Customer communication should be primarily about customers. Yes, it sounds obvious—but in practice, this is not always the case. Customer communication is a very powerful tool for building a better Customer Experience. So why not take full advantage of it?
People generally do not like being forced into anything, and customer communication is no exception. Of course, there are messages that you must deliver to customers. When it comes to an invoice for used services or products, there is little room for personal preferences. But what if, after the invoice is paid, you also send the customer an SMS thanking them for timely payment?
In such a case, this is a type of message that goes beyond strictly necessary communication, and not every customer welcomes it with enthusiasm. For one customer, it may serve as confirmation that the payment was successfully processed; for another, it may be a completely unnecessary—or even annoying—SMS, as they can simply check their payment history.
We conducted a quick poll on LinkedIn to see how our audience feels about messages of this type. Naturally, LinkedIn users are far from representing the full spectrum of customers. Nevertheless, the results confirmed findings from other, much more robust studies of customer behavior.
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As we can see, the vote was almost evenly split. What does this tell us?
- It does make sense to send messages of this type— for a significant share of customers, they are useful.
- The key is to distinguish who wants to receive such messages and who does not. Customers should be given the option to unsubscribe or to set preferences for receiving similar notifications, ideally in a simple way, with just a few clicks.
- If we send SMS payment confirmations, we should avoid the temptation to enrich them with offers for additional products or services.
- It also important to combine email and SMS appropriately, depending on the content and the customer’s preferences.
Companies should have a clear overview of which communication channels their customers prefer. They should be able to respond to these requirements flexibly and have tools at their disposal that allow them to set parameters quickly and easily.
In our solutions, we use the Omnichannel Manager, which enables simple configuration of digital communication processes. The advantage is that these digital processes can be managed directly by business owners of individual agendas, without the need to submit requests to IT for implementation. They can configure what to send, to whom, and how, distinguish between different types of events, customer segments, and their preferences— all in just a few clicks and with immediate effect.
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Česká podnikatelská pojišťovna, part of the international insurance group Vienna Insurance Group, serves more than 1 million clients and manages over 1.8 million insurance contracts. With more than one million insured vehicles, it has become the third-largest provider of this type of insurance in the Czech Republic.
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