8 Ways to Improve Online Communications

July 7, 2004 •

1.) Create a common customer interface - Ask yourself: how many online customer communication vehicles does your organization currently deploy? Think about it. Systems in use today commonly include: email, websites, chat, surveys, product management systems, FAQ’s, customer only locations, news, and much more. These systems are most commonly deployed in a decentralized manner with different access points, look and feel, and results. The results can confuse customers who can become frustrated, lost on websites and impatient. The answer is clear:

Organizations today need to create a more common customer interface for online communication that is both easy to find and easy to use.
Work to remove any system or process that appears contrary to the common look and feel of your company. When you meet with your customers, you commonly don’t wear another company’s shirt. So why would you do the same thing online?

2.) Centralize customer communication - One of the challenges faced by customers today is the ability to efficiently and effectively find and operate online communication vehicles that are often uniquely dispersed or inefficiently placed throughout each company’s website. The larger the company, the more often a customer feels like a mouse trying to find cheese in this maze of communication locations. Once a customer finds these vehicles, they are often faced with the redundancy of repeated data entry and control. The more disjointed systems the customer sees the more confused and impatient they may become. The answer:

Implement an online customer centric communication strategy which includes deployments of centralized communication vehicles that are easy to find online and accommodates the various communication preferences your customers may have.
Make such steps as login, data entry, and time to communicate as limited as possible. The last thing a customer wants online is to be triaged, put on hold, and talked to by inferiors like they expect from 800#’s. Value your customers time to access and communicate as you would value your own.

3.) Provide communication value to your customers - With the growing number of online communication vehicles offered today, it is amazing that so few companies choose to adopt these means of customer communication despite their customers’ desires to utilize them. If most companies today would take a census of their customer base, they would be amazed to find how little they offer in value to their customers when it comes to their ability and desires to communicate with them. The answer:

Better understand your customers’ communication preferences before you provide the means and processes to communicate with them.
Provide multiple means of communication to meet the various preferences and needs your customers may have.

4.) Remove asymmetrical technology & processes - Customer feedback and communication is not an asymmetrical process yet many businesses still continue to operate that way. Customers want their voices to be heard AND receive recognition for their contributions. But many organizations today continue to provide vehicles such as phone, email and web-forms, each of which contributes to creating disincentives for customers to communicate with them in the future. The results are a lessening of customer contact, thereby creating the false impression that "nothing is wrong." However, the results are completely different. If you are not actively listening to your customers, then you can bet your competition is! The answer:

Deploy systems and processes to respond rapidly to customer communication. Customer communication will only increase when your receptiveness increases as well.
Respond to customer input as if it were your own. Treat customers as you would like to be treated in the same manner.
Provide customer response and access to resolutions virtually from the same contact point as it was provided. If they can easily find communication points, they can a just as easily find the resolution as well.

5.) Minimize system overhead & costs - This might sound contrary to improving customer communication but it is not. Think about it. Take an inventory of ALL the systems and services in use today that interface with your customers. You might be surprised at how many there are, how many resources are needed to operate them, and what each costs to own and operate. In most cases, organizations tend to deploy overlapping and redundant systems and services that do not serve the customer in the most effective manner. In other words, a company will spend large amounts of money to create a "single" entity yet continue to interact with customers in a disparate manner. The answer:

Audit ALL systems and use and look for alternatives and consolidation.
Internalize total systems cost of ownership on a monthly and annual basis so you can understand your organizational opportunity cost and effectiveness.

6.) Make efforts to close the Aged Information Gap™ - How old is the customer information you receive? Are your future decisions based on customer information obtained from historical feedback? Most organizations today make the wrong decisions because their projections are made on old customer information that becomes increasingly useless. This is what we call the Aged Information Gap™, or the distance between relevant and obsolete information. Most customer communication vehicles in use today involve delayed correspondence, reporting on multiple tiers, and the inevitable problem of information arriving last in the hands of those who need it the most. The answer:

Make efforts to remove comprehensive annual and quarterly customer surveys and replace them with more timely surveys and information that allow for better trending and up to the minute analysis. Remember, a lot can change even in one day - let alone a year!
Only deploy communication vehicles that allow for real-time access and analysis. Printed reports are just as dead as the trees they are written on.

7.) Provide executive overview - The management chain often removes the executive from the customer - the larger the organization, the farther the removal. Yet it is the executive who must make the strategic decisions that effect the entire organization and therefore must have the timely and accurate information to make good decisions. So when customers speak, who exactly is listening? Ask yourself: Is the critical and timely customer information your company receives getting to those who need it when they need it the most? The answer:

Provide real-time access points to customer communication that executives will use. How should it look? Well, look at the reports you currently provide executives and ask them what they find most valuable in them.
Remove time sensitive communication for reporting and other manual processes that delay the transmission of data and make them virtual with full access to ALL information. Your management can then gain by having the information they need when they need it and you can gain by not having to produce any more manual reports.

8.) View communication as an asset, not a liability - Companies who ultimately fail do so because they fail to provide value to their customers. When value is lost, customers seek out new opportunities for value. The earliest signs of a loss of customer value ultimately come from the customer. If a customer cannot influence a company as to how value can be provided to them by their organization, he/she will seek out one that can. Only when a significant number of customers leave do many organizations make efforts to understand why. This is the end result for many companies who take customer communication for granted. The answer:

Make efforts to encourage ALL customer communication (both good and bad) and place the same emphasis on customer feedback just as you would sales. After all, your sales will ultimately depend on it!
Treat customer feedback and communication as if it was provided by you. Once you treat customer communication with respect and recognition, you will open further doors of opportunity that only your customers can provide.

8 Ways to Improve Online Communications

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