Anyone who has been in digital for eight years or more will likely have painful memories of when the dotcom bubble burst. There were job cuts, massive share devaluations, even bankruptcies. So with everyone talking about the credit crunch again, the question everyone’s asking is: is more pain inevitable?
Not necessarily. The credit crunch may be mid-bite, but I predict solid, continued growth for businesses that invest in digital because digital is often the most cost-effective (and profitable) way to run a business during times of economic uncertainty. The economic downturn is forcing companies like yours to evaluate investments more closely, but this doesn’t mean you will decide to stop spending on digital channels altogether. Companies will simply spend smarter. And in some cases, you will actually spend more.
Online projects slash business costs
Digital projects can reduce business costs and management overheads because the web is a very cost-effective channel for sales, marketing and customer service. Now’s the time to consider exploiting digital’s many advantages over costly bricks and mortar and call centres.
Take a look at LISA
Take National Rail Enquiries (www.nationalrail.co.uk), the most telephoned number in Britain, with 140 million customer contacts per year. In order to save money – and for travellers’ convenience – NRE wanted to drive more enquirers online. Enquiries dealt with via call centre cost NRE £0.50 per customer contact.
NRE developed a virtual agent, “Ask LISA”, to handle timetable and other rail travel enquires via its website. Ask LISA now handles 300,000 enquiries per month with 90% accuracy (more accurate than NRE’s off-shore call centres staffed by humans!). Enquires handled by LISA cost NRE just £0.03 per customer contact. By investing in digital, NRE has made a considerable cost saving, reducing the number of customer contacts it handles over the phone by 30%.
Smart businesses will power through the credit crunch by investing in larger and more strategic digital projects like this, supported by smart digital agencies that can maintain a strategic partnership with their clients.
Look for smart project management
Project management is coming under increasing scrutiny from clients, so agencies need to invest in a business process that is ISO9001:2000 certified. This reassures businesses that the agency uses a clear, repeatable process designed to mitigate risk and deliver results on time and budget. When discussing project management with an agency, you should be able to expect clear, detailed proposals that describe in finite detail the scope, deliverables and processes that will be applied to the work. You’ll want to work with an agency that can apply transparency and intelligence to the planning process, and give you the confidence to expect a successful project outcome every time.
We help exceed expectations
There is now keen competitive pressure on businesses and brands to exceed consumers’ expectations. In this climate, when businesses are looking for value-based relationships with their agencies and are comparing prices more closely than before, it’s worth looking to digital agencies that are successfully partnering with other agencies to offer clients strategies for multiple routes to market (web, mobile, out-of-home). Partners such as affiliate networks, customer acquisition specialists, content aggregators and price comparison services can be very beneficial when ROI and project cost are so critical.
For example, Fortune Cookie has formed a strategic partnership with EPiServer to provide content management systems for our clients. We have already done the difficult bit in identifying the best system for the job – and that means one less thing for you to worry about.
A strategic steer through uncertain times
A key priority for us is to continue to delight our existing clients. We want to nurture our relationship with you as an indispensable strategic partner. By deploying all our experience and expertise to help you shape your ongoing digital strategy, we can ensure that your online presence is on the right path to delivering long-term, sustainable value to your business.
The bottom line? Clients that make smart, informed decisions about where and when to invest during the credit crunch are more likely to power through this challenging period. And they need agencies that can help steer them through these uncertain times. So prepare to be nurtured!