Read. Gather Ideas. Discuss.

How do you communicate as a business? How do you reach out to your customers? And what tools do you need to safely navigate through the labyrinth of individual customer needs and expectations that continue to grow more complex?

Digital transformation is tough but it’s worth it. As digital slowly becomes more ingrained in our ways of working and engaging with each other, new opportunities driven by progress show themselves nearly daily. On the long road to digital transformation, the first step to take is customer onboarding, causing this digital transformation to go hand in hand with improving your customer communications. 

There is more to modern customer communications than the message alone. Technology and customer expectations have seen to that. But with the rise of complexity also comes the opportunity to boost customer engagement in ways unseen before.

In last week’s blog we talked about how combining transactional and promotional communications or ‘transpromo’ creates promising perspectives for businesses to reach out to customers. Today we’ll go beyond. When made interactive, transpromotional communications show their true potential. By combining transactional and promotional content within actionable communications, the possibilities for the receiver suddenly manifold as he can pick, chose, consult, review or buy what he or she wants or needs. This is transactional communications 5.0 and the future of digital customer engagement.

We all have read these stories or seen them on TV: Men madly in love and blinded by romance skillfully ruining the biggest moments of their lives. While one is turned down by his girlfriend in a packed football stadium, another one sees his life savings go down the drain as he gets on one knee only to drop the ring in the sewer. And then there’s the guy who cleverly hides the ring in the dessert only to see his darling swallow it whole or almost choke on the diamond.

Every year since his wife gave birth to his son, our CTO David has been receiving emails from his health insurance fund informing him about breastfeeding and pregnancy ailments. Something’s off here. First of all, the department that sends out these emails should know that he’s a man. Secondly, he has been receiving this kind of emails for the past four years. His son is 3,5 now. They should know this as well.

You know what you are all about. You have got the expertise, the know-how. You have confidence in your products or are certain of the fact that your services outweigh those of the competition. But how do you get this message across? Via what channel to reach out to your target audience in order to sway them to rely on your services or buy your products and yours alone?

Over the past few weeks we covered the topic of user experience convenience. What is convenience? Why is customer convenience important, and moreover, how can you achieve and create convenience in your customer experience through customer communications?

Along with technology and the possibilities brought by big data and social media, customer expectations have come a long way. Customers understand that companies out there know a lot about them and in return they expect this to be demonstrated in how they are approached. They also understand that technology and the current digital era, enable companies to make their customer journey as pleasant as possible with individualized, actionable and relevant communications.

Keeping your customers around requires numerous skills. Like a great dad and his kids, we don’t like playing favorites. However, there is one important skill that stands out when your company is trying to create a great experience for your customers. That skill is communication.