3 Ways to Communicate More Effectively With Your Customer
M2 Coach Podcast – 3 Ways to Communicate More Effectively With Your Customer
COMMUNICATE WITH INDIVIDUALS
Like so many areas of business in 2017, your communications plan should be informed by data. In the age of social media, your customers want to be treated like individuals – and harnessing the power of data allows you to do this (or at least appear to be doing so, in the eyes of your consumer).
Before firing an email to everyone in your database, think about what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to. Imagine you’re an airline. You have a frequent flyer who has travelled back and forth from London four times in the past year for work, and every time they’ve flown first class. Should you send them an email promoting your latest bargain-basement fare deal? No, it’s irrelevant – you already know they want to fly first class. Use data to segment your audiences, to ensure you’re pushing the right information to the right groups of people.
Once you’ve determined what you want to say and who you need to say it to, it’s important to figure out when and how those customers want to be communicated with. Do you send emails because your clients love receiving emails or because it’s easy? Should you be promoting your new product on Instagram and your sale via an app push notification?
BE ON THE SAME PAGE
Within your business, who owns the communications with your customers? A holistic approach prevents different departments from firing off messages to the same people. Work together to get it right. If you’re launching a new product, who needs to be involved? It’s the development team’s baby, customer service will be championing it, sales need to be kept in the loop and marketing will oversee the brand fit. By ensuring that everyone in the organisation is singing from the same songsheet you’ll end up with the best possible outcome for your clients. Effective internal communications play a big part in this. At realestate.co.nz we believe it’s important for everyone to be aware of big developments on the horizon, our product roadmap and any hiccups or issues. Your staff are your brand champions and your teammates – make sure they’re always the first to know.
THE IMPORTANCE OF PERSPECTIVE
‘What’s in it for me?’ will forever be at the forefront of your consumer’s mind. Business communications aren’t really about business – they’re about the customer. Always think about the individual on the receiving end. What message are you sending? What does that mean for your consumer? How does it affect them? Sense-check your messaging and consider its meaning from your client’s perspective. Your brand personality and tone of voice play a key part in this. If you want to raise the bar, add value and offer the best possible customer experience, everything needs to come back to them.
Brendon Skipper is CEO of realestate.co.nz