Testimonials are you collecting them

We touched briefly on testimonials on our post about your online brand, but it is really important for you to have a mechanism for collecting client feedback, testimonials and case studies.

Why are they so important?

Well prospects would love to read how other customers of yours found your service, what they feel about you and what the overall experience was of their interaction with you. It allows the prospect to build truct in you and your organisation and also builds your credibility in your field.

Good feedback from your clients will enable new customers to feel less skeptical about doing business with you, especially if they have common problems that your products or service solve.

Here are a couple of testimonials that we have received in the last week (demonstrating different sides of our business)

Firstly, Tangible Intelligence specialises in helping clients win sales through the application of direct  communication to their market.  Our primary means to reach our clients’ customers and prospects is via telemarketing coupled with online and offline written communication their Managing Director wrote:

“In the highly complex world of online marketing we were looking for a company with which we could partner, that could offer us the toolbox to provide the tools to enable us to provide a completely integrated solution embracing website design and hosting, CRM, auto-responders and SMS.

With IRUN we have much more than that.  Not only do we have the tools we need to implement the communication programmes we design but we have a full back-up team completely in sync with our way of thinking and able to extend the reach of what we are able to offer.  Furthermore as a team we are able to keep up to date with new advances in marketing and internet technology to a far greater extent than we could have on our own.

If, like me, you are looking for a credible organisation to partner with and who can extend your resources in the areas of effective marketing and internet technology, I would strongly recommend that you take a look at IRUN.  Their training is second to none and they embrace the latest technology, bringing on board experts in the field to ensure they stay ahead of the game.”

and for our online workshops we got this email from our support desk

“Phil Chatterley who attended your workshop today was more than impressed and gave you a glowing report. Found your presentation really informative a easy to follow. He is now revising his website he is building with us – thanks”

Please do have a mechanism for collecting these valuable sales aids, you won’t regret it!

Another Training session scheduled for Hotel Marketing

We are passionate about helping you drive your business forward and making it as profitable as possible. It is with this aim that we have put together our workshops ‘Hotel Marketing in the Information Age’.

The first session is taking place in Telford with a new date just launched in Birmingham. During the workshop, delegates will learn how to identify and prioritise which parts of their hotel business to focus their marketing efforts on, how to use customer data to bring the best returns, and examples of low cost or no cost marketing methods.

The event runs from 9am to 11am to allow you time to get back to your hotel by lunch. Attendance is only £49 (ex vat) per delegate and there’s choice of dates and venues.

• Tues 9th Feb 09 – Park Inn, Telford, Shropshire, TF3 4NA (just off M54 jct 5)
• Tues 16th Feb 09 – Grosvenor Casino, Fiveways Leisure Complex, Birmingham, B15 1AY

Places are limited so if you’d like to attend please book now by going to http://bit.ly/HotelMarketing (type this into your browser address bar) or for more information on marketing for hotels speak to one of the Irun team on 01952 898212 or email peter.lisney@irunsolutions.co.uk.

We hope to see you there

IRUN Customer Service Training Session for the Hospitality Industry

On the 20th January IRUN ran its first ever customer service training session tailored to meet the demands that the hospitality industry face. Fred Copestake and Ray Watson from IRUN led the training, which has been introduced to enhance the IRUN hospitality marketing system.

What a success the course was, here is some feedback from the delegates that attended:

Feedback from Anthony Lloyd – Owner of Fallowfields:

“We absolutely must not forget behaviour WAS changed yesterday.  Fallowfields staff will view customers differently as a result of the “lifetime value” calculation; we will in teams be using the +1 to improve our performance, and create more of those WOWS. THAT IS A SIGNIFICANT RESULT!

You changed behaviour yesterday, I have been on many a training course in the past which did not change my behaviour or that of the attendees at all. So a very positive result, for which thank you.

If you want to bring it back for another run, I know all the GMs of all the hotels in the area and we could invite a rep from each!!!”

And Trevor landlord of  The Talbot Inn also attended the ‘IRUN’ Customer Service Training and took his key staff with him.  I popped into the Talbot last night and was instantly accosted by those who had attended unprompted and enthusiastically stating that the session had been superb and I quote:  “much better than the Customer Service Training they had recently attended at Arkells Head Office…”  Well done to Ray Watson, the team at the Talbot say you are a great bloke.

