Companies the world over are getting increasingly more focused on providing exceptional digital customer experiences. This becomes even more crucial in the PR sector, where maintaining top-notch external relations and a spotless brand reputation is key.
And while crafting awesome customer journeys is, of course, essential, you shouldn’t overlook another important aspect: how you communicate with your customers.
Customer communication management, in fact, represents another vital pillar of a healthy, thriving business in the digital era—and beyond.
Keep reading to discover why a solid customer communication management strategy should be one of your top priorities and what your business might be risking if you neglect it.
What does “customer communication management” refer to?
As you might expect, customer communication management (CCM) encapsulates all the strategies and practices that a company implements to communicate with its customers.
It could be as straightforward as call routing software or a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution. In most cases, businesses leverage one single solution or piece of software that enables them to centralize all communication to help teams across different departments—such as sales, marketing, service, and logistics—to gain a unified, up-to-date, and coherent view of what is happening.
As a result, this allows for a company-wide strategy that is focused on optimizing customer communication, engagement, and service. Customer communication can take place either in real-time—such as during a phone call or in-person conversation—or digitally.
When it comes to real-time, live communication, all interactions are generally associated with a specific support ticket or with the name of the customer within a particular database.
In terms of digital interactions, on the other hand, the entire customer base might be involved, which means that communication is not as individualized or personalized.
The importance of customer communication management
A clear, coherent, and shared customer communication management strategy is essential if you are serious about offering top-notch service and experiences to your PR customers.
For example, why do you think that most thriving businesses have a strong call monitoring system in place? Because that is one of the many tools that enables businesses to communicate with customers promptly, accurately, and effectively.
There are several reasons why customer communication management is so important, but three of the main ones are:
- Enhanced customer service and experiences.
- Improved relations and brand reputation.
- More (and better) data and insights into customers, their needs, wishes, and pain points.
No clear plan? This is what you may be risking
So if you are a company in the PR industry and have not yet implemented a clear customer communication management plan, these are only some of the—many—risks your business might face.
1) Loss of trust
One of the main attributes of a thriving company is the high level of trust that its customers feel whenever they interact with it.
Think about, for example, the confidence you might feel when buying from a British company that has a UK domain name. You instantly think that the company is professional, reliable, and trustworthy.
Well, a customer communication management strategy is another important element when it comes to customer trust and loyalty.
A poor—or completely lacking—customer communication management strategy, in fact, will severely affect how much your customers trust your company. If you don’t demonstrate that you have your customers’ best interests at heart, then why should they stick around for the long haul?
So, whether it’s about investing in good call center software or implementing new communication policies across your different departments, make sure that you do all you can to boost that sense of trust, loyalty, and reliability that will keep your customers coming back for more.
Additionally, utilizing grammar check tools can help ensure that your written customer communication is accurate and error-free, further enhancing your brand’s professionalism and credibility.
2) Issue escalation
In this day and age, customers are more connected than ever before. This means that if a company doesn’t respond rapidly, accurately, and satisfactorily to a customer’s query, that customer may be taking to the internet to voice their disappointment.
This leads to the lack of trust and reputation damage that we have just talked about. These customers tend to express their negative experiences with a company on social media, leading to wider distrust and a tarnished reputation. Social media monitoring, therefore, is a great element to add to your customer communication strategy alongside rapid response times and excellent customer service.
3) Employee satisfaction
Not having a customer communication management strategy will not only impact your external communication negatively, but it may also hamper how your employees feel toward your company.
When a company doesn’t have a clear communication strategy for its customers, it’s also very likely that it won’t have an internal one that helps its teams better interact and perform. The bottom line?
People will soon start feeling less and less motivated, fulfilled, and committed to your company’s success. If this continues for a long time, you are at serious risk of losing valuable talent for good.
4) Revenue loss
Ultimately, without a good customer communication strategy, one of your main risks is the very real possibility of losing money. Think about it.
When customers realize that you cannot deal with their inquiries, comments, questions, or anything else, they will move to a different company. This will lose you revenue.
If, in parallel, you also start experiencing higher employee turnover, you will suddenly be faced with the huge costs involved in recruiting new talent.
All in all, the money loss that you may be suffering can be disastrous.
5) Poor competitiveness
Finally, it’s pretty obvious that if you have a poor customer communication management strategy, you are also risking losing business to your better-equipped rivals. Customer loyalty will not last if your customers don’t feel listened to or valued.
This, in turn, threatens your competitive edge to a degree that, in some cases, may not even be recoverable.
Good customer communication is an essential part of the PR industry
Having a clear, solid, and consistent customer communication management strategy is paramount for all companies, but especially for those in the PR industry, where interaction, communication, and engagement are key.
Whether by using goal software to plan and implement a new strategy, reviewing your internal policies, or deploying a more advanced CCM platform, as a PR company, you really need to ensure that you have a good customer communication management strategy in place.
