The world has steadily been moving online for the past two decades. The COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating this move and is aggressively pushing the transition from offline to online—to digitize manual processes in an effort to minimize risk and maximize customer relationships.
This has become evident globally with most employees working from home on their laptops, and all forms of communication happening virtually.
The days of physical connections like handshakes and sit-down meetings have been replaced with virtual ones like emails, Zoom calls and Teams meetings.
Nothing but Exceptional Customer Experiences Will Do
Because of lockdowns and social-distancing measures, customers have come to rely upon online, digital brands during the COVID-19 crisis. With so many customers interacting with brands known for providing exceptional customer service, customer expectations have risen, and nothing but exceptional customer experiences will do.
In fact, a report from Microsoft on the global state of customer service indicates that 61 percent of customers have ceased to do business with a brand due to a poor customer experience. Customers today expect a highly personalized experience when they interact with a brand, through all of its channels—physical and digital—and that’s not likely to change post-COVID.
All Signs Point to Personalization
Customers have higher expectations than ever for brands, and generic, untimely and irrelevant content causes frustration and fatigue. On the other hand, accurate, timely and personalized interactions help to reinforce customer satisfaction and increase lifetime value.
Now comes the question: How can you continue to foster exceptional customer experiences when interactions shift from physical to digital? The answer: personalized customer communications.
Personalized communications are the key to bringing back that emotional bond we all felt when we shook a hand, looked at a colleague eye-to-eye or opened a handwritten envelope.
The ability to provide personalized communications across all of a brand’s channels requires the use of technology that unifies all of the data that has been created throughout the customer journey. Typically this is facilitated through the use of Customer Communications Management (CCM) technology.
Customer Communications Management Solutions Hold the Key to Personalization
Customer communications management solutions combined with transaction data hold the key to personalization.
While it sounds easy, the real challenge for most organizations lies in simplifying all of the complexities involved in harnessing data produced by a multitude of other applications and applying business logic and formatting to that data in such a way that non-technical, business users—not just IT personnel—can easily assemble, generate and deliver communications that are accurate, timely and personalized to each customer.
This must be done quickly, accurately, at high volumes and cost-effectively over and over again. This is exactly what you can do with Customer Communications Management technology.
Long after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, the customer will still be king. The customers of tomorrow will expect a highly personalized service experience, a speedy response and resolution to their inquiries, an empathetic human touch and a positive emotional connection with a brand—24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Success will come to those brands that focus on personalization at scale as customers are increasingly in control of the experience and expect high degrees of personalization.