I recently received the notifications on the right from the The New Work Times, AFTER I had unsubscribed from the email list because (you guessed it) I didn’t want to receive duplicate information. I recently enabled push notifications from the Times app and I’m not picking on the TNYT. Instead, I’m offering this advice.
- When enabling push notifications, ask the recipient if they’re currently receiving email or other communications that would create a dupe. Then provide a process for them opt-out.
- Make sure opting-out is immediate. This “up to one week” noise is nonsense in today’s real time communications. You really should be hand-holding the customer (see #1) but if you can’t and they take action into their own hands, it needs to be immediate.
- Create a preferred method of communication table in your database. How you communicate with clients is just as important as what you communicate to clients. This table would make sure there weren’t duplicate messages being sent and allows for users to have different types of offers sent to specific devices. (i.e. sales should be sent to the mobile phone if you’re a brick & mortar and product updates to your Facebook page. Also, remember, customers prefer brand updates via Facebook over updates via email/traditional ads.) In fact, if your customer database cleverly lives in 4 to 5 separate databases as it does with many businesses, you could have this table as the linchpin for customer data. It ties it all together!
