When thinking about customer communications, the customer journey is the best place to begin.
Consider this: your organization spends millions to attract prospective customers with engaging messages and content distributed through modern communication channels, including YouTube, social media, mobile ads, and more.
Now, think of all the interactions that take place after you have won a customer. Contracts, welcome kits, bills, statements, claims processes, customer correspondence, upsell and cross-sell communications, and so on. How do they measure up?
- Are they relevant, personalized, and accessible on-demand?
- Do they reflect positively on your brand?
- Are they consistent and compliant?
- Are they bi-directional?
- Are they delivered via the customers’ preferred channel today? What if they change their preferred channel?
- Do they incorporate the knowledge of subject matter experts across your organization?
- Do they help or hinder the overall customer experience?
The truth is, once you’ve earned a new customer, the rest of the customer journey is just as important. And that’s where many organizations fall short.
Do more with less
Historically, when it comes to customer communications – in particular, operationally-driven communications such as insurance policies, statements or compliance documents – there has been a great deal of pressure to do more with less. Unfortunately, this usually results in communications that have a negative impact on the customer experience.
Today’s customers want personalized, relevant communications that are available on-demand and accessible via the device of their choice.
I recently joined host Mirza Baig on an episode of the InspireCast Podcast to discuss the intersection of customer experience and customer communications management (CCM). In this session, we touch upon some interesting ideas including mobile as an ‘island’, the Amazon Dash button, the Internet of Things, the arrival of a new c-level executive in the boardroom, and using customer journey mapping as a window in to customer experience.
