A direct connection with clients should be the goal of any successful marketing campaign. The challenge arises when that marketing campaign is plagued with bad decisions that create distrust and dissatisfaction among the customer base. Netflix learned this lesson the hard way when it failed to leverage SMS text marketing to promote a positive message and instead opted to launch its own initiative.
This CallFire blog explored the mishaps of Netflix, highlighting the missed SMS text marketing opportunity. The path Netflix followed earlier this year included price hikes in the summer, and plans to rebrand its DVD rental service, settling on the name Quikster. The name must have been an omen, given the company nearly immediately canceled those plans.
The fact that 805,000 people unsubscribed from Netflix amidst the rapid changes may have given the company pause that their plans were getting ahead of customer desire. Netflix could have successfully used SMS text marketing to effectively communicate their plans to customers ahead of time and gathered feedback before acting, but they skipped that step completely.
Upon closer examination, none of Netflix’s actions alone were really all that significant. The problem was the combination of all these events, which greatly impacted the customer base. Instead of using SMS text marketing to communicate, the company acted and then caused nearly a million Americans to lose trust in the company as a whole.
Why focus on building trust among the consumer base, especially with the use of SMS text marketing? The 2010 Edelman (News - Alert) Trust Barometer noted that honesty and trust rank higher with customers than the quality of the service or the product. The same report also highlighted that 77 percent of people will refuse to buy products or services from a company they do not trust. Another 55 percent of people will pay a premium for services or products when trust exists.
A full 91 percent of people will buy from a company when trust is present, and 72 percent are willing to share the reasons why they don’t trust a company with people they don’ even know. This last point alone stresses the importance of trust, as those customers who believe they have been deceived will readily tell others.
Netflix could have avoided much of their heartache and customer loss if they had launched a successful SMS text marketing campaign that communicated with the customer base their clear intentions. This would have also given the customer base an opportunity to respond before any actions were taken. As a result, Netflix could have established even more trust and gained more customers, instead of scrambling to gain back what it had lost.
Susan J. Campbell is a contributing editor for TMCnet and has also written for eastbiz.com. To read more of Susan’s articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Jamie Epstein