Customer communication continues to get more complicated. It used to be that your only option was to call a business you wanted to buy from (or write a letter if you had a few weeks to kill).
Now, there are emails, social media comments, texts, DMs, chatbots, and more. Customers expect fast, accurate responses at just about any time of day or night.
That’s why it’s critical for every business to create a customer communication strategy. In this guide, we show you how to build a strategy that lays out communication channels you’ll focus on, sets guidelines for the team, and confirms how you’ll track customer comms so nothing gets lost in the shuffle.
Contents
- What is customer communication?
- 6 important customer communication channels
- How to build a customer communication strategy
- Tips for better customer communication
What is customer communication?
Customer communication refers to all interactions a business has with its customers. The specific purpose and format of each communication may vary. Still, the overall goals are to improve customer experience and achieve a business goal, like generating leads or converting them to buyers.
It sounds absurdly simple; we communicate every day. But it’s both incredibly important and surprisingly complicated.
It’s important because customer communication is one of the most influential factors affecting customer experience. Since 73% of customers say experience is a key factor in purchase decisions and 81% say they’d pay for a better experience, it’s a top driver of business growth.
Customer communication is complicated because there are so many channels and methods of interaction. Let’s dive into them now.
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6 important customer communication channels
Customer communication can happen digitally, in person, and via written materials. Here are some of the most common digital customer communication channels to be aware of.
1. Phone
Most of Gen Z may hate talking on the phone, but it’s still a very common customer communication channel. Overall, 80% of consumers say it’s an important way to connect with a business.
One of the reasons people want to ring your business is that a phone call is flexible and immediate. You don’t have to wait for a return email, and you can immediately ask another question based on the answer to the first.
Phone calls have two big knocks against them as a customer communication channel:
- They’re time-consuming to manage.
- They’re harder to track compared with digital communications.
One recent technology that eases these burdens is AI-enabled call transcription and tracking solutions like what’s included in Dash™ by LocaliQ.
Dash’s call transcription makes note-taking easy.
With a tool like this in place, you can focus on the conversation, knowing that the key points will be noted and the call logged and categorized, waiting for your review. (Want more customers calling? Read this guide).
2. Email
Nearly 50% of consumers purchased directly from an email in the past, which is one of the reasons why email marketing is so effective.
You can use emails for all sorts of communications, like confirming an appointment, sending shipping details, or sharing a new promotion.
Many people like it because it’s automatically trackable (as long as you don’t accidentally move a message to trash!). Plus, you can send several types of media in an email, from links to images to videos.
On the downside, emails aren’t as immediate as phone calls. You can end up with a long chain of messages spanning several days, which could be handled in minutes as a phone call.
3. Chatbots and live chat
Chatbots and live chat are two of the newer customer communication channels available to businesses. They essentially work like an instant messaging feature on your website.
The difference between live chat and chatbots is who, or what, is responding to customers. With live chat, it’s a human operator typing messages. Conversely, a chatbot is some version of software—often an AI agent—that replies to queries.
These web chats are popular with customers because they can deliver fast answers to questions right while the customer is pursuing a website.
The downside of live chat is that someone has to be available to answer questions. Chatbots solve that issue because they can answer questions around the clock, taking the burden off of employees and creating a better customer experience.
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4. Text/SMS
SMS marketing, aka texting, is growing in popularity as a method of communicating with customers—and for good reason. Text messages offer open rates in the 98% range and click-through rates north of 10%, far surpassing the averages from email communications.
Like emails, texts are effective for many promotional and transactional customer communications types. Also, like emails, you can send various content types through text. That said, sending short bits of copy, a link, and maybe an image is most common.
SMS messages can include multiple types of media and are easy to track.
The biggest challenge with texts as a customer comms channel is that the receiver has to opt in before you can text them. Many businesses use special offers like discounts or free shipping to entice people to allow text messages.
5. Social media
Social media is a fun and versatile way to connect and communicate with your customers. Thanks to the variety of popular social media platforms, you can engage with people at scale, interact with one person publicly, or communicate privately via direct messages.
You probably won’t use a social media post to send a customer their shipping confirmation. But you could alert them of promotions or answer their questions.
The public nature of social media can be challenging. One upset customer can easily damage your reputation with hundreds of people. That’s why you have to monitor and, at times, moderate your social media channels and move any contentious conversations offline.
6. Online communities
If you can think of a topic, there’s an online community talking about it. There are over 138,000 active boards (subreddits) just on Reddit alone. In addition to that, forums like Reddit are showing up more in search engine results, and you can see why they are an important customer communication channel.
The communal nature of online communities means you have to approach them differently than other customer comms channels. People there tend to push back on any form of marketing. So, use forums to connect with people as a fan of the topic and as a trusted advisor when called to do so. Never jump in and try to sell.
How to build a customer communication strategy
A customer communication strategy sets the tone and structure for how and where your team will engage with people who buy from you. Follow these steps to build one for your business.
