There isn’t one single way toward mastering customer communications management (CCM). Every customer, existing or potential, is different. They have unique needs and desires, and providing an all-round service can be a demanding task. But the end goal for customer communication is always going to be about serving your customer and giving them reasons to come back to buy your product or utilize your service again.
As difficult as this can be, there are a few proven strategies and approaches that you can implement for CCM and to get the best out of your customer service team. Here are five best practices to master your customer communications management:
1) Personalization
Most marketers will tell you that personalization is important in growing worthwhile customer relationships. These connections should be the end goal for your team’s efforts; therefore, your customer communication strategy needs to aim for personalization over all interactions.
This just means referring to customers by their name when you reach out to them and other such important habits. To truly offer a real personalized experience, your CCM should include collecting customer data at each stage of the buyer’s journey, to curate their experience.
No matter how small your business, personalized communication with your customers can be achieved very easily using apps such as Jobber’s lawn care management software. By taking advantage of new technology such as this, you give your business that competitive edge and stand a greater chance at retaining your valuable existing customers.
2) Use the correct channels
Finding the right communication channels for your team might not always be convenient for you but should be a reflection of the channels preferred by your customers. Many younger or modern customers like to use digital channels for all forms of communication. In other words, they prefer non-intrusive ways of being contacted such as text message or direct message (DM) through social media platforms and your website.
Communication channels such as these can help your customer service team provide faster support and be rest assured that any outbound messages will reach customers in their own time. In saying this, roughly 4% of adults in the United States still prefer speaking with support teams over the phone when they have an issue that needs solving. Essentially, it’s important to know your customers, to be able to understand what they’d most desire. (1)
3) Follow-up
To master customer communication management, a key factor is to keep your customer engagement high. This means your CCM needs to include a proper follow-up process. This is more than simply replying to customers when they reach out about an issue or have a question. Your customer service team will often need to keep the conversations going to ensure no interest is lost. Examples of this could be, among other things:
- Asking for feedback after a purchase,
- Reminding customers about an item they left in their online cart,
- Sending out birthday messages or discounts, and
- Asking for a review and responding to reviews, whether positive or negative.
Customer engagement should be an ongoing part of your CCM processes, so first-time customers could then turn into your loyal customers.
4) Reduce response times
Communication is all about speed in the internet age. People are experiencing real-time conversations with people everywhere and anywhere around the world. Advanced technologies that seemed so farfetched 20 years ago are now basic parts of our lives. In fact, 82% of customers expect immediate responses from businesses. Your CCM needs to make response time a priority. (2)
Not every business can offer 24/7 support, as most small businesses are run by one person or only a small team. In these instances, you could benefit from using automation like a simple message sent out after someone’s asked a question to ensure them their message has been received and they’ll receive a response ASAP.
Other things you can do is utilize chatbots to engage in simple conversations when no staff is available or havr an FAQ page on your website to provide answers to your most asked questions.
5) Be human
Finally, its crucial for your CCM to center around being human. Even when using a chatbot, you need to make sure your customers don’t feel like they’re interacting with a robot. Stronger connections and positive lasting impressions can be made simply by adopting a casual and friendly tone when communicating with customers. Give honest and transparent answers when you can and limit the amount of jargon you use as well as formal words such as beginning emails with “dear” and ending with “sincerely.”
Takeaway
Mastering customer communications management needs to be an ongoing process. It’s not something you can land on and be done with. Technologies change, as do your customers’ needs and desires, so it’s important to stay flexible to change channels or strategies when needed. The key rule is to always place the customer first and to implement tools and strategies to make their experience with your company as great as it possibly can be.
References
- “Communication channels customers prefer to use to resolve customer service issues in the United States in 2019”, Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/818566/preferred-channels-customer-service-issues-united-states/
- “How To Win At Client Communication”, Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2019/07/03/how-to-win-at-client-communication/?sh=79a3bb778060
