In rear-view: CloseAlert Connects: the 1st edition

Alvin Vogelzang -

Thursday 31 May was the kick-off for CloseAlert Connects. Hopefully the first event of many more to come. Short recap; why have we initiated this again?
CloseAlert Connects is not only about email/ CRM but also about our passion; Customer Experience Excellence. What we think is most important? We want you to be able to connect with industry peers in an informal setting and go home full of inspiration.

Our first Connect; Did we succeed? I’d say ‘yes we did’!
I’ve had wonderful feedback from some very excited people about the actionable insights taken back to the office indeed. Chances are you couldn’t be there (it was great weather after-all) so continue reading to learn what you have missed!

Yori Högemann: State of Customer Experience

At CloseAlert, our hearts started beating faster when we read KPMG's Up Close and Personal: Customer Experience Excellence report which was released days before our event. Inspired by this, one of our founders, Yori Högemann, kicked off with explaining the six pillars of customer excellence and how to look at the ROI of your CX initiatives. Before handing the stage over we learned about some very exciting new features the teams are working on behind the scenes.

Jochem Veenstra: How Otravo connects CloseAlert data & CRM

You may know Otravo best through their label dé VakantieDiscounter. No longer just that label, this company has expanded (inter)nationally to now nine labels and counting. Jochem Veenstra explained during the first client presentation, that CloseAlert is an integral part of their strategy and though ‘hard numbers’ are tough to give, this strategy has enabled the company to increase the

  • open rate
  • click rate
  • conversion rate
  • Trustpilot rating
  • CloseAlert score

And never mind the competition, the revenues have doubled every year!

Otravo has developed a data model based on the CloseAlert sentiment scores which lives inside the marketing automation platform. Adding sentiment to the ‘hard’ client data gives the marketing team a keen into into their customer’s desires.

Having CloseAlert firmly embedded in the overall strategy has enabled them to extract the engaged customers (whether positive or negative), optimize campaigns, add emails that fill a gap, and remove those under-performing. For dé Vakantiediscounter it is also the first step to truly personalised (yet automated) messaging and the ultimate goal; 1-on-1 emailing.

Leonie Jonker: How customer care and marketing own the customer journey at Paula’s Choice

Paula's Choice is an online skincare retailer committed to customer advocacy and education.
After a short break full of good food and conversations, Leonie Jonker once again reminded us about the importance of listening to your customers and understanding their needs. It is exactly how Paula’s Choice improved the customer experience.

Not only has the email marketing team managed to improve email as a sales channel. They also turned email into an interactive channel through which they build trusted and lasting relationships with their customers.

Both the Customer Care as well as the email marketing team have embraced CloseAlert and improved

  • the customer care rating
  • sentiment scores for ongoing campaigns across territories (NL, UK, DE & EU)
  • increase the response with 7%

Moreover, they finally have a solid tool to measure customer happiness which allows customer care to turn a negative into a positive experience by following up at the right moment.

So, if we’ve learned anything; what?

  1. Feedback is your customer’s gift to you. Through CloseAlert you give them a voice.
  2. Listen to your customer’s feedback and follow-up. Most likely you exceed expectations simply with a reply!
  3. CloseAlert should be part of an overall Customer Experience Excellence strategy. Build a model around the CloseAlert data and push the data into your central systems (e.g. CRM).

Whilst I was sitting in the back of the room, listening to the presentations, it struck me once again how important it is to embrace CloseAlert together with the Customer Care team and implement a strategy that reliefs rather than burden any part of the organisation.

Another one is to share positive feedback and compliments with your colleagues. Sometimes we do forget to celebrate the positive things that come in… Who doesn't want to hear about fantastic job done?

In order to book success, keep in mind to Keep It Short & Simple; focus on small steps and it’ll be much easier to progress. Maybe start simply by adding a sentiment question to your newsletter, next implement it on one of your automated flows, add optimizations and monitor again, etc.

Want to learn more about the presentations?

Have an interesting topic you’d like to hear about?
Maybe you want to steal the limelight yourself during our next CloseAlert Connects?
Let your Customer Success Manager know or contact us at info@closealert.com.

"It was so interesting to see examples of how other companies make use of CloseAlert. This is inspiring for us. A perfect moment to network with those companies as well."

"I liked it because it was informative and low-profile. The fact that everybody kept hanging around for drinks and afterwards is enough proof!"

"In The Netherlands, there are not many specific email marketing events to meet others ‘from the field’. This was a nice, informal evening to share ideas and meet new people."

"The presentations were nicely timed and contained very actionable examples how the tool is used (along with supporting data)."

"Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. It’s got me thinking out-of-the-box again!"