Give your customers a reason to stay

If you want to reduce churn and turn your current customers into brand ambassadors, this article is for you. We have asked two of our colleagues to tell you about Customer Communication Management (CCM) and how it can help your business.

Jesper Møller Johansen is director of Business & Customer Excellence at Charlie Tango.

Jesper, what is CCM?

Basically, CCM is all kinds of communication you have with your existing customers. It is everything from financial statements and invoices to letters and text messages.

These are typically low-interest communication — both for customers and companies. And that is a mistake because we no longer need to send out boring letters — we have so many opportunities to make intelligent communication that we can customize and extract data from.

Jesper continues:

This figure depicts the customer journey most businesses hope to master: Attract customers, sell them a product, keep them engaged and happy. After that is achieved you can sell more stuff.

But many companies spend too much money and efforts on the left half of the graph — trying to land new customers or getting their existing ones to spend more money.

And, while great marketing campaigns, newsletters, and a strong social media presence is crucial, many often neglect the benefits they can reap from putting efforts into the other side of the loop which is important if you want your customers to stay.

Afterall, it is much more expensive to get a new customer than retaining an existing one.

Christian Staalby is Senior Client Service Director at Charlie Tango:

How does all this focus on better Customer Communication Management help businesses, Christian?

I can give you three great benefits that companies can reap from investing time and money in better CCM:

1. You can reduce churn
2. You can build loyalty
3. And you can offer relevant services and products to customers — when and where they need it

To reduce churn, you must reduce friction. If you give your customers too much hassle, they will go somewhere where they can get things done easier.

People hate hanging on the phone for ages to get in touch with a customer service representative. Many companies make it near-impossible to talk to them. And it sends a wrong signal if you are only available when your customers have their wallets out.

By building digital customer care solutions that leverage existing data on the individual customer, you can give them a personal, hassle-free experience. That makes them less prone to leaving.

Jesper, how does CCM build loyalty?

Customers have never had more options than they do today. They are happy to try another brand if yours does not deliver something extra. That is why great marketing and excellent customer communication management must go hand-in-hand.

First, you make your customers try your product. That is what your marketing is for. Then you give them a great experience with your company besides your product. Because we have moved on from paper to digital data to dynamic data, there are several ways you can do that:

1. Make it easy to get help from your company digitally

2. Make touchpoints with your company digital and easy-to-use

3. Make all levels of your communication easy to understand

So how is it precisely that Customer Communication Management can help a business sell more stuff? Christian explains:

Today more than ever, people seek tailored and customized experiences and products. By breaking down data silos and letting data flow between different departments, you can do just that.

Imagine you are an insurance company. Insurance is generally a low-interest area, where the only contact you have with your customers are when you send them bills or when they file an insurance claim. That makes the customer engagement non-sticky. But, by using the data you have on your customers, you can tailor the insurance to meet their needs.

And when you give them that unexpected offer or reduced premium, that is when customers feel like you know them and treat them well. And that is your ticket to sell them more stuff. Furthermore, they are a lot less likely to churn.