Fixing A Fractured Customer Communication Experience
One of the few positive outcomes from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic has been the accelerated shift to digital channels. Suddenly, organizations were dealing with new (inexperienced) users, adding channels, catering for heavier demand and a daunting digital transformation “to do” list.
Alongside this flurry of activity, the digital communication team had to not only keep up with increased demand, but also ensure that their messages were appropriate to the shift in the communication baseline.
It’s no wonder that communications can become out of sync – in tone, design and message – when there is just so much to do. When this happens, it creates a fractured customer experience (CX), which does nothing for the customer’s sense of brand consistency and familiarity, in fact, it can actually cause anxiety and mistrust instead.
Customers expect each and every communication they receive from a brand to be consistent, regardless of the intention of the communication, the channel used or which department happens to send it.
This is all fine and well, but when you’re operating in a crisis, your goal is to get the right messages out there, then you can focus on the packaging later. This is why you need a digital communication maturity framework
Complete a communication health audit
Communications that are not aligned with each other or display a different tone, design or brand voice create discord within the customer’s view of the organization. To resolve this, your organization must have a strategy to improve the consistency of communication.
A good way to approach this is to first identify the starting point and you can do this by completing a digital communication health audit. This involves the following steps:
- Map existing digital communication touchpoints
- Identify both the gaps and the high priority touchpoints
- Review key elements, such as value proposition, tone, branding and frequency
- Create digital guidelines to ensure consistent, on-brand messages across the board
The objective of the audit is to identify quick-win projects that will remove the negative effects of fractures.
Building a longer-term digital communication strategy
The next phase would be to create a longer-term strategy to enhance your digital communication. This can be done through a Digital Communication Maturity Framework.
A digital maturity framework provides a picture of how your organization compares in an increasingly competitive, digitally savvy industry.
A digital communications maturity framework provides a picture of how your communication stacks up.
Fortunately, if you have completed a digital communication health audit, you’ve already taken a major step in the maturity framework process. This is the starting point from which to define a transformation plan, set goals, create roadmaps and then measure your success.
