customers and colleagues.
5.We offer a professional sounding product and offer value for money and our customers are happy to recommend us.
What is Audio Marketing?
Audio Marketing gives your business a professional image and creates brand awareness as well as telling your customers what you do and how good you are.
Audio Marketing also suits any type of business – large or small and can make your business sound larger than you are. Have you checked whether your competitors have an audio marketing solution? Use it to stand out from your competition.
Click here to find out more about Audio Marketing or call 0845 074 4068.
Top Tip for Government Call Centre Audio
Tip 10:
Make the most of in-queue and on-hold time. If you are proud of an achievement as an organisation, don’t miss the opportunity to tell your community about it.
For more information please visit www.premierba.co.uk/call-centre-audio.htm