A new radio commercial to promote Plymouth City Market will be hitting the airwaves today. Fresh Air Studios has just been presented with a fresh new script by leading Plymouth advertising agency, Sigma Marketing & Advertising. So, iPad in hand, we decided to grab the opportunity to create a rough and ready making of… Featuring …
How many ingredients do you have in your “Marketing Mix”? Depending on the size of your business, you’ll probably use a classic combination of mail-shots, telesales and newsletters. Slightly larger companies will include local radio, press and local TV. Then of course there are their national equivalents. If you’re more internet savvy, you may well …
Last night (Channel 4, 8pm), actor Richard Wilson, in his inimitable style, questioned the concept of being kept “On Hold”. While you can be forgiven for believing we might resent any kind of criticism of the telephone audio industry, we welcome this kind of critique into whether companies are giving their customers a good Customer …
The team at Fresh Air Studios are having to exercise a huge level of restraint after taking delivery of special ‘Fresh Air Studios Fruit n Nut’ chocolate bars. The bars, produced by Plymouth based Chocolatier, Chocaccino, are a classic combination of mixed dried fruit and nuts including raisins, cashew, walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, hazel nuts, …
After a few weeks away from the studio, the first thing one of our writers, Lisa Hartwell, expected to greet her was a pile of emails and a mountain of script requests. So, she was pleasantly surprised when she discovered her own trophy for her contribution to Fresh Air Studio’s recent award winning production. The …
How many ingredients do you have in your “Marketing Mix”?
Depending on the size of your business, you’ll probably use a classic combination of mail-shots, telesales and newsletters. Slightly larger companies will include local radio, press and local TV. Then of course there are their national equivalents.
If you’re more internet savvy, you may well include email marketing, online advertising (such as Google Adwords and Facebook), plus Social Media activities.
We’ve covered a few things, but is there something missing?
Yes, there certainly is. Audio Marketing. Specifically, telephone based audio marketing.
Some people call it On-Hold Marketing, we prefer to call it Telephone Branding. Whatever you call it, it can improve your brand, help convert telephone enquiries into sales, up-sell and provide essential support to the other marketing methods you use.
Towards the end of last year, the AMA (Audio Marketing Associate of Europe) held its first conference; one of the guests was Keith Barlow, Director of the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Keith confirms that businesses who leave audio marketing out of their marketing mix are missing out on a trick….
Last night (Channel 4, 8pm), actor Richard Wilson, in his inimitable style, questioned the concept of being kept “On Hold”. While you can be forgiven for believing we might resent any kind of criticism of the telephone audio industry, we welcome this kind of critique into whether companies are giving their customers a good Customer Experience.
The programme was entertaining (you couldn’t help but laugh at Richard’s experiences of trying to book cinema tickets) but it also tackled some fairly common mistakes that businesses make when it comes to dealing with callers.
Regardless of the fact that many people would rather speak instantly to a real person, these days it’s an unrealistic expectation. Businesses don’t have an endless supply of customer service agents, and during busy or surprise peaks in caller traffic their ability to mobilise teams will be put to the test. Therefore, an element of hold or transfer time is an unavoidable, necessary evil, especially when waiting to speak to a specialist regarding a specific type of enquiry.
As a leading provider of On Hold audio (we call it Telephone Branding), we help businesses ensure that when it is necessary to put customers on hold, they deliver informative, useful and helpful audio to callers. Rather than (as we know is still sadly the case) annoying beeps, silence or Greensleeves.
However, we also believe that good on hold audio is no excuse for lengthy call waiting times and questionable customer service, so we work closely with our clients to evaluate all aspects of the customer journey – from the moment the caller enters the system.
The research panel created by Richard consisted of members of the public from the ‘upper’ age scale, together with some students. Perhaps not the most socially varied focus group, but they did do a fairly good job at collecting waiting time data.
Being put on hold for a lengthy time can be an annoyance. The wrong kind of audio will only make matters worse. The programme contained many clips of what we would consider questionable and often redundant phraseology, such as the classic (and universally annoying) ‘your call is important to us’.
The right audio can reduce the perceived waiting time and reduce the annoyance factor. Taking steps to improve what you play whilst callers are ‘on hold’ can even help; for example, by delivering answers to frequently asked questions.
When it comes to automated telephone menus (IVR), used correctly they can help callers reach the correct department quicker. Imagine being passed from pillar to post in a massive company in order to speak to the right person. The automation in this case can actually reduce the time it takes to get an answer to a specific issue.
However, when it comes to voice recognition, I think we will put that topic on hold.
Our top tip to business owners, managers and CEOs: Call your own company.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes and avoid using your colleagues’ direct dial or mobile number for a couple of weeks. Live the customer experience for yourself.
