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Are Your Customer Messages DOA?
Create A Strategy That Brings Them To Life
Companies face a variety of organizational and technical challenges when it comes to implementing an effective communications and messaging strategy. Linking the different silos of information a company has about its customers often requires a reexamination of business processes and a comprehensive strategy that goes beyond a simple message. To be truly successful, the creation of an effective messaging strategy must be a cross-functional exercise that incorporates marketing, customer support, IT, and other lines of business in a team effort to consolidate what each area knows about the customer.
An effective messaging strategy, when drilled down, is really all about the quality of the content. But who creates it? Who manages it? Are you sending customers information you want them to know, or are you letting customers tell you (through previous interactions) what information he or she wants to receive? To answer these questions, you need to take a step back and look carefully at your company's process flow.
It’s important to consider what channels to use to communicate with customers--paper, Web, telephone, front-line staff--as well as your customer touch points, such as direct mail, inserts, statements, and online interactions. Then, prioritize this information based on its ability to drive increased sales, customer retention, or improved customer value. Gathering this type of information will help get a unified view of the needs, preferences, and recent interactions with your customers. In doing so you can better personalize the content with relevant information and cross-product marketing. And you can customize the content and delivery more easily, making it possible to respond better to customer choices and options.
Once you assemble the content, use it wisely. With your information process on the road, the benefits reach everyone. An effective messaging strategy can bring benefits to the entire company. It can reduce document production costs (including inserts, direct mail, handling, and postage) and reduce calls to contact centers by doing a better job of providing customers with appropriate information. The real benefit comes from the simple fact that messages that are relevant to the recipient and delivered via its preferred method are valued and read. They tell customers you have taken the time to learn what is important to them--and you are using that information to have a dialogue with them. By putting a strategy in place to create personalized messages focused on growing the relationship, you are sure to deliver an experience that will benefit the customer and win you business.
For more marketing and publishing advise, contact O’NEIL Data Systems. Phone 866–659–0824, or email us at sales@oneildata.com.
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