Client: Countryside Rentals
Industry: Rent-to-own
Goal: Increase revenue and store traffic
Countryside Rentals relies on voice technology to increase sales
Rent-to-own business leverages voice to connect with customers and remind them of promotions
ABOUT Countryside Rentals
Founded in 1985 and with twenty-three stores throughout southern Ohio and northern Kentucky, Countryside Rentals is a rent-to-own business specializing in furniture, appliances, computers, electronics and household goods.
THE SITUATION
Countryside was looking for a means of communicating reminders and alerts of special in-store promotions and sales events. Prior to discovering voice marketing, the company made customer calls manually, an extremely time-consuming process.
Michael Tissot, President of Countryside discovered Indianapolis-based Vontoo voice marketing and decided to give it a try to improve communications for reminders of special promotions.
THE CAMPAIGN
In March of 2009, Countryside implemented their first voice marketing campaign, promoting an extension of their “90 days same as cash’ to 120 days. The company sent out 40,000 calls, both to active and inactive customers and set a record sales increase from Feb to March!
Additionally, in April, the business mailed out reminder cards to customers about the upcoming Customer Appreciation Weekend. The company was then able to send out 14,000 Vontoo calls right before the event to act as an instant reminder of the special two-day event. Calling so many people manually would have cost the company countless hours and dollars. A Vontoo campaign costs cents per call.
Each Countryside store has the ability to use Vontoo whenever it needs a boost in store traffic – and they’re seeing the effects of these calls in their stores with increased sales.
THE RESULTS
Now, Countryside is able to send thousands of calls simultaneously, alerting its valued and loyal customers to upcoming promotions and reminding them of special events. Countryside especially benefits from the tracking metrics offered by voice marketing. Since the service automatically tracks which recipients have opted-out from receiving future messages, the business can be sure to send future calls only to those recipients who want them, which helps enhance customer relations.
