Speaking Sensis

I’ve seen a lot of changes in our business over the years. We’ve launched websites, we’ve gone mobile and in Adelaide you’ll notice a significant change to the Yellow Pages book that’s currently being distributed.

Adelaide is the first city where the new compact-size Yellow Pages book will be distributed – the height and width of the book has been reduced by 15%.

The change to the new format is one of the biggest transformations in more than 80 years of the Yellow Pages. However, the most exciting thing is that it’s a win-win for people who use the Yellow Pages and people who advertise in the Yellow Pages – our customers.

The compact size book is easier to handle, it’s lighter and we’ve also made a number of new design and layout changes to help users find what their looking for. Things like:

• the use of colour to highlight the suburb names in each line listing;
• stronger and sharper heading blocks;
• improved Fast Find Index;
• colour highlights in the Teltales at the top of each page; and
• the inclusion of web and email listings. 

And, if we’re making it easier for users to search the Yellow Pages book, it means they’re looking for our advertisers’ content and will hopefully go on to purchase a product or service.

The transition to the new compact format Yellow Pages has involved a lot of research over the past 12-18 months. Last year, we trialled the compact-size Yellow Pages book with more than 25,000 users in Sydney and there was strong support for this format – moreso than the existing format.

This result was consistent with the feedback we received from several market surveys and focus groups that were held with our users.

Globally, compact directories, along with other book changes, are already being used by several companies including in the UK, where users and customers are responding more favourably to the new compact-size format directories.

Following Adelaide, the new format book will also be distributed in Brisbane, Perth, Sydney and Melbourne between November 2011 and February 2012.

It’s a fact that consumers don’t always do what you think they’ll do. That’s because they’re people… individuals… not robots. In this new series for Speaking Sensis, Bri Williams talks about Behavioural Economics, or how a real understanding of consumer decision making can benefit your business.

Some days it just seems too hard. You offer deals to your customers that should work but they just don’t fly.  And then other days, for no apparent reason, customers are beating down your door looking to do business.   How on earth can you get into the minds of your customers to find out what’s going on?

Welcome to Behavioural Economics.  An increasingly popular field, used by both UK and US governments to affect policy change and advertising agencies to improve marketing effectiveness, Behavioural Economics nestles in between economics and consumer psychology. The central mantra of Behavioural Economics is that we humans are irrational. Now, before you get outraged and debate the point, research from Behavioural Economics is about our economic irrationality. In other words, the decisions we make don’t always result in the best economic outcome for ourselves. 

That maybe true of others, you’re thinking, but not me!  Well, think about owning a car that you use only occasionally instead of renting one when required; paying for a 2GB data plan when your internet usage is nowhere near that level; driving an extra 10 minutes to get a 4c off a litre of petrol (the equivalent ‘discount’ you could have saved by spending a few dollars less at their supermarket),  saving your bonus pay money (in your mental bank account) to buy something special rather than using it on bills and buying something special later.  All of these simple, almost daily decisions are prime examples of economic irrationality.  

My favourite example is the TV show “Deal or No Deal”.  Seeing the contestants reject diminishing “bank offers” as their odds slip away in the hope of their fortune changing – despite the economic benefit of taking the deal – is both infuriating and hilarious.   But let us not get cocky.  We all are influenced by factors other than pure economics, your customers included.  And therein lies the opportunity.

There are tried and tested techniques in Behavioural Economics that will help you understand consumer irrationality and then use that knowledge to appeal to customers.  Behavioural Economics sheds light on what makes group buying compelling, how to structure sign-ups for marketing, the role of “free” and discounting, how to communicate a price rise, improvements to loyalty programs, what your customer service consultants should be saying…the list is expansive.

Sound good? Well, in the coming series of Speaking Sensis we will be examining these and other business tips from the field of Behavioural Economics, so look out for our next edition coming soon.