Customer communication is a pretty underrated concept among today’s businesses. Customer communication strategy often takes a back seat (or is mostly entirely ignored) when it is up against engineering, product and marketing strategies.
Businesses often measure customer interaction and engagement with products directly. For example, a marketplace like Amazon might measure search and order frequency, while social networks measure average screen time. But how do you get users to use, return to, and love your product even when they’re not actively using it? This is where customer communication efforts come in.
What is Customer Communication Management?
Customer Communication Management (CCM) is an essential strategic framework that involves organising, managing, and optimising the communications you send to and receive from customers. It encompasses all forms of communication, including emails, SMS, social media interactions, and more, aiming to enhance the customer experience through personalised and timely interactions.
The core components of CCM
Structured communications: This includes regular, scheduled communications like bills or monthly statements that are sent to all customers. Such documents are standardised and rarely change.
On-demand communications: These are tailored communications created for specific purposes or specific customers, such as special offers or personalised proposals.
Interactive communications: This type of communication is highly personalised and occurs directly between the customer and the company, like responding to customer queries or handling complaints.
Customer communication is key to ensuring that you can satisfy your customers' needs without them using your product, as well as creating a loyalty hook that can drive higher LTV.
Customer communication is as important as engineering, product, and marketing strategy, if not more so. Some would say that it is a part of marketing and sales and does not necessarily become a separate function, but this is a decade-old school of thought. Both marketing and communication landscapes have evolved very differently over the last couple of decades and have earned distinct respect.
Communication is essential for marketing, acquisition, and sales, as well as for engagement, loyalty, retention, service, and support.
If you're building a customer communication strategy, these are 5 simple tips that can help drive better customer engagement.
1. Be truly omnichannel
Omni-channel is a strategy for creating experiences for customers across all channels and touchpoints. This would include physical and digital experiences. A classic example would be businesses like Ikea, Reliance Digital, Croma, etc., trying to create both a physical and digital presence.
A subset of omnichannel experience strategy would be omnichannel communication strategy, which, at its core, reflects the channels and user touch points through which businesses communicate with their users. With hyper-scaling businesses and increasing users, businesses automate most customer communications through their products. Hence, the way in which product communication strategy is developed and executed becomes the core of managing omnichannel communication.
A well-developed product communication strategy MUST ensure it can access and leverage all modern communication channels where your users hang out. Gone are the days when channels like emails and sms were sufficient to communicate with customers. You must be available on newer, modern touchpoints like WhatsApp, social network platforms, and push and in-app notifications. The number of user touchpoints is constantly increasing, so actively track them and ensure that you are able to access these channels sooner than later.
2. Context is crucial across channels
Omni-channel access without context switching can be hazardous. Understanding and meeting customer expectations is crucial in this regard. If you’re available on multiple channels and cannot carry the context from one channel to another, it can lead to a very bad experience for users, who have to repeat the communication all over again, leading to churn, drop-offs, etc.
67% of consumers say that repeating their information more than once would cause them to stop shopping with a business. Yes, it directly impacts revenue. For brands and products that do not pay attention to communication strategies, their successes (if any) will likely be short-lived if they defer/ deprioritise customer communications.
It is necessary to have very tight cross-functional collaboration to ensure that all the customer-facing teams are talking the same language to the customer. Without this, every silo can reach the consumers with a different message, confusing them and ultimately resulting in churn.
3. Invest in technology
Data clearly suggests that brands with advanced communication systems have significantly better customer metrics.
However, since customer communications are often not considered revenue-critical, building advanced systems is often deprioritised. With scale, companies like AirBnB and LinkedIn have built advanced communication systems (and they take pride in what they’ve built).
Thanks to the advancement of products in B2B SaaS, the days when engineering and products had to build internal product communication services from scratch are gone. Many amazing off-the-shelf SaaS tools are available that offer plug-and-play abilities.
Invest in advanced communication systems platforms early on. They don’t pinch pockets like ERPs/ CRMs. However, with more research, I realised that the SaaS tools market in the communication space has become more complicated, with a plethora of tools solving either very generic/ very niche use cases. The distinction in product categories has blurred. I have included a dedicated section below to demystify this space so that you can have a clearer understanding before making the investment decision.
Effective customer service communication is crucial for enhancing service interactions and overall customer satisfaction.
4. Personalisation
Unlike products, in communication - there is no one-size-fits-all. Communications have to be personalised to create impact. But this is easier said than done.
Personalized communication sets the tone for a business and can foster brand loyalty. Targeted suggestions, curated discount coupons or offers, personalised reminders, follow-ups by a support specialist, reward programs, etc., are ways to personalize your communication. Thanks to Customer Data Platforms (”CDPs”) like Segment, Mixpanel and Amplitude, businesses can access user-level data insights and create micro-cohorts and segments to have the personalisation effect. Personalized communication should be consistent throughout the customer journey to enhance customer satisfaction and retention.
5. Respect preferences and don't over-communicate:
Yes, when it comes to communication, optimize for meaningful reach over maximum reach. Customers love it when you nudge them meaningfully. Be it transactional messages, reminders, product updates, or marketing campaigns, communication should be crisp and simple, and customers’ channel preferences should be respected. Ensuring customer satisfaction by collecting feedback and implementing changes based on it can significantly enhance service quality.
Ex: When booking movie tickets, a customer may be happy if he can access his tickets on the Application, WhatsApp, or email (based on his preferences), but NOT ALL THREE. Maximum reach is a leading factor for channel abuse.
When consumers can use the communication channels they prefer, over half are more likely to:
Recommend the brand,
Buy more often from the brand, or
Make a first-time purchase
🔨 Building a communication strategy using the above 5 levers will create delightful user experiences and become a unique differentiator in choosing your product/ offering over your competitors.
