Rob Hardwicke Awakening Wednesday — People Powered Products
By Rob Hardwicke, Product Master, Awakening Mineral Skin Care
Our customers are Awakening’s lifeblood. They are the people who power what we do, what we make. We aim for people powered products. We work constantly to find ways to make it easier for customers to communicate with
Our customers’ comments are music to Awakening ears: good, bad or indifferent
us. This may sound like an objective that’s simple enough, but for a very small company like ours, it’s a challenge. Customer comments are music to our ears even if they’re critical. We need to hear what’s on customers’ minds, good or bad, complimentary or not.
Our initial effort to create a customer communications channel was way back in 1995 when we set up our toll-free number: 800-200-6546. At least then a customer didn’t need to spend his or her own money to talk with us. That’s kind of where technology was 18 years ago!
Then came Awakening’s presence on Twitter. We didn’t have a clue what to expect from social networking, but we were determined to find out! Our handle became @awakeningskin. Although in the beginning, we didn’t do much more with Twitter than tweet occasional announcements about products that were on sale, we soon became aware of its value as a channel through which a customer could quickly and easily tell us what was on their mind! We found out fast that a cap wasn’t opening properly. We learned that Awakening MUDFace was great for scorpion stings. Sure, customers could send us an email directly using our address (customersupport@awakeningskincare.com) or indirectly via our website — but just have a customer fire off a tweet on some @awakeningskin question or concern and I can assure you that we’ll be scrambling to respond! Talk about a sure-fire way to get our attention! Linkedin isn’t too far behind.
Facebook came next for us. The Awakening Skin Care page has been an effective platform through which we can hold conversations with Awakening’s fans and with folks just passing by our Page! In just the past 4 months, we’ve seen a 6-fold increase in the number of people who have become Awakening fans. Some people are long-time Awakening loyalists who love the silkiness and the healing benefits of our products. Some like our non-fru fru aromas. Some like the social causes that we support and which are mentioned in the “Goods That Do Good” section of our homepage — organizations like the Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, the Animal Rescue Fund (ARF), Sirona Cares in Haiti, The Tiba Foundation in Kenya, the American Discovery Trail, or simply the local 3-room K-through-8 elementary school in Canyon, CA. Our Facebook Page has provided us with a quick & easy way to reward those who follow us with special discounts, contests and events.
While customer comments have been people powered “music to our ears” metaphorically, in truth the comments have been more of a “feast for our eyes” — at least up until now — since they mostly have arrived in the form of the written word.
As I write this post, we’re two weeks shy of unveiling our next evolutionary step towards making it ever easier for our customers to communicarte with us — and with each other — about what’s on their mind. With the help of videogenie.com, we’ll to mounting recorders on our homepage, facebook page, and perhaps even here on this blog post. The idea is that anyone with a camera on their computer or cell phone can take 25 seconds to speak their mind! For us, this is people-powered marketing at its best. In the case of testimonials, it’s a way to bridge a potential credibility gap. It’s our avenue to people powered products.
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Awakening Mineral Skin Care is a boutique formulator of natural, vegan skin care products utilizing concentrated mineral crystals isolated from the Dead Sea, essential oils and botanical extracts. With only a few exceptions, we call our products by what they do: Awakening HANDS treats hands, Awakening FEET treats feet, Awakening BODY treats bodies, Awakening SCALP treats scalps — you get the idea. However Awakening MUDFace is mud for the face (and feet!) — so, as with 9th grade English, there are always exceptions to every rule!