Communication has never been more important. While uncertainty and worry plague the nation, the best way for businesses to nurture and build relationships is through effective communication – which doesn’t just mean pushing sales messages! Here are some techniques to help you leverage technology for better customer service.
Lean on proven channels
One of the most talked about impacts of the current pandemic is the change in the technologies we use to communicate. I’ll come back to these ‘new’ technologies in a moment, but the first port of call for any business looking to leverage technology for better communication is to revisit the channels that have worked before.
Effective communication comes from communicating in a manner that works for both the business and its customers. Look at your past data; how have your customers responded best to you in the past?
Perhaps your email messages have always received high open rates, which means utilising email at this time could be a good option. Maybe you’ve found SMS messaging has been a better platform, so using this channel could be beneficial, given that your audience is likely to respond quickly to a text message.
Reviewing this data can be done holistically, or on a more granular level. For example, rather than looking at open rates for emails across all recipients, you might want to break that down into audience segments – such as customer vs prospect – or by email topic, like ‘sales message’ or ‘customer service’. This way, you can make the most informed decision about the channels that have worked for you before and use those to communicate with your customers as a first step.
Trial new communication channels
~Business Game Changer Special Promotion~
With so much uncertainty comes an opportunity for businesses to shake up the way they’ve done things before and to explore some new options.
I mentioned earlier than one of the most talked-about impacts of the pandemic is the change to the way in which we communicate. The word ‘Zoom’ seems to have become a verb, the term ‘house party’ has taken on a whole new meaning and there are more video call related memes than you could shake a stick at!
Video calling, it seems, is here to stay – at least for the duration of our lockdown – and many businesses are using this as a chance to build even stronger relationships with customers. For example, if yours is a business typically reliant on a face to face sale, why not trial offering a video call alternative? With the public becoming increasingly comfortable with this technology, you may find this becomes a highly cost-effective alternative to travelling to customers even once the pandemic passes.
Rich communication services (RCS) is another newer technology that is becoming increasingly popular with businesses looking to share more engaging and interactive content with their customers. Retailers, for example, can use RCS to enhance the customer’s experience by combining what feels like an in-store shopping trip with on-page content and live chat – akin to that you might receive from a personal shopper!
It’s not just about sales
It’s a sad fact of this time that many companies will see a reduction in sales. That’s to be expected, in many ways; the more we’re in lockdown, the less able we typically are to go out and make a purchase – and if yours is a business requiring face to face interaction for fulfilment, you may find this period quite challenging to navigate.
Companies that recognise the difficulties they face, but look for solutions, will fare better and may even come out stronger at the end of this crisis. One area they should focus on now is building relationships for the future. If we consider the marketing funnel – an inverse triangle where the top of the funnel is filled by people with a potential interest in what you sell and the bottom is the much smaller number of people ready to buy from you right now – then communication isn’t just about serving those people at the conversion end.
Rather, firms can be making use of communication channels to fill the top of the funnel. Consider what kind of messaging is most pertinent to those people not yet looking to buy, but who might buy one day; what problem does your product or service solve? What question does it answer? What interests will lead someone to eventually wanting to buy from you?
Combine this with your business’ own values – how you want to be known and perceived – and this is where you can utilise channels like social media, as an example, to build your brand voice and encourage potential customers to interact with you now. That way, when the time is right, you’ll be top of mind.
By Amy Robinson, senior brand manager at telecommunications provider Esendex.