We all know that you can’t continually market a bad experience so we believe that customer service is as important as marketing. This is the start of many customer service training sessions,

Interested in taking part then let your local IRUN office know!

More ways to use Twitter

As the recent snow melted away it revealed considerable damage to the road network in the local area close to our consultant Bruce Johnston who runs Irun Solutions in Monmouth.

As Bruce is known in the local area and ‘chats’ amongst the local Twitter community he put out a tweet :

a few replies were sent back to Bruce, this one being the typical kind of thing:

But more importantly the Council who had attended the Twitter workshop that IRUN ran in the area last year, also picked up on the tweet

Monmouthshire County Council are taking proactive steps to monitor what the local community are saying and able to provide a swift element of customer services to their local people.. a great use of Twitter to enhance your local reputation, could you do something similar?

Great work @MonmouthshireCC

New recruit for IRUN Business Intelligence

Over the last 18 months the IRUN sales operation has grown to cover the the whole of the UK and we are delighted to announce new recruit Fred Copestake. Fred comes with a wealth of experience in sales training and will be a valuable member of our team. Fred will look after the area of  Henley in Arden

Fred commented; “I’ve been involved with sales and marketing since I was eight years old and assisted my father with the annual Boxing Day Sale at his builders and plumbers merchants (putting my name on sales chits in the vain hope of a ‘commission’). Things got serious when I undertook a degree in Commerce and Spanish at Birmingham University and went on to work for the IMI Group.

After six years in product management and business development roles I left to join Structured Training and sister company SalesPathways. Here I ran a number of ‘open’ courses in the sales arena and undertook a number of ‘in company’ consultancy projects.

In 2005 I sent up my own company Brindis, where a principle client was the European subsiduary of the brewer of Corona Extra. Here I planned and implemented the training academy for their Distributors, a project that lasted over five years and saw me work in some 18 different countries.

In mid 2009 I became aware of IRUN and the offering available to help pubs, hotels and restaurants increase their sales and grow their business. I was so impressed with not just the scope of the ‘Marketing System’ but the whole of the company’s operation and the ability provide solutions to the vast majority of the market, it was obvious was my next move should be. The rest as they say is history…

I accepted the offer to join and am now excited not just about the work I can undertake not just in the Hospitality sector, but in servicing other customers building alternative ‘vertical markets’ using IRUN tools and techniques. There is also opportunity to expand the portfolio by bringing training services to the network. No two days are the same and in a time of huge change IRUN is exactly the type of company to be involved with – for colleagues and customers alike”

Fred welcome to the fold!

CRM – The most important element – Your Customers

Join us for our free workshop on CRM, how to look after and interact with your customers!

If you are looking for a simple to use and cost effective CRM and Communications system that can help build customer loyalty and real additional business then why not join our FREE CRM workshop? Within the session, we will talk about the reasons why holding customer information is so important for your business and how, when used properly, it can enable you to bring customers back to your business, time and time again.
 
Spend just 60 minutes on the IRUN Free Customer Relationship Management workshop, and you will find out how and why CRM is invaluable for any business. You can book online to attend and you don’t have to leave your desk!

Kick Start your marketing with this workshop

The FSB have put together a workshop to help small businesses really kick start the year. IRUN representative Roger Parsonson will be speaking about Twitter and showing you how it can really help your business.

So if you’re in the Farnham, Guildford or Woking area you might want to get yourself a long to The Mandaloy Hotel at 6pm on 21st Jan 2010 to hear the guest speakers and network away.

You can get all the details from the FSB website which is here

More Press for The Talbot Inn.

The recession has meant landlords have had to face up to customers having less money in their pockets to spend on a night out on top of ongoing problems such as the smoking ban and cut-price drinks competition from the supermarkets.

As a result, scores of pubs across the country are closing every week as people stay at home.

But Trevor Johnson, landlord of The Talbot Inn in Oxford Road, Eynsham, for the past five years, has managed to build his custom steadily thanks to a £500,000 investment from owner Arkell’s, a rolling business plan and a major marketing campaign in 2009.

