Business Communication Strategy! Is it a strategy that works?
A businesses’ success is contingent upon its ability to interact with its clients effectively. To offer outstanding experiences and build brand loyalty, interactions must be clear, succinct, and constantly on-brand.
When client encounters fall short of these norms, it is often due to the failure of well-intentioned communication techniques. This occurs regularly and incurs significant costs for businesses by degrading the customer experience (CX), making it more difficult for workers to do their jobs, and resulting in delays in fulfilling corporate goals.
For example, even before the COVID-19 epidemic began, experts calculated that badly written communication costs firms an astounding $400 billion per year.
The pre-pandemic dilemma confronting businesses already emphasised the need of improving communication between enterprises, their customers, and their personnel.
Now, developing trends, many of which have been worsened by the epidemic, are increasing the cost that businesses pay as a result of inadequate communication — but also the value they can gain by addressing it.
How COVID-19 rapidly changed the landscape and client expectations
Global disruption — fuelled by expanding technology, shifting demographics, and, most recently, COVID-19 — is transforming consumer habits, upending business processes, and placing unprecedented expectations on staff.
Customers’ wants and habits have changed dramatically during the last year. E-commerce has exploded in popularity and now accounts for more than 16% of all sales in the United States.
In only two months, digital adoption surged fivefold and is predicted to continue in 2022.
With more consumers engaging across more digital platforms, retaining their loyalty is more difficult than ever. Additionally, consumers are holding businesses to a higher standard; 67% want businesses to anticipate their needs, and 38% are likely to discontinue doing business with a firm entirely if its attempts are inauthentic.
As a consequence of these shifting expectations, firms are confronted with unprecedented degrees of complexity as they strive to respond to client requests more quickly and effectively. Many businesses have decentralised operations and used an increasing variety of digital technologies in an effort to retain interaction with staff and customers as a result of the epidemic. Yet excellent written communication is sometimes dismissed as too intangible or as a “soft talent” that may be addressed by specialised training, despite its critical role in successful company operations.
Additionally, working in an increasingly distant, varied setting — while yet being held to the same standards — places additional stresses on employee engagement and performance. To this purpose, efficient communication must also be directed towards internal teams, with a special emphasis on meeting the requirements of workers who speak English as a second language. Employee and customer experiences are inextricably linked, and firms must communicate effectively on both an internal and external level to foster cross-functional cooperation and consistency.
What company and customer experience executives must understand is that overcoming these obstacles requires excellent communication. As more communication occurs across an increasing variety of digital platforms, the cost of inefficient communication affects every aspect of the company — just as the advantages of excellent communication generate value throughout the organisation.
Why it is worth investing in communication strategy for your business
Effective communication, especially in written form, is critical to the success of any customer-facing firm. Rapidly developing interesting, high-quality content immediately contributes to success in marketing and sales. For support, replying to clients through clear, effective written communication expedites the resolution of customer concerns and reduces the cost per support ticket. Delivering a consistently high level of communication across all customer-facing teams and channels enhances the customer experience and the significance of a company’s brand for its customers.
As the corporate environment continues to develop and exacerbate the issues teams face, it’s important to rethink investments in effective communication. The financial cost of ineffective communication is increasing in lockstep with a negative impact on the customer experience. There are new technologies and artificial intelligence capabilities available to enhance communication that was not accessible five years ago. And many workers are already attempting to resolve communication challenges on their own via the use of consumer-oriented items in the workplace.
Consider a few business scenarios. One of the top worldwide customer experience management firms recently implemented an AI-powered writing assistant to enhance the quality of customer support contacts, resulting in a 17% increase in customer happiness and a 22% increase in efficiency. How? They witnessed quicker ticket resolution, a higher number of problems addressed, and an overall better customer experience as a result of their improved response and connection with consumers the first time.
Another leading consulting business that advises Fortune 1000 companies needs to generate more attractive research reports and marketing materials for senior buyers. However, it was difficult to keep up with the rapid rate of production and the increasing quantity of materials required. By combining an AI-powered writing assistant with newly established AI-based grading criteria for written communications, the business enhanced productivity by 66 per cent and completed 500+ new projects in a year.
Measuring Return on Investment (ROI) on more effective communication strategy
The first step is to acknowledge that written communication is an increasingly critical mode of corporate communication. The second is to acknowledge that assessing the potential benefit of investments in communication improvement begins with the critical performance measures.
Then, by approaching the value at stake from an outcomes-based lens, leaders may begin by asking three questions:
- What are the most critical business outcomes for my function? (For example, client retention/growth, sales productivity, reduced service costs, and recruiting speed, among others.)
- Which aspects of everyday written communication impair performance? (For example, interactions that are off-tone/off-brand, proposal development delays, declines in first-contact resolution, and ambiguous or non-inclusive job ads)
- What happens if the issue is not addressed? (Examples include trade-offs between customer experience and cost savings, slower growth and productivity, greater attrition, pushed or lost sales, growing service expenses, and delayed recruiting.)
If you identify one or more company goals that are jeopardised as a result of written communication challenges, there is very certainly considerable value to be achieved by resolving them. For far too long, businesses, consumers, and workers have quietly suffered the cost of inefficient communication, and the costs are increasing. On the plus side, there is substantial value waiting to be discovered.
Making your communication strategy future proof
Customers have less time and attention to devote to brand interactions these days, so businesses must get their connection right every time. However, this is easier said than done in light of the many growing issues confronting companies, and in this context, immaculate grammar and spelling are required.
By establishing really effective, engaging communication both inside and outside the company, business and customer experience executives can position themselves advantageously for the next year and ultimately provide a superior customer experience that benefits the bottom line.
When is the last time your business reviewed its communications strategy?
Does your business even have one?
Have you empowered your staff with the tools and templates they need to be able to adequately communicate with customers in a manner befitting of your brand?
Do your automated emails read as though a robot wrote them?
If you are scared of the amount of money ineffective communication is costing your business, contact Content Hype today and book a time to discuss your communication strategy.
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