About Halpenny Golf
Halpenny Golf is a leading retailer of top brand golf equipment, clothes and accessories and prides itself on offering these at the best prices. With 5 stores nationwide in Drogheda, Swords, Lucan, Carrickmines and Cork they are a fully authorised golf retailer. Their staff are very highly qualified and include 7 PGA professionals who are always on hand to offer any advice customers may require.
Owner John Halpenny explains that central to Halpenny’s leading position, is their focus on the customer. They know, that what separates Halpenny’s from their competition is the feeling that customers have when they leave a Halpenny store. This positive feeling comes from the shopping experience and is what customers remember the most, sometimes more than the specific product that they bought.
The challenge, after doing all of this hard work instore where they have a touchpoint with each customer, is how to reinforce and maintain that positive feeling with them when they leave. Reconnecting this touchpoint with the customer in their daily life is the gap that needs to be filled to ensure that customers return to Halpenny’s and also act as a referral for other potential Halpenny Golf customers.
The Solution
Halpenny Golf had used SMS to communicate with customers previously but found it ineffective due to low delivery rates (around 60%) and generic one-fits-all messages being sent out to all customers in a ‘scattergun’ approach.
In 2012 another leading retailer recommended InteractSMS to John. There was an instant improvement as delivery percentage rates increased into the high 90s. John found the web-interface for InteractSMS “Very easy to use. Logical, intuitive and does what it says on the tin”, so the transition was seamless. It also had the ability to build and incorporate specific golf product mobile websites, generating in-house vouchers and coupons with the advantage of being able to integrate these with their current EPOS system.
InteractSMS easily integrated with Halpenny’s EPOS system across all stores to use, what InteractSMS call, Data Driven Knowledge (DDK). Customers were sent automated, targeted texts with offers based on their specific shopping history.
As the communications began, John was able to see exactly what added value to customers and what did not. The texts all contained Call To Actions (CTAs) to drive repeat business. This information was fed automatically from the stores EPOS systems to his InteractSMS account. This enabled clear and concise reporting on what was working with his customers and what was not. This allowed John and InteractSMS to continuously improve the messages to make them more personalised based on customer habits and purchasing history. The upside to this method of communication strategy was an increase not just in sales but also in overall margin per sale.
The Result
Halpenny Golf successfully recreated the valuable touchpoint they already have with their customers in store by simply extending it through to the customer’s mobile handset.
Customers are delighted to get timely and personalised offers to their handsets which are specifically designed around them. The benefit to Halpenny Golf is that by following this method of communication they have substantially increased repeat business and also ring fenced their customer base from their nearest competitors.
Customer retention increased considerably, due to a higher ratio of texts being redeemed for a purchase. That’s for only a few cents per SMS, meaning a huge Return on Investment for Halpenny Golf. This success rate will continue to increase indefinitely as the campaigns are continuously improving.
Just like with Halpenny customers, John stays with InteractSMS for the customer experience. He rates the account management and support as “10 out of 10” and considers this experience the main driver which separates InteractSMS from the rest.
Asked for his final word John Halpenny said:
“Thanks to John Waters [InteractSMS country manager] and his team, they really do provide a great service.”
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