Q: Who is Customer Contact Solutions?

A: Customer Contact Solutions was established in 2006 in London, Ontario. We specialize in helping businesses create a permission based email list of their clients and offer a full service program that keeps you in touch with your customers in between visits on a regular basis. We currently send out more than 2 Million permission based emails a year and offer one of the most effective and cost efficient forms of marketing today.

Q: How much time is involved for my staff and I to participate in this program?

A: We are a full service company which means minimal effort is involved on your part. Our birthday program literally doesn’t involve any time and our newsletter program only requires an idea… We do the rest!

Q: Can’t I do this myself? I know how to send emails.

A: Sending the email is the easy part. The problem is the time involved in collecting customer information and email addresses, “cleansing the data”, entering the data into appropriate databases, sending out the “Welcome” emails (only to the new members), designing customized email campaigns specific to your business, removing customers who have “opted-out” of your list, managing "bounce-back" emails, maintaining relationships with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) so they know the emails being sent are NOT spam, staying current with anti-spam legislation, …..

You got into business to specialize in your own products and services. Let us take care of legal, graphics and design of a professional email program.

Q: What do I get with the service?

A: Customer Contact Solutions offers two different programs. Both include the following features:

- Email marketing campaigns customized to your business. These will have a similar "look and feel" of your business and website.
- Membership Cards to collect information on your customers (i.e. Members).
- Data entry and “cleansing” services.
- Welcome E-Mail upon joining.
- Dedicated customer service.
- Staff training.

Our Birthday Program requires no effort or time on your part. It’s designed to create loyalty amongst your customers and increase the number of times that your customers frequent your business yearly. It includes all the features above as well as 2 Birthday campaigns a month sent to your members.

Our Newsletter Program is an a la carte program that allows you to send out emails anytime you have something that you want to make your customers aware of. This is a powerful marketing tool that you will take advantage of once you have built a database of your existing customers.


Q: Can I get out of the contract at any time?

A: Yes with 60 days notice. This gives us time to remove your Members from our databases and allows any open campaigns to wrap-up and Members to unsubscribe if wanted.

Q: Isn’t this considered “spam” email? Won’t my customers resent getting these emails?

A: Absolutely not. Spam is unwanted and often misleading email. The only people on YOUR list have specifically decided to join YOUR membership list (i.e. they have "opted-in"). They already like your business or they would not have decided to join your list. They want to hear from you and benefit from news, promotions and specials from your business.

Q: Well if this is so good, why just send 1-2 messages a month? Why not send a message every day?

A: Your customers like your business. That is why they joined your E-Club in the first place. Nobody wants to have their inboxes bombarded with too many emails from anyone. Approximately 1-2 emails a month is the recommended communication that will be frequent enough to keep your business in mind but not so frequent that they will be annoyed and opt-out of your list.

Q: Who owns the list of my Members?

A: Your list of customers is exactly that; YOURS. If you ever decide to discontinue the service (and assuming your account is current), Customer Contact Solutions will provide to you your entire database immediately. You are also welcome to receive your database anytime you like if you need it for other reasons during the time that we are working together.

Q: What kind of results can I expect?

A: There are many, many variables and results will vary depending on the size of your list, the time of year, type of business, location, competition etc… Industry average open rates are approximately in the 35% range but this is not always the same 35% of your membership list. (We have several clients which have open rates consistently over 90%) The key is the quality of the incentives and the quality of the list you build.


Q: How often can I change the messages that are sent out?

A: A good “Welcome” message rarely needs to be changed since your customers will only see it once (soon after joining). It usually makes sense to refresh the “Birthday” messages once per year. Your newsletters should be changed every time they are sent out.

Q: How often do I have to talk to or meet with my Account Manager?

A: Most communications can be done via email or phone which usually saves time for everyone. Ideally, several campaigns are designed and scheduled several months in advance. This reduces your headaches and ensures the campaigns are consistent and well planned for the best impact.
In the beginning, you will spend more time with your Account Manager as your staff are trained and to plan various campaigns. After everything is set up, minimal time is required.

Q: Can customers print out multiple copies of an email or coupon?

