As a manufacturer, Tobermore is committed to quality, performance, innovation and sustainability. But the same commitment is true of its approach to customers. Tobermore’s vision is to “create beautiful spaces by producing world-class products whilst providing an outstanding customer experience.”
Tobermore is an award-winning producer of paving and walling products serving the UK and Ireland markets. Its headquarters lie in the Northern Ireland village where the company was founded in 1942, and which shares its name.
Customer Experience Case Study
Listening to customers has been a feature of Tobermore’s success throughout this family-run business’s history. Having grown to around 400 employees and £50m in annual orders, Tobermore has had to innovate ways of automating communications without compromising its personable approach.
Roisin O’Kane and Orla McGoldrick are Tobermore’s marketing managers who cover all commercial and consumer landscaping markets, respectively. It’s their job to not only develop communications campaigns that market Tobermore among target audiences, but also to gauge how customers feel about the service they receive. They rely on the combination of Exclaimer and Customer Thermometer to maximize results, doing just that.
Maximising the value of email signature real estate
“Exclaimer allows us to tailor our email signatures (and their design elements) in line with our marketing campaigns for each customer segment,” explains Roisin. “We use UTM tags to track clicks through to our website. This ensures brand consistency and lets us measure the effectiveness of each campaign.”
Previously Tobermore applied a generic email signature and banner for everyone across the organisation, controlled through MS Outlook.
“Thanks to Exclaimer, we can tailor email signatures for different audiences which customers appreciate and leads to better results and provides more reliable data.”
Roisin O’Kane, Commercial Marketing Manager at Tobermore
Tobermore’s customer phone lines are open from 8.00am, 6 days a week, and there’s a popular live chat service via its website as well as a comprehensive social media presence on various platforms. But it’s email that remains the most preferred means of communication among customers. This mirrors the wider trend across sectors that shows a strong and expanding appetite for business email communications.
Using real-time feedback to inform customer service improvements
Deployed in tandem with Exclaimer is the Customer Thermometer solution for real-time customer feedback, as Orla explains: “Customer Thermometer allows us to gather feedback from each of our customer markets and, in particular, individual feedback for the consumer sales and customer relationship management teams. Before CT we weren’t collecting feedback in a structured way, so it’s great to see representative response levels and that what we’re doing is right!”
Because customer experience is so important, Tobermore uses Customer Thermometer to ensure the best levels of service are being offered at all times. If it isn’t, then action is taken immediately. This can take the form of service improvements or additional training for customer-facing staff. Every single comment is reviewed by management and passed onto the team member involved. Since implementing CT, feedback has enabled good practices to be further improved or more consistently implemented across the board.
“Customer Thermometer provides great insight into our customers’ experiences, plus the positive feedback shared with the team has acted as a motivator to encourage us to keep providing high levels of customer service.”
Orla McGoldrick, Consumer Marketing Manager at Tobermore
Orla and Roisin also point out that the process of integrating Customer Thermometer with Exclaimer has been seamless and straightforward. “The platform in general is user-friendly and presents very professionally to customers. Setup was dealt with promptly and the support team has been great at giving practical advice.”
“Now we have a great indicator of the customer service levels individuals in the team are providing,” adds Orla. “And, as a business, it enables a KPI to be set against customer satisfaction.”
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