Despite greater investments in customer service by businesses, many customers are still unsatisfied with their experiences. According to the 2022 Zendesk Customer Experience (CX) Trends Report, just 21% of shoppers say brands make it easy to interact with them. However, customer communication management that is implemented correctly provides numerous benefits for a company, including increased client loyalty and sales. Successful customer communication strategies provide organizations with the resources and knowledge needed to communicate with consumers through their chosen channels and ways of communication. In this post, we will look at the ways that can help achieve better communication with consumers.
What is customer communication?
Customer communication is focused on delivering brand messages and providing support across various digital channels, including email, social media, phone, messengers. At its heart lies an understanding of the customer’s needs and preferences. Using an efficient communication strategy assists firms in attracting and retaining consumers. Customer communication management plays an important role for both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) companies as they strive to achieve better customer satisfaction and increase their key business metrics.
Set up live chat
Providing speedy and personalized customer support is crucial for any user-centric business. Failing to deliver on this expectation can result in customers switching to competitors that offer a better support experience. According to Emarketer, 63% of consumers are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat support. Live chat software allows for instant conversations and offers features that facilitate real-time collaboration for quicker troubleshooting and resolution of inquiries. Investing in live chat tools and integrating them into your digital touchpoints can help you provide reliable customer service and build trust with your users.
One of the fine examples of free live chat software is Umnico online chat — a customizable widget can be easily installed on all or only particular website pages. This customer communication solution shows website visitors and their details in real-time as well as previews their typing so a support agent has more time to prepare a personalized answer.
Resolve issues quickly and according to guidelines
It’s important to handle customer inquiries promptly. While emails can be responded within a day, it is a widely accepted standard to respond to social media inquiries in less than 1–2 hours. In general, clients want to feel heard and valued, and resolving their issues in a timely manner can go a long way in building trust and loyalty. It’s recommended to have a clear policy in place for handling disputes, so that all employees know how to handle these situations and can respond consistently. Regular training and coaching can also help employees develop the skills needed to handle difficult conversations with customers.
Maintain consistent tone of voice
Using a conversational and friendly tone without being too formal in customer communications helps to establish trust and win loyalty of customers. Multiple studies show that customers value being treated like a person, rather than a username or a combination of figures of their phone number.
It is important to mirror customer’s style in individual conversations: if a person communicates in a reserved fashion, it is advisable to follow suit and avoid jokes or emojis, on the contrary, if a client shows open and good-humored manner, a joke or a couple of emojis won’t hurt. While maintaining a professional tone, aim for personalizing communications by using customer’s names and paying attention to their preferences. Last but not least, ensure error-free communication by using online tools to check punctuation and grammar in emails and chat messages. This can help to prevent misunderstandings and improve the overall customer experience.
Create a knowledge base
Many customers prefer to resolve issues on their own instead of contacting support and they should have such an option. Knowledge base is a great way not only to allow customers to find answers to their questions on their own but also to help reduce the volume of support requests by providing customers with a self-service option. A knowledge base should include information about your product or service, how to use it, and how to troubleshoot common issues. Make sure it is easy to navigate and search, and is regularly updated with information about new features or changes to the existing ones.
Leverage automation
Additionally, using triggers and chatbots is a proven way to provide instant answers to common inquiries of customers. This can help improve customer communication management and response times, as well as reduce the workload on your support team. You can also use the data collected from chatbot interactions to identify areas where customers may need more support, and update your knowledge base accordingly. Such customer communication platforms as Umnico provide an intuitive interface for creating template answers and setting up triggers based on a type of customer or keywords used in a request. It also can distribute inquiries among employees according to set rules and parameters.
Implement omnichannel approach
Implementing an omnichannel customer service strategy can significantly improve customer retention rates. Studies show that using multiple touch points for customer interaction helps to retain an average of 89% of customers, which is more than two times higher compared to brands that don’t connect with their audiences on social media, messengers and other channels.
The adoption of an omnichannel communication strategy should start with identifying the communication channels preferred by customers, followed by developing an effective customer engagement strategy across the identified channels and then maintaining a consistent experience throughout the entire customer journey.
To effectively connect with customers across numerous channels and deliver consistent support, businesses should adopt an omnichannel platform that enhances communication. For example, Umnico is an omnichannel messaging platform that supports secure integrations with more than 25 social media and messaging platforms and merges all conversations with clients into a single interface. The platform comes with extensive analytics and automation capabilities that help to streamline and optimize routine tasks, helping support agents to focus on complex and strategic issues. Using it allows companies to raise sales without bringing in new traffic and improve support through messengers. All Umnico features can be tried for free during a trial period available to new users.