Ask yourself: Who is the voice on the welcome message? Are they representative of the business? Have I been cut off because the transfer/hold was silent? Is a tacky rendition of Greensleeves really representative of my brand? Are my agents dealing with calls as effectively as possible?
The team at Fresh Air Studios are having to exercise a huge level of restraint after taking delivery of special ‘Fresh Air Studios Fruit n Nut’ chocolate bars.
The bars, produced by Plymouth based Chocolatier, Chocaccino, are a classic combination of mixed dried fruit and nuts including raisins, cashew, walnuts, almonds, brazil nuts, hazel nuts, red skin peanuts, pecans and more… all set in a cocoa-tastic dark chocolate slab – is your mouth watering yet?
Each bar is branded with a logo insert and tied in a blue and green bow.
The bars will soon be sent far and wide across the UK to clients; sadly there won’t any left for the Fresh Air Studios team (and Paul has taken a count!).
Photo: Paul Philpott, Head of Chocolate Procurement, with Kim O’Neill from Chocaccino
After a few weeks away from the studio, the first thing one of our writers, Lisa Hartwell, expected to greet her was a pile of emails and a mountain of script requests. So, she was pleasantly surprised when she discovered her own trophy for her contribution to Fresh Air Studio’s recent award winning production.
The Best On Hold Marketing Award 2011 was given to Fresh Air Studios by the Audio Marketing Association of Europe for their monthly production for Plymouth Pavilions, and as Head Writer Lisa plays an important role.
Her task is to take the monthly brief from Plymouth Pavilions about which shows, events and services they want to focus on for the following month and craft it into a script. Writing for audio, and particularly for telephone, is very different from writing for print – the emphasis is on being clear and concise and avoiding too many clichés, so that the caller hears useful information that doesn’t annoy them while they wait for their call to be answered. In Plymouth Pavilions’ case there’s always plenty happening to talk about, so it’s Lisa’s job to make sure callers know about each event as well as how to find out more.
“I was chuffed to find out we’d won this award, especially for such a fun and consistently interesting production. It’s even better to have something to put on my mantelpiece to help explain to people what I do each day, hunched over my computer for hours on end – it’s not all games and Facebook!”
Picture: Lisa Hartwell in Fresh Air Studios – Studio 2 with award
The sales team from Fresh Air Studios have just returned from a successful Network Central Event at The Future Inns, Plymouth.
The exhibition and networking event brought together 70+ businesses, and many more visitors, to experience a whole host of mini-exhibition stands… of which Fresh Air Studios presented their award winningOn Hold Marketing production service.
Consisting of 6 multi coloured retro telephone handsets, visitors simply picked up a phone to listen to different styles of telephone on hold marketing productions.
Attracting over 50 visitors (excluding the other exhibitors who also visited the stand) there was a lot of interest as Alison Anderson, Audio Branding Consultant explains: “It was great to give practical, real life examples of what can be achieved with on hold marketing. Whilst Fresh On Hold Marketing was the key service we wanted to promote, we also talked with businesses about their marketing objectives and exchanged ideas about how companies in Plymouth could use audio, and creative ideas to promote their services. The stand was certainly one of the most eye catching.”
What is On Hold Marketing and Telephone Branding? We’ll tell you, in less than 60 seconds…
It’s been a busy week for Fresh Air Studios’ MD, Paul Philpott, as news spreads of their prestigious Audio Marketing Association (Europe) award for Best On Hold Marketing Production.
One of the highlights so far was talking to Gordon Sparks on BBC Radio Devon this morning about the award, and about how many businesses in general could improve the customer experience they provide.
Gordon and Paul chatted about the importance of marketing, branding and giving a high level of customer service – no matter what the industry. Especially in the current climate, businesses (of any size) cannot afford to lose calls and miss out on promotional opportunities.
In the light-hearted nature of Gordon’s programme, they also talked about Greensleeves, the annoyance of “beep beep” and some classic songs for On Hold (if only they could be legally used). Bringing it back to business, it was also emphasised that tacky music, beeps and silence can be detrimental to a business and ruin all the effort that’s been made up to that point of creating a good impression.
We hope to update this blog entry soon with some audio of the broadcast… meanwhile, here’s a photo.
Fresh Air Studios & Plymouth Pavilions Takes on the On Hold Industry – and Wins!
Plymouth based audio production company Fresh Air Studios has walked away with the prestigious ‘Best On Hold Marketing’ award at the Audio Marketing Association of Europe annual
conference, for their creative work on Plymouth Pavilions’ on hold telephone messaging.
The ceremony held at Staverton Park, Daventry earlier this month witnessed the Plymouth based company taking on productions for some of the biggest brands in Europe. Judged by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, feedback including “branding is good”, “copy concise” and “convincing calls to action” all helped to bring the award back to the city.
