Focusing on Voucher Codes Poor Customer Focus.

In modern marketing, customer focus is everything.

Gartner For Marketers found that at least 89% of companies now compete primarily through customer experience, a marked increase from the 36% in 2013.

There is good reason for this upsurge. As Land Rover’s Gerry McGovern said: “Being customer focused is not some ‘nice thing to do.’ Customer focus is about hard-edged business. Customers are hugely impatient on the Web. They don’t need to hang around a website that is not directly focused on them. Customer focus is the beginning, middle and end of a successful web strategy.”

And yet, the customer focus of one marketing ‘web strategy’ sucks. Voucher Codes.

Here’s a quick look at why they suck, and how they can be improved….

1) Select Customers Targeted deals.

Voucher codes are indeed made with customer focus intentions . The ‘New Customer Discount’, for example, is certainly a customer-focused acquisition move. By focusing on specifically new customers, this deal communicates to them that they are welcomed by the company, a company which rewards its customers.

Indeed, we’ve all been given a ‘New Customer Discount’ code at some point. Whether you’ve found one on a voucher code site, been given one at a checkout, or been emailed one – we can all appreciate how this strategy works; a select deal for a select audience.

But how can you really ensure that a new customer is using it?

Whether they’re physical or digital, repeat use or even single use, new customer discount codes can be passed around and used by existing customers with no real problem. Indeed, unless your Ecommerce platform has a data layer that can categorically identify that a new customer is using a given code, there is no way to be sure.

Is this a big problem?

Well - quite simply - without the ability to categorically safeguard a targeted deal to a targeted audience, you cannot effectively do customer focus.

Many voucher code campaigns -realising their inability to safeguard- target a general customer audience rather than a specific one, really reducing their efficacy. And companies that do ‘target’ with no safeguarding are naïve to our Groupon Era.

You either try targeting and fail, or simply don’t try at all.

On the occasions where companies can ensure this safeguarding, then their customer focused deal can remain focused. It can target the right people with the right deal, improving customer relations & prompting new ones to appear. Selling is made far easier by targeting almost exclusively towards the people who want it.

If one could create a unique-use code for each customer, corresponding to they’re account number for example, then you could ensure that a specific customer deal is used by a specific customer. Keeping customer focus maxed.

Of course, customer targeting not only benefits customers happiness - providing a sense that the company is focusing specifically on them - but also benefits companies profit margins, improving retention and conversion.

2) Error Messages

On much the same note, with such an intense focus on Customer Experience Management (CEM), error messages are far too often uninformative & alienating.

Consumers enter a voucher code they think will work, have it rejected and are given no details to why. With simple ‘Computer Says No’ messages lacking the communication required to keep customer experience high, the ensuing reaction could result in future ‘customer says no’ scenarios. Which no company wants.

On the other hand, Error messages which detail the reason to why codes are rejected inherently share details to how they could use this code. This both increases the chances of customers still attempting to purchase as well as increasing customer satisfaction.

Additionally, you could have messages given to ‘error customers’ that give them details of another deal e.g. You can’t get this 10% off, but as an existing customer you get 15% off if you spend over £50.

 Instead of trying and failing they are presented with another deal. Tempting them in and demonstrating to the customer you are still considering them.

Instead of being dead ends, discount-code error messages could become pro-active customer conversion messages.

The whole point around this is that each customer is an individual which needs to be specifically communicated to. If you’re communicating to e.g. ‘new customers’, you want your promotion to specifically target exclusively them. If an existing customer tries to use a code meant for a new customer then you don’t want to communicate to them ’not for you’ but rather ‘here’s what could be for you’. Focusing your marketing, while also focusing on customer experience.

If you focus on customer as individuals then customer satisfaction will increase, intrinsically increasing acquisition, retention and ultimately sales.