Assess customer needs
The most important person in any communication is the receiver. Why? Because the giver already has the information. If the receiver didn’t get it, the communication failed.
That’s why the foundation of your customer communication strategy has to start with understanding your audience. Which messages do they need to get? How would they most like to get them?
For example, if your customers are retirees, they may prefer phone calls to DMs on social media. Or if you sell to busy parents, they may like emails that they can reference on their own schedule.
Review available channels
In this step, you’ll answer the questions: Which communication channels are available to you? And which will be most effective?
A business selling self-serve software all over the world may not have a great need for a toll-free phone line—a chatbot would probably work better. On the flip side, a local plumber will probably want a way to take and manage phone calls and texts since that’s how many people communicate with that type of business.
Update contact information
You can’t have effective customer communication if customers can’t get ahold of you. So, an important step in your strategy is to make sure your contact details are correct wherever people may find them.
One common place businesses miss this is in online business directories. We recently reviewed a random sample of local business listings and found that only 15% of them had complete and correct information.
Beyond listings, double-check your website and social media pages to make sure they have the correct phone number and email address.
Collect FAQs
So far, our strategy has focused on the channels you’ll use for customer communications. Next up is to consider the most common and important topics.
Why does this matter? Because if 80% of your customer communications are about 20% of the topics, you’ll want to put more thought into how those topics are communicated.
For example, say you run a hair salon, and 50% of the calls to your business are from customers looking to make or verify an appointment. You could invest a little time and money into an automated scheduling system that lets customers book directly from your website and get text reminders about their appointments.
Another example is if there are a handful of questions every customer asks, you could create an FAQ that gets added to your welcome emails. Customers get answers faster; your employees don’t have to field those repeated questions.
Take a few minutes to think through these everyday communication needs and look for ways to make them more efficient for your team and better for your customers.
Consider rules and regulations
This is a critical step, especially for industries like healthcare, where there are very specific rules about how you can communicate with customers.
Invest some time here and consult with an expert if you don’t have the knowledge in-house. Once you know the rules, make sure everyone is trained on them. And set a cadence of regular follow-ups to account for changes in the rules and to check for compliance.
Create a comms SOP
Put everything you’ve worked on into a single communication standard operation procedure. It doesn’t have to be super complicated, but it should include:
- Preferred communications channels
- A tone or style guide
- Rules and regulations
- A schedule of regular comms audits
There are plenty of other details you can add to your communication strategy based on your business, customers, and industry. But these steps will get you started on creating a foundational strategy you can tweak and update as needed.
Tips for better customer communication
With the basics accounted for, let’s look at some ways to delight your customers, reduce stress on your employees, and use communication as a growth tool for your business.
Respond quickly
People hate waiting. 80% of consumers will skip a business altogether if they have to wait in line, and 73% say that if a brand doesn’t respond on social media, they’ll buy from a competitor next time.
This is a huge challenge for many small, local businesses. You’re often in the field doing the work, not monitoring every call and text.
That’s where new, AI-powered customer comms management tools come in handy.
AI agents can respond to customers immediately.
Track interactions
As your business grows, you’re bound to have more communications from more customers to deal with. You need to track each one to make sure none get missed and to learn so your communications get better over time.
Pen and paper probably won’t cut it here. You’ll want a tool that can capture the key details from each call, text, and email and then automatically categorize them for you.
You’ll also want to see which communications lead to sales so you can double down on the methods and channels that work. That’s another way communication tracking software can help.
The right tool will give you a bird’s-eye view of your customer communications and connect them to your business goals.
Practice empathy
Last but certainly not least, you’ll need to practice the skill of empathy. Note that this isn’t the same as being kind (although that helps, too). Empathy is when you can imagine yourself in someone else’s position, so your responses are better at solving their problems.
Just like painting or playing basketball, some people have a greater propensity for empathy. But with practice, most people can get better at it. Here are a few empathy activities to try:
- Ask at least one follow-up question: Our minds sometimes wander when people speak to us. Keep focused by looking for a point they’ve made that requires a follow-up.
- Actively imagine their situation: Try picturing where your customers are, who’s around them, and what they’re going through.
- Be mindful of your biases: You have an expertise bias, meaning you probably know things about plumbing or physical therapy that your customer or patient doesn’t. Try to think about what it’s like not to have your knowledge and communicate with that in mind.
Use customer communication to differentiate your business
On the surface, it seems like communicating with people should come naturally. But if you think about the interactions you’ve had with businesses you bought from, you’ll probably remember plenty of times they weren’t empathetic, didn’t answer your questions, or were just unavailable.
Those challenges you experienced are opportunities for your business. If you have a solid communication strategy in place and can consistently provide a positive communication experience for your customers, you’ll stand out against your competitors.
If you’d like to know more about how our solutions can help you improve and track your customer communications, contact us. We’ll be glad to communicate how.
