- United Kingdom
August Home Publishing, a large publisher founded in 1979, publishes five national, bimonthly publications for over 1 million home enthusiast subscribers. Their mission is to “publish guidance and inspiration in four core areas: woodworking, gardening, cooking and home improvement.” They also operate a wholesale division, a mail-order business, their own Woodsmith Store, and produce Woodsmith Shop, America’s newest woodworking TV show.
Known for a strong sense of community within its business, with its customers being seen as part of a family, August Home Publishing needed a way to build and sustain key relationships with its customers. For August Home, customer loyalty is key and leveraging brand recognition is paramount. The company relies almost entirely on revenue from subscriptions rather than advertising. Therefore, they needed an efficient way to effectively interact with their subscribers, ensuring brand loyalty.
To better manage their customer relationships, August Home Publishing utilises CDS Global’s SERV Transaction Application E-mail (STAE), which sends e-mails to subscribers once their order has been applied to CDS Global’s fulfillment database. With STAE, the publisher can not only send e-mails to subscribers to notify them of their orders, they can also provide subscribers with account numbers, start issues, expire dates and much more within their e-mail correspondence. Customers with paid orders can sign up for weekly e-tips, and those with unpaid orders are welcomed into the August Home family, giving them a prompt and positive initial interaction with the publisher.
With STAE, e-mails sent to August Home subscribers are more personalised than before and provide more information – including links to August Home’s customer care Web site, saving unnecessary calls to customer service. Since CDS Global’s solution automatically selects and sends STAE messages four times each day, customers receive their e-mails within six hours after transactions are applied to the SERV fulfillment system.
By communicating with customers almost immediately through an electronic channel, August Home Publishing can easily up-sell their other products and reduce the costs of their future renewal efforts. STAE also gives subscribers with unpaid orders the opportunity to pay online. However, because STAE is not limited to orders received via the Web, August Home is able to send subscription data to customers who have placed their orders through the phone, the Web and traditional mail.
“With STAE, we were able to secure up to 300 percent more customer interactions,” says Paige Rogers, senior circulation manager for August Home Publishing.
By using the STAE solution, August Home Publishing provides their customers with true order confirmations that are relevant, timely and welcomed by the subscriber. E-mails are deployed within hours of an order being placed on SERV, and because more subscribers receive the confirmations, August Home Publishing is able to reach more customers, thus increasing positive interactions with their brand.