Yesterday across the country Brits were queuing for coffee, nothing unusual there, but the queues were much longer than normal because 1st October is National Coffee Day.
Costa wins the PR battle
Costa coffee well and truly won the PR battle by giving away free coffee from its 8,500 Costa Express machines.
Costa’s PR stunt is designed to remove the ‘stigma’ around the Costa Express self-service machines usually found in supermarkets, petrol stations and corner shops.
And unless you live out in the sticks, I’m sure you noticed the long queues for your local Costa Express machines – the three shops near our office had queues all day long, which peaked at certain times of day, but more about that later.
But what has this got to do with On Hold Marketing?
Well, it’s all about being British and human behaviour…
Us Brits like forming an orderly queue whether it’s for a free coffee or holding to speak to a call centre agent, as a nation we don’t mind queueing as long as it doesn’t take too long.
And the line for Costa Express machines peaked between 8 and 9 am, at lunchtime and after school pick up. Why? Because that’s when people have time to join the queue and wait and all the better if it’s free; call centres experience spikes in call volumes and wait times at the same time of day.
You’ve got to hand it to Costa they’ve done a fantastic job of creating awareness and giving people the chance to sample the product for free, it the easiest way to gain new clients – much like On Hold Messages can promote your products and services to callers holding the line. It’s much easier to sell to people who already know like and trust your business!
It’ll be interesting to find out how many free coffees Costa gave away yesterday and if over time it has increased coffee sales from self-service machines.
