Carphone Warehouse on why Pin Point is vital to overhauling customer experience as first Keith Lemon fronted ad rolls out
After nearly two years of running quietly in the background, Carphone Warehouse has finally launched a Keith Lemon fronted ad for the tool it claims has been pivotal in turning around consumer perceptions.
Pin Point lets users compare thousands of tariffs across different providers to find the right deal. Julian Diment, marketing and customer director at the retailer, described it to The Drum as “a digital workforce,” combining technology with staff knowledge and expertise.
“It’s had huge impact on our customer experience and satisfaction scores. We have a comprehensive approach to monitoring customer experience and from our tracking it’s taken us from bottom of the league on terms of mobile retailer to right to the top. So it’s had a good impact on the experience we deliver,” Diment said.
“We’re now confident enough to stand on the rooftops and shout about it. It delivers this super personalised experience so who better to promote it than someone who’s famous for getting upfront and personal with people.”
In the ad, Lemon travels to Japan to explain that everyone is different and uses their phone differently and that by taking Carphone Warehouse’s unique ‘Pin Point test’ they’ll find the right deal personalised to them.
The bulk of the content – including behind the scenes footage – will live on YouTube, Carphone Warehouse’s content hub The Lowdown as well as Facebook and Twitter. However a 60-second version will premiere during the Champions League Final on Saturday night
It is the first piece of content to come from Brothers and Sisters, which was hired to Carphone Warehouse’s £10m ad account earlier this year. At the time, The Drum was informed that the win would pave the way for more of the brand's budget shifting from traditional TV advertising to digital and content-led marketing further down the line.
Diment declined to comment on how budget was split for this campaign, but did say that a higher percentage went into the digital for this activity than ever before.
“At the end of the day there’s a lot of talk about customers being always on and when it comes to brands most customers are always off and we needed to turn them on. In order to do that we needed to create some entertaining content that lived in the digital space, that was available in short form packages and that allowed customers to interact on their terms,” he said.
Pin Point has already attracted 3.5 million users, and the clear goal of the marketing push is to get more customers to more readily compare deals. On its part, Carphone Warehouse has been able to harness the data on what customers are choosing to shape its own proposition.
“For example, when we launched the Samsung Galaxy S6, it allowed us to instantly see what tariffs customers are buying on, and therefore where we need to focus our attention on. It allows us to react very quickly to the market," said Diment.
Dixons Carphone – established last year following the £3.7m merger of Dixons and Carphone Warehouse – posted strong results for the fourth quarter today (3 June), leading chief executive Sebastian James to commit to further investments in IT, customer service and staff training as well as its new mobile network, iD.