A: Yes. Limitations on when the promotion ends, number of uses per customer, and number of coupons per member help eliminate abuse. At the same time, they are likely coming into your business more often than they would have without the promotion so “frequent flyers” are usually beneficial.

Q: Will the email look like it is coming from my business or Customer Contact Solutions?

A: The email will appear to be coming from your business. Your details are included in each and every email campaign. There is NO co-branding with Customer Contact Solutions.

Q: Is it possible to include photos of myself, the business or certain products in the email campaigns?

A: Absolutely. Actually, it is preferred since it only adds to the personalized nature of the message. We will work with you and your photos to ensure they have the most impact.

Q: How much time does it take for my customers to receive a new message after it has been created.

A: For maximum benefit, it is best to plan the next email campaign as early as possible. Ideally, they are planned a week in advance. At the same time, a new message can be created, refined, approved and sent within 48 hours if needed.

Q: What does this service cost?

A: The birthday program is only $139 per month and is full service with no additional fees.
The newsletter program starts as low as $59 per mailing which would go out to 1000 members.

Q: But are there any hidden charges or set-up fees?

A: There are no hidden charges. The only fees that are normally accrued are E-Club cards to make your customers aware of the program and a very small set up fee which includes 2500 E-Club cards.

Q: What is my expected R.O.I ?

A: Definitely YES. See why below.

Birthday Program: Let’s assume you have a medium sized database of 3,000 customers at the beginning of the year. This program is only sending out these incentives to people who have specifically signed up for this reason. Open rates for birthday programs are regularly over 100% meaning that people open the email more than once. Businesses find redemption to be an average of 25% which would be 750 visits a year. At an average sale of $40, this is an additional $30,000 in sales.

Newsletter Program: Our newsletter program works the same way but the difference being that you are contacting your entire database every time. ( Not just the customers that have a birthday that month ) In the same scenario as above you would actually contact 3000 customers 24 times a year which is 72,000 contacts. If you are offering an incentive that makes sense for the customer to act upon even with a conservative redemption rate of 5% at an average sale of $40 the gross would be $144,000. This type of program would cost a maximum of $3800 for the year and that is considering that you did everything at the highest price we have available.

Q: What is the best way to increase the size of my database ?

A: You and your staff should invite customers to become E-Club members at each encounter. This is CRITICAL. The best time to do this is when the customer is paying for your product or service. Also, Customer Contact Solutions will provide to you a link to include on your website to allow your customers to sign-up for your E-Club even while you are sleeping.

Q: What should I tell customers to encourage them to join my E-Club?

A: Tell your customer that you’d like to contact them about specials, events hosted by your business, money saving coupons and give them a gift on their birthday. Make sure they know that their privacy is very important and the information will be protected and not shared. They should expect no more than 1-2 emails a month and can remove themselves from the database at any time.

Q: Do customers really sign up to become an E-Club member?

A: Yes. They like your establishment (otherwise, they would not be your customers!) and they want to hear from you. It is not uncommon to have 2,000 customers sign up per year, regardless of the type of business you run.

Q: I have some emails from customers already. Can we use these?

A: Assuming you have explicit permission to contact them via email, yes. We will add these to your list. If in doubt, we can send out an email asking for their permission to contact them moving forward.

Q: How will I know how many members are on my list?

A: Customer Contact Solutions will provide you with Monthly Success Reports after each campaign that will tell you the number of customers on your list, the number of customers who opened the email, number who unsubscribed, links clicked, etc.

Q: What does an “unsubscribed member” mean?

A: Each email received gives the person the opportunity to choose to NOT receive any more messages. Law requires this. Customer Contact Solutions will remove them from your list if asked.

Q: I understand that E-Club sign up cards are very important to the success of this program. How do I order more E-Club cards?

A: A simple email to Customer Contact Solutions or a call to your Account Manager is all that is needed and new E-Club cards will be sent quickly.

Q: How much do new E-Club cards costs?

A: E-Club cards are necessary to build your list quickly and accurately. We only order custom designed full color cards and the price is $129 for 2500 or $199 for 5000. These prices are available to us because we order large quantities of cards and we pass the savings on to you.