subject: Location-Based Services - The Right Place And The Right Time [print this page] Location-Based Services - The Right Place And The Right Time
When we are looking for information as potential consumers, we have an aversion to using the phone, per se. How many times have you called a service provider only to go through a sequence of automated messages in an often vain attempt to direct you to the right person? We are told to press one for this and two for that, or we often have to fight with a recorded message which is simply unable to determine what we are trying to say, maybe because of background noise. This is by far the most frustrating type of customer relationship failure you could imagine, yet it still seems a widespread way of trying to do business.All we want to do is to find out a certain amount of information and, if at all possible, promptly. We may be an impatient society and that is unfortunate, but we are used to getting information and doing things now, rather than later. This is where location-based services can be a perfect mobile marketing solution for today. These services enable the correct amount of information to be delivered to the right person at both the right time and the right place - the perfect solution.As we carry our mobile phones everywhere the theory is that our location can always be used to notify us of opportunities, or give us information that should theoretically be of relevance to us. There are many applications available today which will help us to find our favorite food restaurants in a strange neighborhood. Currently, these might not be wholly interactive, but we're getting close to the time when SMS marketing will be used by consumers to reach you, the regular customer, to remind you that they have a "special" going on and as you happen to be in the neighborhood, why not drop by?We've all heard a lot about how Google is becoming far more relevant and contextual in the way they deliver online search results to us. We also want relevant, contextual information when we are under pressure, on a journey somewhere and are trying to achieve something. We don't want to have to beat about the bush and we don't want to be frustrated. If our mobile devices are going to be as functional as we can imagine in the days and years ahead then they must be constantly "saving our life" in a whole variety of different circumstances and scenarios.Few small business owners realize that they should be able to use straightforward texting to get nonintrusive messages to good customers at the right time and at the right place for both themselves and for the consumer. So long as the systems are never overdone or abused and always an opt-in situation, doesn't this sound like an ideal working relationship between buyer and seller? If the objective is to provide positive customer service then it will always be done the right way using this new form of technology. After all, we don't want the consumer to be as frustrated with mobile marketing as they might be by trying to press two to talk to any representative.