Receiving over 100,000 incoming calls last year to their Arena, Leisure and Conference facilities, Plymouth Pavilions first instructed Fresh Air Studios to enhance their existing on hold customer experience back in early January. The brief was to create a system that would deliver the best possible customer service through audio prompts, that would answer frequently asked questions, whilst also delivering key business information and giving the customer an informative flavour of the alternative shows and services the venue can offer.
Marketing Officer at Plymouth Pavilions, Robert Maltby said: “We know how long some of our customers can be on hold when tickets for a high profile show are placed on sale, it’s the nature of the business when you have a big star coming to town.
Only recently, tickets for pop favourites One Direction were placed on sale and we received over 43,000 calls in just in 1 day! Always looking to improve our customer service we decided to use this to both our own, and our customers advantage, by working with Fresh Air to introduce informative and concise messaging. As a result, our on hold system is now key to the success of our business!
Fresh Air Studios certainly delivered, and when we heard that they had won the award we were so proud, especially when they mentioned the impressive list of national brands we were up against. It just proves you don’t need to be a massive national brand with huge budgets to deliver better on hold customer service. Well done Fresh Air, you’ve done the Pavilions andPlymouth proud!”
Managing Director at Fresh Air Studios, Paul Philpott said: “We are absolutely delighted with this award, especially winning with a production for Plymouth Pavilions. We genuinely believe that business of all sizes can benefit from a professional sounding telephone system. It’s shocking how companies spend a lot of money on advertising yet forget to invest in the most important method of contact: the phone.
With Plymouth Pavilions we wanted to replace the old audio system with something that would keep callers informed of new shows, exciting announcements and entertained whilst waiting to speak to an agent. The comments from the judges show we’ve achieved a good balance, and created something compelling.
The key piece of advice I would give to any business owner, CEO, MD or Marketing Manager is to put themselves in their customer’s shoes… call their own company… and live the customer experience themselves. Asking: who is the voice on the welcome message? Have I been cut off because the transfer was silent? Is a tacky rendition of Greensleeves really representative of my brand?”
The award winning production team included Lisa Hartwell (Scriptwriter) and Sally Williams (Voiceover).
Listen to this month’s Telephone On Hold Marketing Production here
Fresh Air Studios has just completed audio production work the Plymouth City Centre Company’s 2011 Plymouth Winter Festival campaign.
The campaign will promote Plymouth as one of the top destinations in the South West this year for shopping, entertainment and the best in festive family fun.
Working from a story-board brief submitted by the Plymouth City Centre Company, Fresh Air Studios defined the audio identity which would feature on both the television and radio campaign. This included voiceover casting and festive music casting – bringing creative elements together to encapsulate the feel of the Plymouth Winter Festival.
Working alongside the powerful combination of visual creative agency N9 Design, and animation experts Mutant Labs, Fresh Air Studios provided the sound track to match N9 Design / Mutant Lab’s stunning animation which will air on ITV1.
For the supporting radio campaign, Fresh Air Studios produced commercials for leading Plymouth advertising agency, Sigma Marketing who also provided media planning services.
Voiceover artist, Susan Winder, who was casted to voice the campaign said “I love the atmosphere of Plymouth at Christmas and look forward to the bustle of the late night shopping. It’s great to be part of such a special occasion.”
Fresh Air Studios has just been awarded WINNER of Best On Hold Marketing 2011, as part of the Audio Marketing Association of Europe’s annual conference held in Daventry.
Judged by panelists from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Call Centre Helper and Sheffield Business School the awards ceremony also presented Fresh Air Studios with runner up for Best Contact Centre IVR.
2011 was the first year of the awards which aims to recognise excellence in different areas of audio marketing and branding. Categories included Best On-Hold Marketing, Best Contact Centre IVR and (to add a little humour to the ceremony) there was even a category for Best Out Take which was judged by conference candidates as part of the Gala Dinner.
Amusingly, Fresh Air Studios was also awared runner-up in the Best Out Take category.
The panel included well respected marketing professionals working through over 120 entries:
Jonty Pearce – Editor at Call Centre Helper. Formerly Innovation Director at Avaya and Head of Consultancy at Lucent Technologies Inc, and editor of Presentation Magazine.
Keith Barlow – Director of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, responsible for the professional development and support of Members in the Midlands.
Colin Gilligan – Professor of Marketing at Sheffield Business School from 1988-2006. He now has an Emeritus title within the university, as well as a Visiting Professorial post at Newcastle Business School. Having left the University to go back into full-time management development and consultancy, he is now working with clients in Europe, Africa & the Middle East. He is the author / co-author of eleven books. His latest book, The New Consumer, in which he takes a radically different look at today’s changing consumer, is due for publication in 2012.
A new radio commercial to promote Plymouth City Market will be hitting the airwaves today.
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