I came across this sign this afternoon at the Eurostar terminal in London on the way to Paris.
It’s been quite a while since I’ve seen a prompt such as this, asking customers to text their opinions. These sort of feedback facilities used to be all the rage in some quarters before … Well, it has felt like many marketing and customer service departments have been fussing over social media outreach policies and what Youtube videos to feature on their iPhone-only app. This is a good reminder that SMS is definitely not dead. Everyone in the terminal has a handset — I’m reasonably sure that’s the case. So with 100% compatibility, I’m also confident Eurostar will be getting at least a few messages every day from customers. Me? I think I will be one of those customers. I’m going to text them what I think. (My feedback: Broadly good news. Get WiFi on the trains!) I really would like to see every major station, airport, venue and shop have it’s own text-feedback number. It’s immediate. It’s brief. You don’t need any ‘clients’ and you don’t need any account: Just a phone. And it’s a standard network rate. Or as we have now come to believe, “free”. Or near to free for many people. Have you seen any other examples of this kind of thing recently? I’m sure I wrote about an airport that had deployed something similar a few years back. I will need to dig that out. I’m off to text Eurostar. Bonjour.Posted via email from MIR Live
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Hi Ewan,
Great post. What really resonated was your comment about SMS not being dead. It’s important to remember that while apps may be the fashionable option, the majority of the population still don’t own smart phones. Over 7 trillion text messages are expected to be sent worldwide in 2011 so it looks as though text messages are here to stay! Because customers are rarely separated from their phones SMS is the perfect way of gathering customer thoughts in real-time, straight after service delivery. To improve their solution Eurostar should consider the option of letting their customers text in to a shortcode number rather than the long dial, it’s quicker for the customer and leaves less margin for error. These can even be made location specific so those who are receiving the feedback know exactly which city, station, or even carriage the comments came from! East Coast Trains (formerly National Express) have a similar solution in place where they gather customer comments by text message, use text analysis to understand the insight automatically and then act on the feedback straight away so problems can be fixed at the next stop, rather than at the end of the day. The case study can be found at http://www.rapide.co.uk/customer_feedback_national_express_case_study.html.
Ah fascinating!
Agreed Ewan, certainly a step forward.
I know shortcodes have their advantages but here’s a counter arguement. The advantage of a normal long mobile number is that anyone can text internationally regardless of what operator they are with. This is obviously an advantage for Eurostar to have a single number on this poster for their naturally very internationally diverse clientele (I know you can get Europe-wide shortcodes but you know where I’m going with this). Also, I wonder if it takes voice calls …
I notice this morning VoloTV entertainment system on First Great Western trains also uses a text to long mobile number method for help.
I notice this morning VoloTV entertainment system on First Great Western trains also uses a text to long mobile number method for help.
Ah very smart!