Reaching your customers with optimal customer communication is easier said than done. Which channels should you use, and which software and systems do you need to invest in to be ready for the developments of the next ten years? And what happens if you do not? The answers to these and other questions can be found in the trend report The four key trends in customer communication. A report created by and for customer communication experts. In the coming months, we will share the highlights of this report in a series of blog articles. This fifth chapter focuses on the impact of customer communication trends on organisations.
Customers taking control, technology enabling innovation, privacy becoming even more important, and socially responsible business practices. These are the four trends customer communication experts expect to dominate the years ahead. But what do these trends require from organisations, and how can organisations still differentiate themselves? It starts with making clear choices about what an organisation stands for. According to customer communication experts, organisations must also become more flexible. In their view, organisations only have a right to exist if they can respond quickly and effectively to the rapid changes coming their way.
Customer communication experts strive to build detailed customer profiles and envision advanced use cases. The ideal scenario is to serve customers 24/7 while having a complete 360-degree customer view with real-time insight into all customer communication. At the same time, this ambition brings concerns. Capturing and maintaining customer data at this level requires scarce resources and specialised expertise that is difficult to find.
Many organisations still use separate systems per channel or product. Although most of these systems are well structured and contain valuable customer data, connecting them proves complex. Updates, mergers and acquisitions further complicate the creation of a single customer view. Yet, according to experts, a complete customer view is a prerequisite for optimal customer communication.
Organisations therefore need to invest in software that connects all systems and channels, enabling a unified customer view, continuous addition of new channels, and 24/7 availability. This software must also be flexible enough to offer tailored products and services. Customer communication experts expect organisations to spend years working towards this goal. To accelerate progress, they are increasingly willing to outsource expertise and knowledge, particularly in areas such as software.
The development of new technologies creates both opportunities and challenges for organisations communicating with customers. Customer communication experts are actively working to make their organisations flexible enough to switch channels when needed. However, new channels are not necessarily better than traditional ones.
Initially, experts believed new channels would gradually replace traditional channels. Email and digital communication were considered cheaper, more sustainable and easier to manage than physical mail. Reality has proven otherwise. A large portion of email goes unread, while a physical letter has become distinctive again and therefore attracts more attention. As a result, some organisations now find that physical mail is read more carefully than email, leading them to reintroduce print for targeted and personal communication.
Soon, customers will decide which channel they want to use, while laws and regulations determine what is allowed. The ultimate consequence is that organisations must be able to serve customers across all channels.
This sounds appealing, but it is complex, risky and sometimes undesirable or even impossible. Every channel needs to be configured, managed and optimised. This requires significant investment and expertise, which is scarce in today’s labour market. In addition, all processes must be aligned to form a single, coherent funnel, requiring close coordination with back-office systems and other departments.
Customer communication experts also do not want to communicate via every channel. Customers often contact organisations via social media, but professional organisations never respond substantively to personal questions in public channels. At most, they provide a general response and continue the conversation in a secure environment. In some cases, organisations simply cannot use certain channels at all.
Experts expect channel selection to become even more complex as new channels emerge and regulatory requirements increase. Still, organisations must make choices if they want to continue reaching customers. These choices must also be flexible enough to adjust when customer expectations change.
Customer communication experts need clear policies on how personal data is processed. Customers must be optimally protected against privacy misuse, while organisations retain the freedom to develop personalised customer communication. To achieve this clarity, organisations must engage in dialogue with government bodies and collaborate to define clear policies.
At the same time, organisations need to engage with customers to discuss which data they are allowed to use to personalise communication, products and services.
Sustainability is becoming increasingly important. Customers are more aware of it than ever, making it essential for organisations to act accordingly. Customers want to feel connected to the brands they choose. Organisations can achieve this by actively embracing sustainability and demonstrating it, for example by aligning business objectives with the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. What are you doing to make the world a better place?
Remote working has become widely accepted as a result of COVID-19. Many tasks can now be performed from any location, enabling alternative work arrangements beyond the traditional 36 to 40-hour workweek. At the same time, customers want to communicate with organisations at times that suit them.
In the past, this required employees to be present at a physical office location. Today, organisations can structure work so employees respond from a location of their choice, whether from home, the office or anywhere in the world, without customers noticing any difference.
Corporate social responsibility is a prominent topic in boardrooms. One trend embraced by customer communication experts is diversity, for two main reasons. First, diverse and complementary teams collaborate more effectively and achieve better results than homogeneous teams. Second, diversity helps organisations communicate with different target groups.
This is particularly relevant for national organisations and government bodies. Effective communication relies on shared understanding, and communication flows more smoothly when people attach the same meaning to words and concepts.
Organisations do not communicate only with native speakers who fully master the local language. They also interact with people who speak different languages or have lower literacy levels. This makes it important to staff customer contact centres with multilingual employees and to train staff in communicating with people with limited knowledge or literacy. This enables customer contact centre employees to support these target groups effectively, at the right level and in their own language.