Demystifying SaaS in communications
Now, let’s simplify the communication space for SaaS tools so that you can understand the different product categories that exist and make an informed investment decision.
The communication industry, on a standalone basis, has significantly evolved. The growth of more channels and user touchpoints has created a complicated industry with many categories and sub-categories. There is no one-size-fits-all structure or framework that one can apply. I have attempted to simplify this so that businesses can get some head start while evaluating SaaS tools in which to invest. Effective communication not only improves customer engagement but also plays a vital role in building lasting customer relationships.
1. Customer relationship management systems (CRMs)
CRM system or platform is a tool that helps with contact management, sales management, productivity, and more. CRM software helps you focus on your organisation’s relationships with individual people — including customers, service users, colleagues, or suppliers — throughout your lifecycle with them, including finding new customers, winning their business, and providing support and additional services throughout the relationship. Examples: Salesforce, HubSpot etc. Effective customer communication strategies are essential for delivering consistent brand messaging and enhancing customer experiences across various touchpoints.
The majority of conventional CRMs were created primarily to support B2B organisations. They are clearly designed to assist salespeople in managing prolonged, largely predictable sales cycles.
There are enterprise-level CRMs like Oracle Siebel CRM, SAP C4C, etc., which solve for B2C companies with customer bases going from a few hundred thousand to a million. These are very expensive, and you will not find many early-stage and mid-market companies using them.
To meet their CRM requirements, B2C startups should instead look at new-age cloud-based engagement applications like Braze, Leanplum, Helpshift, Intercom, etc.
2. Communication platform as a service (CPaaS)
It is a category of cloud-based services that provides a set of APIs for developers to build and manage communication-based applications, such as voice and text messaging, video conferencing, and faxing. These platforms are essential for businesses looking to understand how to improve customer communication by leveraging advanced communication tools and strategies.
Examples: Twilio, Gupshup, Bandwidth, and Nexmo. These tools allow developers to add application communication functionality without managing the underlying infrastructure and telecommunication services.
3. Marketing automation platforms (MarTech)
Sometimes also referred to as “customer engagement platform” or customer engagement and retention platform”, these are platforms designed to handle large user bases. They come with analytics and segmentation tools that can be used to understand customer behaviour and preferences and trigger marketing campaigns through various channels like sms, notifications, emails, etc.
Examples: Braze, Blueshift, Customer.io, Moengage etc.
4. Messaging and communication platforms
These standalone platforms facilitate real-time communication and collaboration between individuals and teams. They typically include features such as instant messaging, voice and video calls, and file sharing.
Examples: WhatsApp, Slack, Discord
5. Unified communications as a service (UCAS)
These cloud-based services combine various communication channels, such as instant messaging, voice and video calls, email, and fax, into a single platform.
Examples: Zoom, Cisco Webex
It is typically used to facilitate internal communication and collaboration within an organisation or between 2 or more organisations.
6. Customer support and service platforms (CSP)
These platforms are designed to help companies power their customer support and service functions. They provide a cloud-based platform to manage customer interactions and resolution automation, basically ease up the work of support team. They often include features such as ticketing systems, knowledge bases, and analytics to help companies provide better customer service. Additionally, they enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the customer service team by equipping them with the necessary tools to handle inquiries and feedback.
Examples: Zendesk, Freshdesk, intercom
These platforms allow companies to manage their social media presence and brand visibility across multiple social network channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Examples: Sprinklr, Hootsuite, etc.
Summarising
UCAS is primarily for internal communication and collaboration between teams and within organisations. Messaging and communication platforms are designed for real-time communication and collaboration between individuals and teams. CRM is used to track sales cycles and manage customer interactions and relationships. CPaaS integrates communication capabilities into products to access channels like SMS, email, voice, etc. MarTechs to automate and streamline marketing tasks and automate and optimize marketing processes. CSP for managing customer service and support interactions. Social media management platforms are used to manage social media presence across multiple channels.
Now, I know it can be overwhelming to understand the categories, discover various tools in each category, and evaluate them to fit your use case. While each solves customer communication in one way or another, none is a “communication-first platform.” This is why we are building Fyno—a new-age modern communication stack for early-stage and mid-market product companies. These tools can significantly improve customer service communication by enhancing the efficiency of customer interactions.
Fyno is a single source of customer communications for your organisation!
In conclusion, customer communication is a key aspect of any business and should not be overlooked. Developing a well-rounded strategy that includes omnichannel communication and respecting the customer’s time and attention is important. By utilizing modern communication tools and channels, businesses can create a better customer experience, engagement, and loyalty.
In this blog post, we discussed some simple tips for creating a customer communication strategy and provided some examples of industry leaders doing it well.
Remember, investing in customer communication is investing in the success of your business.
FAQs
1. What is Customer Communication Management (CCM)?
CCM is a strategic framework for organizing, managing, and optimizing all forms of communication with customers.
2. What are the core components of CCM?
The core components are structured, on-demand, and interactive communications.
3. Why is omnichannel communication important?
It ensures a seamless experience across various customer touchpoints and channels.
4. What is the impact of context in omnichannel communication?
Lack of context can lead to poor user experiences and increased churn.
5. How can businesses invest in technology for better customer communication?
By using advanced communication systems and SaaS tools that integrate and automate interactions.
6. Why is personalization important in customer communication?
Personalization enhances customer satisfaction and builds brand loyalty.
7. What are some types of SaaS tools for customer communication?
CRM systems, CPaaS, MarTech platforms, messaging platforms, UCaaS, and CSPs.
8. What role does technology play in modern customer communication?
Technology provides tools to enhance, automate, and personalize customer interactions for better engagement.
