Personalized and Bi-Directional Communications for Enhanced CX

With the introduction of multiple purchase channels, customer purchase behavior has evolved in the last decade. Customers prefer personalized and bidirectional communication for a better experience and don’t mind paying more for exceptional customer service. A report from Epsilon says 80% of customers are more likely to purchase with a personalized experience. Making improvements in your Customer Experience Management Strategy, and centralizing customer communications will surely help in driving sales and fostering customer loyalty.

After all, who doesn’t like to be recognized in person and feel valued? Customers appreciate it when a business caters to their needs personally.

Personalized and Bidirectional Business Communications: A Glimpse

The two terms – Personalized and Bidirectional Communications holds significant importance for businesses in offering enhanced customer experience. Let’s define both of these and see how they can augment your business revenue cycle:

• Personalized Communications
  Personalization is a term that addresses unique customer needs and preferences. A personalized and hyper-personalized business experience aids in better conversion and gives brand credibility by offering the right product to the right consumers. Consumers today demand personalized experiences and recommendations based on their purchases.
  In this data-driven era, businesses use analytics and personal data to create a user experience suited to a specific individual. Cross-channel personalization, personalized chatbot, email, purl, SMS, video, and WhatsApp are instances of personalized communications in business.
• Bidirectional Communications
  Bidirectional is the term that refers to data flow from both directions. It means an exchange of information between business and customer. It’s an essential business tactic where messages are transmitted, and feedback is required to ascertain the received message. For surviving in the digital space, businesses must keep customers engaged through contextual communications.
  Business interactive bi-directional communications are evolving the ways businesses communicate and engage with their customers with the customized buying process, real-time interactions, and gathering of customer information. Bi-directional chatbots, email, pURL, SMS, and Whatsapp are examples of bidirectional business communications.

Thus, both terms may look different on the surface but are intertwined. Personalized bidirectional communications are the key to business success.

Some Insightful Statistics

Hyper-personalized communications make customers feel special with intuitive customer support and individualization by engaging with the brand and becoming loyal customers.
Customers with excellent individualized experiences are 3.5 times more likely to repurchase and recommend a company. Some similar statistics are mentioned below:

• 51% of customers leave a business with just one bad experience and never return to do business again.
• 75% of consumers are likely to buy from a retailer that recognizes them by name and provides recommendations based on past purchases.
• 74% of customers get annoyed with non-personalized website content.
• 63% of customers are disappointed with obsolete CX strategies of sending repeated generic ad messages.
• 63% of consumers will develop a positive perception of a brand if its content is valuable, relevant, or interesting.
• 59% of customers agree that personalization influences their shopping decision.

Apart from this, 62% of customers share their bad experiences with other professionals. On average, an unhappy customer will share his terrible experience with 15 other people, and the chain continues. Their thoughts and opinions may eventually reach your potential buyers, and they may refrain from availing of your services.

How are Personalised and Bidirectional Communications Implemented in a Business?

Great business communications can help in driving engagement. Here are some best practices that we are sharing to achieve a business collaboration through communications:

• Know Your Audience
  Building a successful brand is not possible without tailoring business communications to the audience’s needs. Business communications mean sharing personalized messages to audiences; thus, it demands a great understanding of their personal choices. Businesses without segmentation result in silos and information overload. Creating an emotional connection between customers and the brand ensures a great and improved customer experience.
• Opt for Omni-Channel Communications
  Omnichannel communications is the advanced form of multichannel approach to customer communications focusing on integrated customer experience through every channel of the message source. Businesses must ensure that all platforms and devices used by customers for their individual engagement are aligned with the same message, objective, and design for a seamless experience in gaining customer loyalty. Market research shows that brands that offer effective omnichannel communications retain 89% of their customers.
• Go for Micro-Segmentation
  Micro-segmentation means treating customers as individuals with their peculiar likes and dislikes rather than being a part of a group with similar choices. It contrasts with conventional segmentation, which is too generic and static for catering to customer needs.
  After segmenting and using the data for organizing customers with similar shopping needs, different customer personas or segments are created to apply specific personalization strategies. The deeper your segmentation, the more accurate your personalization is.
• Measure the Metrics
  Measuring the results driven by your communications efforts is one of the most important steps in business communications success. They help in identifying communication bottlenecks for holding back the execution of defined communications strategies. Without metrics, it is impossible to analyze and improve a strategy in times of need.
  Proper resources such as the KPIs aligned with your business goals can make a great communications strategy.

Personalization and Bidirectional Communications in Technological Landscape

Technology has transformed and has become an integral part of everyone’s lives. Yet, customer experience journeys can always be advanced by innovating device-based customer behaviors such as researching, finalizing sales, and getting in touch with businesses.
On-demand consistency, speed, and efficiency in customer service across channels inevitably lead to advanced customer support and satisfaction.

Customer Communications Management Platform

Here are some of the most common customer engagement platforms used for customer experience consulting:

• Company Website
  A website is the ultimate front where a brand and its offerings are displayed. Incorporating correspondence options over business websites, such as communications chatbots, conversational SMS, and other customer-related CCM tools, can substantially improve customer experience. With data-driven interaction, boosting conversions becomes easier by segmenting website visitors and redirecting them to personalized landing pages based on real-time analytics.
• Correspondence Email
  Most customers prefer using email communications rather than having a wait time on the phone. An efficient customer communications management software converts emails into tickets, tracks user information, and responds to queries within time.
• Social Media
  Social media has become a progressive CCM tool, and over 92% of people trust their peers’ opinions over advertisements. Social media interactions boost digital marketing efforts and aid in better complaint resolution.

How Can Personalised Bidirectional Communications Help Your Business?

The right communications strategy can change the face of your business. Real-time targeted communications help in sending relevant information to your customers. Here are the top reasons why business communications should be bidirectional and personalized:

• Achieving Greater ROI
  IDM’s study of personalization states that marketers identified a connection between personalization and email KPIs. 63% of customers agreed that personalization is effective with email KPIs and 56% of marketers believe that it can help in increasing sales. Increasing ROI is possible through product recommendations and XML feeds, suggesting products similar to those they bought.
• Boosting Customer Engagement
  Marketers have experienced positive effects of personalization in their campaigns with an 82% increase in open rates and 75% higher click-through rates. Interestingly, 40% of individuals infer that there is also a decrease in unsubscribes. Sending transactional emails tailored to customers’ preferences, profile information, and purchase behavior makes the content look more relevant.
• Improved Customer Journey
  Personalized communications can help in enhancing click-through rates. Keeping customer interests in check can impact the overall customer journey. Customer experience should be the starting point for the business communications strategy. Automation and personalization can help in first-person marketing. Creating highly targeted and tailored promotional communications can be a daunting task, but the benefits it offers with time are worthwhile.

FCI’s Personalised and Bidirectional CCM Solutions

FCI, a digital communication hub has been successfully offering practical and efficient customer communications business solutions. FCI’s Enterprise CCM solutions allow organizations to design, manage, deliver, and track highly personalized bidirectional communications across channels.
Powered by an Omnichannel Communications Hub, FCI has helped multi-national organizations in various sectors, namely banking, insurance, healthcare, financial services, and utilities. For decades, FCI, a CCM Vendor has helped several organizations achieve a competitive advantage for their transactional communications (batch, on-demand, and ad-hoc) with their customers.

Closing Thoughts on CX with Personalised Bidirectional Communications

Customers appreciate a high degree of personalization in their communications with brands. Great business communications are the foundation of a successful brand buildup. As a business owner, it is your top priority to drive customer engagement. With technology advancements, customer experience will become more personalized.

After all, business communications are all about the customer experiences you deliver!