How Critical Are Meaningful Conversations?
Sometimes it feels like meaningful conversations between a brand and a consumer are difficult to come by. But no matter how difficult, success is essential. About 63% of customers say they are likely to stop working with companies that cannot meet their expectations in the way they communicate, which could mean factual errors or complicated messages.
The study, The State of Meaningful Customer Conversations, reveals that everything from tone to timing can have a major impact on the relationship. Survey participants were presented with 11 elements and asked to rank them in importance.
James Brown, CEO of Smart Communications, is not surprised that consumers have high expectations when it comes to businesses keeping the message on track.
Consumers said it is critical for companies to make communications easy to understand and read, and error free, but they also want to receive information in their preferred method rather than the company’s.
In fact, 63% of customers are likely to switch vendors that do not meet their expectations. Even more telling, companies are putting themselves at risk if they don’t consider recent customer interactions when developing new communications.
About 30% said a failure to refer to recent interactions could influence a decision to work with a different vendor.
Some 59% of UK and 50% of U.S. consumers pointed to communications that contain errors as a key reason why they might switch working with a company.
About 50% of UK and 48% of U.S. consumers cited possibly changing the company difficulty in understanding the message, followed by 45% of UK and 32% of U.S. reported irrelevant messages., while messages being sent at the wrong time were reported by 36% in the UK and 37% in the U.S., and messages that don’t consider recent interactions at 32% in the UK and 29% in the U.S.
Some 61% of U.S. and 48% of UK consumers said they would share more data with a company if it demonstrated the use of data to make communications more meaningful.
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