Personal Touch vs. Personal Choice: What’s the difference?

At Partywirks, we believe Personal Touch begins the moment your customer walks in your door and Personal Choice begins the moment they land on your website. 

Definitions:
Personal Touch – answering each call with a well-trained, warm and friendly staff person.
• Pro’s – it’s a great time to make a good first impression
• Con’s – customers have no choice but to wait until they can speak to someone who has the information they need. In many cases the right staff person with the right information is not available when the customer calls and instead of a nice personal experience, they are offered voicemail which can be just the beginning of phone-tag, emails and lost orders.
• Con – you cannot scale up your ability to answer more calls every time you run an ad or do a promotion. Most of the time instead of generating more sales, promotions generate more voicemails.

Personal Choice – giving your customer online options - think ATM’s, self-service checkouts or online bill pay.

• Pro’s – making a great impression today begins for many on your website. Offering online conveniences such as online booking shows your business is up-to-date and that online visitors are important to the business.
• Con’s – you’ll have less voicemail, less paperwork and less time on the phone spent answering routine questions. I guess if you like all the above this could be considered a con.

And the best part of Personal Choice? People who want to call still can!  However over 50% to 95% of your customers will make the personal choice to do their business online.

Online conveniences are the Gold standard for today’s modern consumer.  What you may have considered personal touch in the past is really just an inconvenience for your customer today.  They want information and then they want to make their plans while reading detailed descriptions and viewing photos.  Now that’s the personal choice your customers really want!