13 Customer Communication Tools You Aren’t Using
Some brands can have a hard time hitting the mark when it comes to understanding their customers. What’s worse, they can even spend thousands of dollars just guessing if their messaging is on point.
With customer communication tools, it doesn’t need to be this way. In this article, I break down the software you should use to delight and gain insights from your customers.
Why You Must Understand Your Customer
With the rise of AI, content production has skyrocketed through the roof. While this is exciting for marketers, often, the customer is left behind in wondering why the email they are reading doesn’t address their needs.
This is how brands lose prospects or, worse, customers.
Here are just a few advantages to understanding your customer:
- Identify sales and marketing qualified leads, saving your sales team time.
- Marketing campaigns will have a better chance of meeting and exceeding targets.
- Anticipate your customer’s needs before they even have them – showing that you’re actually listening to them.
- Simply, to retain your customers and attract better ones.
Best Customer Communication Software
Personalized Video Software
There are more creative ways to communicate with customers than just the usual email. Personalized video gives that extra touch and shows your customers you took the effort to get to know them, and sometimes, that’s all it takes to get a response.
List of Video Software
- Loom – record short-form video with ease. Use these videos to record personalized videos for prospects and customers.
- Videoask – fun personalized video with the ability to add calls to action.
Social listening software
Stay in tune with your audience by implementing social listening software. Advantages include:
- Monitoring the online conversation: You can find out if your audience is mentioning your competitors or your brand and how the sentiment is based on the conversations.
- Identify customer needs: People can often be unfiltered online, especially on anonymous platforms. Collecting this feedback can help inform your future marketing efforts.
- Improve customer service: Are you seeing the same conversations about your brand’s lack of service in a particular area? These can become low-hanging fruit of issues to solve for your customers.
List of Social Listening Software
Chatbot software
Chatbots come in all different sizes now with the assistance of AI. Traditional chatbots were more logic based while the latest versions are fully trained through natural language processing.
The best chatbots have features that allow you to give help desk answers for customers as well as the ability to have a human jump in.
List of Chatbot Software
- Tidio – Best for combining AI and human support
- Crisp.chat – Best for small businesses – Read the Review
- Intercom – Best for enterprise, now powered with AI as well
- Chatbase.co – Great entry level NLP powered chatbot – Read the Review
Survey Software
This strategy has been around for decades and that’s because it works. Customers need to be given the chance to voice their experience and it’s often in the most positive and negative feedback, where you can find the gold nuggets.
Surveys let your brand:
- Get the necessary feedback for your product. This is particularly crucial for early start-ups.
- Measuring customer satisfaction. The best way to keep customers is to keep a pulse on what is and fix what isn’t working.
- Craft personalized experiences. By understanding what resonates with your customers, you have a higher chance to improve the “delight” factor with them.
List of Survey Software
- Tally.so – My all-time favorite form builder. If you’re a notion fan, this is the best form option.
- SurveyMonkey – The most customizable (and popular) survey software on the market
- Google Forms – Used by many corporations of all sizes due to its ease of use and straightforward UI
- Typeform – Best-designed forms on the market and widely supported integrations
Tips for Understanding Customers
We just went through a list of software to help you get in contact with your customers. Now let’s talk about what we can potentially do with the information we’ve learned.
Review Key Data Points
Particularly for e-commerce brands. Understanding purchase history and intent is key to understanding your customers. If you know a segment always purchases around the same time each year, consider a proactive approach in reaching out (even better if it’s personalized) and give them a special coupon code.
Avoid Overpersonalization
We’ve all been there. We clicked on a link in our Whatsapp group and suddenly we have sneaker ads following us around. It’s annoying.
Yes, it is possible to overdo personalization. Even something as simple as “Welcome back” can make people feel like they are being followed around on the internet.
Make sure you just do a sense check before sending out your communication and ask yourself, “will they wonder how we know this about them?” Which brings us to the next point.
Put Yourself in Their Shoes
By simply running through the same user experience as a prospect and customer, you can catch a lot of errors and issues. Just try it once before pressing the publish button on your campaign.
Ask open-ended Questions and Listen
You can learn a lot if you get a chance to listen to a customer in real-time. Ask questions like
- Why did you choose our product/service?
- Do you use a product similar to ours?
- What was the most frustrating thing about our product/service?
- Could you provide an example?
Wrapping up
In conclusion, understanding your customers is crucial for the success of your marketing efforts. By utilizing customer communication software, such as personalized video, you can gain valuable insights and connect with your audience in a more meaningful way.
By prioritizing customer understanding, you can improve sales, meet targets, anticipate needs, and ultimately retain and attract better customers.
