A new consumer renewal reminder service is hoping to attract people overlooked by providers too focussed on acquisition metrics and not rewarding existing customers with better deals at renewal time
GetReminded, a new consumer platform for renewal management, has been steadily adding users while honing its technology and is now set to kick off a major acquisition campaign as part of its expansion plans.
The startup app reminds users about contract, loan, insurance and other renewals helping them renegotiate contracts for maximum savings. GetReminded co-founder, David Wareing, cited a lack of competition in the Australian marketplace historically in most categories that has led to poor reminder services for customers.
“We recognise individual providers could do a better job of providing better customer service and more reminders. But they can only remind you of the service they are providing. What we’ve attempted to do is to be able to bring all consumers reminders under one platform,” Wareing told CMO.
While it's not pitching itself as a comparison service to users, GetReminded will offer up to three potential alternatives to subscribers under the premise these offers are unique in the marketplace. The idea is to disrupt the ‘loyalty tax’ problem where organisations focus on acquiring customers at the expense of existing customers by not offering better deals, Wareing said.
“The most important business metric for sales teams is to acquire customers and not retain customers,” he said.
GetReminded has numerous categories of contracts and renewals, including mobile phone contracts, home loans, care insurance, health insurance as well as specialist sections for pets and passports, the latter ensuring enough time for the lengthy renewals process. The app has had 50,000 downloads in the last 12 months and has just expanded into the UK, NZ, Ireland and Norway.
The GetReminded team are highlighting significant ongoing savings for consumers as a result of asking suppliers the right questions at the right time. It also claimed many consumers have used the app during their time stuck at home as a result of COVID-19 to negotiate substantial discounts, including on their mortgages.
Over three years, the team has worked to perfect the technology platform before it goes into a large-scale marketing push and globalisation pitch. It's now commencing a substantial market acquisition campaign using all digital, social, paid acquisition and public relations to acquire customers.
Having recognised the heightened attention to privacy these days, Wareing said the platform is designed to collect minimal information, sticking strictly to what is needed for reminders and nothing more. “We only ask for a first name, not even a last name. We deliberately do not collect identifiable data, no bill information, account numbers or policy details, nothing,” he explained.
“One of the things we have done strategically is to ensure we are not programmatic, so we don’t feed programmatic advertising in any way. We’re not assumptive in our data, so we don’t collect metadata to be able to create an inference about whom you may be.
“We only collect first-party data offered by the subscriber about specifically the needs they have. And our reminders are sent not to the user, but specifically around the contract or the document that is expiring.”
With the impending Google third-party cookie change, Wareing expected the programmatic advertising environment to be set for a major shake-up.
“Businesses today are very driven by acquisition marketing, they’ve become very reliant for the entire digital era on programmatic advertising, acquisitional advertising. And with sales outcomes rather than marketing outcomes driving many businesses and their customer acquisition goals, it could pose a significant challenge,” he commented.
“The holy grail of all marketing tactics is to know what a customer wants and when they want it. And, ultimately, first-party data is the only way to achieve that.”
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