He said: “We are bucking the trend a little but we have had to be very proactive with our marketing – it is tougher now than it has been.

“You have to offer value for money and good service. Anyone thinking they can come into the trade, do nothing and make a lot of cash is deluded.

“This year could be difficult but it will be better if I see more people getting jobs locally.”

To grow the business in 2009 Trevor turned to Lynne Jones from IRUN and agreed they needed three things:

•  Customer’s contact details to be able to communicate with them
• An effective way to manage customer data and regular communications
•  Offers and incentives to attract more customers and keep regulars coming back

The strategy is working, the pub and restaurant is full and 2010 is looking rosy for Trevor and his team.

You can read the full case study here and the local Press article here.

If you need help with staying in touch with your customers and prospects give your local IRUN office a call, we’d be delighted to help you.

Do you know what your customers are saying about you?

IRUN can do the marketing but we only really get results for quality businesses.  There is no point investing time and effort marketing a bad business, it can and will work but customers are not noted for repeating the same mistake twice.  If the customer has a good experience they not only go back, they also tell other people about their positive experience.  But they are even quicker to let others know if they feel they had a raw deal. 

With the use of the internet becoming more and more important and review sites proliferating your potential customers really do pay attention to what others have to say…  Think of it as supercharged word of mouth referrals; in the ‘old days’ people really did have to talk to each other in order to refer business, (or to recommend people to use someone else), today they simply need to let their views be known online and thousands upon thousands of potential new customers could see it.  Fantastic if it is good news, not so good if you have an upset customer saying bad things about you, with the prolific speed of Social Media networks these days bad news really does travel fast, this can be very damaging if you haven’t got a clue it’s happening and you’re not protecting your online brand.  

Fallowfields Hotel is a great wedding venue and they offer superb up market accommodation and dining in Oxfordshire.  Some time ago they had a disaster and received negative feedback as a result, it happens to all of us from time to time.  Fallowfields staff have moved round since and Fallowfields now receive regular positive feedback from both their private and corporate clients – there is an example of a great customer feedback being posted on Trip Advisor below. 

Fallow Fields online Review

 

What do your customers say about your business?  Do you know? and more importantly have you got a way to capture online testimonials? 

If the answer is no to any of these questions you should spend some time looking out for posts about your business and facilitating online reviews and testimonials.  If you are not sure how to do this please contact your local IRUN office or call 01865 920 003 and we will be happy to help you set up monitoring alerts so you always know what your customers are saying about your business, good or bad.  

In the meantime congratulations to Anthony Lloyd and his team at Fallowfields – keep up the good work.

Hotel Marketing in the Information Age

Hotels can be extremely profitable businesses when accommodation is at capacity, the restaurant and bar are busy and the conference facilities are fully booked. However, the reality is few hotels manage to consistently meet their revenue targets across all areas and often one area is left financially propping up the rest.

To address this imbalance, business development specialists and Shropshire Chamber Patron Irun Business Intelligence is running a new workshop in conjunction with the Chamber. The workshop, ‘Hotel Marketing in the Information Age’, has been created following Irun’s successes with a number of independent hotels and Holiday Inn Express.

Peter Lisney

Director at Irun Telford, Peter Lisney, explained further; “Most hotel owners we’ve worked with knew that business could be better but were unsure exactly which areas they should focus on and what they should be doing. We developed a system for our clients in the hospitality sector that accurately quantifies where the best opportunities exist and then shows them how to capitalise on these through more effective marketing techniques. We’ve now translated the core of this system into a 2 hour, highly focused workshop that will help hotel owners get started on the process”.

During the workshop, delegates will learn how to identify and prioritise which parts of their hotel business to focus their marketing efforts on, how to use customer data to bring the best returns, and examples of low cost or no cost marketing methods.

The workshop is aimed at hotel owner managers and proprietors, is £49 (ex vat) per delegate and takes place on Tuesday 9th February at the Park Inn, Telford from 9 to 11am. To book your place visit the events page of the new Shropshire Chamber website or for more information on marketing for hotels speak to one of the Irun team on 01952 898212.