Customer spotlight: Oz Extreme

Oz Extreme is the ultimate extreme sports gear destination, with everything you need to experience the wide range of exciting sports on offer in Australia. Specialising in snow gear; stocking leading snowboard brands and ski equipment, they also wax and tune snowboards and skis so customers can get the most out of the slopes. They also stock wakeboards and water skiing gear as we approach the hot summer, helping Australians cool off and have fun on the water, or in it, depending on how good you are. Some of the well known beach gear stocked includes brands like Roxy and Quicksilver. For the past 8 years, Oz Extreme has successfully grown foot traffic in store by using SMS to promote sales and encourage revisits from customers with a prior purchasing history. Using our service, they regularly contact a loyal customer base of around 7,000 people to inform them about special deals and sales available in store. The sales team estimates that, on average, for every text message sendout they do, they see a direct correlation of hundreds of extra customers coming in store. Oz Extreme made the move to using SMS to get in touch with customers because of the poor performance of email marketing, which they believed to be completely ignored by customers. As Oz Extreme owner, Andrew, said, “no one pays attention to emails. No one looks at their emails. Unless they are a business they don’t care about emails.” Statistically speaking, it’s not an unusual result for a business solely relying on email for marketing to have this problem. SMS has an open rate of 98% on average, compared to a 22% open rate for emails. So it’s no surprise that when Oz Extreme began sending text messages, the results were far superior. Customers appreciate being contacted about sales via SMS, because it’s not as invasive as a phone call. Texting is also better for staff members because it’s automatic and can be sent to hundreds in one go, therefore they don’t have to spend time calling customers, and can focus on helping customers that are in store at any given time. Oz Extreme wants to continue using SMS into the future, as well as expanding their use of the platform. While it is a proven tool for connecting with customers about sales and promotions and driving foot traffic, they now want to use it for maintaining customer relationships. For example; sending out a text message to a customer who purchased a snow board and encouraging them to come in for a wax, so that their gear remains in top condition. This will make their communication strategy more targeted and will no doubt keep customers returning. If you work in retail and would like to use SMS to improve foot traffic, customer relationships and uptake on sales and promotions, give us a call on 1300 764 946 and we can talk you through it. Or better yet, take our free trial today!