the how-to of effective customer comms

All the personas and customer journey maps in the world won’t help you if your communication isn’t effective. So what is effective communication, and how does it affect the experience your customers have? Every piece of communication should start from the same principle:

Create easy-to-read, understandable communications so customers respond or act in a way that supports your brand’s objectives.

Clear communications means effectively providing the right information, to the right person, at the right time, in an easily understandable way.

Robert Linsky, Life Fellow, Communications Research Institute

A note on the rabbit hole ineffective communication can send customers down: it’s what leads to most customer dissatisfaction. Every customer can tell you about a time a brand failed them, either by not being clear about what was expected of them or, worse, by sending the wrong communication.

So how do you achieve great customer satisfaction? By taking the customer on a communication journey:

• Locate the information. Use great typography and visual cues to create a clear hierarchy of information.
• Is it relevant to me? Make it personal and directly relatable.
• Do I understand the information? Avoid complicated jargon and aim for plain English.
• Act on the information. Be clear about what the customer has to do with it. If nothing, why did they receive it in the first place?
• The result. The customer comes away satisfied and feeling positive towards the brand.

One more important point: content across every channel (paper, digital platforms, email, SMS) should be designed from the outset to be consistent and complementary.