Why Businesses Should Look To Proactive Communication For CX Enhancements In 2019

Why Businesses Should Look To Proactive Communication For CX Enhancements In 2019

Why Businesses Should Look To Proactive Communication For CX Enhancements In 2019

With the rise of new technologies, consumers expect more direct and efficient methods of customer service.

By ALYE CHAISSON

Consumers and businesses have many channels to communicate through: phone calls, emails, social media, or others. There is a growing focus towards improving customer experience and using the right communication channels for the right messages. Consumers take notice of how a business interacts with them.

They particularly take notice when they feel a business’ customer service is inconvenient, untimely, or impersonal. The solution: enabling a business to engage proactively with their consumers using direct communication. A business taking action and reaching out before the customer is forced to come to them with a problem. A company’s ability to communicate directly and effectively to their consumer has become the main factor in whether a company fails or succeeds.

Forrester research shows CX will be akey battlegroundfor business differentiation in 2019. Their Customer Experience Index highlighted widespread, mediocre CX with little improvement for the third year in a row. “Meanwhile, customer expectations have been rising slowly but steadily. In the current favorable economy, it’s likely that this will continue, pressuring firms to improve CX just to keep from falling back even further,” says Harley Manning, Vice President, Research Director at Forrester. This year companies will have to take the reins and actively work to improve their customer experiences. That will mean actively engaging with customers to send the right information at the right time.

“Be it customer service, product quality or just the way the customers feel about the companies they do business with, customer experience rises to the top of whether or not the customer will decide to keep doing business with a brand.”

— Shep Hyken

Increasing Efficiency While Improving Experiences

In today’s fast-paced world, it is easy for a person to forget about the appointment they made a month ago. Unfortunately for businesses, when an appointment is missed it means a negative customer experience, as well as a decrease in efficiency and a loss in revenue. In the case of medical appointments, quality of patient care decreases because of conflicting schedules and the high probability of being rescheduled to a different doctor. Time is wasted for the doctors and nurses who sat around waiting for a no-show patient — time that could have been used to treat another patient and increase efficiency at their office.

According to theToronto General Hospital,practices where patients are not reminded of their appointments had around a25% rate of missed appointments,while practices where reminders were sent via either phoned reminders or emails saw a rate of missed appointmentsdecrease to 10-12%.Today people are more likely to see a text message with the facts quickly and clearly stated than answer an unknown number phone call.

Enhancing CX

By offering proactive communication to customers like status updates and notifications, businesses begin to communicate important information as needed, without requiring tiresome consumer-initiated check-ins and avoiding customer enquiries that diminish the overall customer experience. The best customer engagement begins when every message ties directly back to empowering consumers.

Customer communication in the digital age shouldn’t be simply sending messages but should allow customers to take action, i.e. pay debts, avoid lengthy phone calls, solve problems. At Zappix, we take this need to empower customers to heart. It’s at the core of products like Outbound Engagement that gives businesses the power to communicate directly to their consumers and in return enables the consumers to act on those notifications. Outbound Engagement allows businesses today to proactively send messages – via email, text message or other channels – to consumers regarding appointment reminders, bill payments, promotional follow-ups, and more through instantly interactive visual interfaces. Instead of simply notifying patients of upcoming appointments, Outbound Engagement sends a reminder and connects to medical providers’ schedules, letting patients confirm, cancel, and reschedule their appointments directly from the reminder.

Direct, Engaging Communication Is The Future Of CX

By creating a direct line from companies to their consumers, businesses are able to enhance the customer experience. Zappix’s Outbound Engagement increases efficiency and enhances the customer experience. Zappix clients use the platform in medical centers to automatically and proactively send information regarding appointments with patients through text or email to reduce no-shows. Outbound Engagement is also in use at debt collection services where texts and emails are sent to large distribution lists to actively engage the debt collection process and connect with the debtors. By enabling businesses to engage with their consumers, by acting proactively, and by doing so in a simple and engaging way, a consumer’s experience greatly benefits and a business’s efficiency and revenue increase.

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Why Businesses Should Look To Proactive Communication For CX Enhancements In 2019

With the rise of new technologies, consumers expect more direct and efficient methods of customer service.

By ALYE CHAISSON

Consumers and businesses have many channels to communicate through: phone calls, emails, social media, or others. There is a growing focus towards improving customer experience and using the right communication channels for the right messages. Consumers take notice of how a business interacts with them.

They particularly take notice when they feel a business’ customer service is inconvenient, untimely, or impersonal. The solution: enabling a business to engage proactively with their consumers using direct communication. A business taking action and reaching out before the customer is forced to come to them with a problem. A company’s ability to communicate directly and effectively to their consumer has become the main factor in whether a company fails or succeeds.

Forrester research shows CX will be akey battlegroundfor business differentiation in 2019. Their Customer Experience Index highlighted widespread, mediocre CX with little improvement for the third year in a row. “Meanwhile, customer expectations have been rising slowly but steadily. In the current favorable economy, it’s likely that this will continue, pressuring firms to improve CX just to keep from falling back even further,” says Harley Manning, Vice President, Research Director at Forrester. This year companies will have to take the reins and actively work to improve their customer experiences. That will mean actively engaging with customers to send the right information at the right time.

“Be it customer service, product quality or just the way the customers feel about the companies they do business with, customer experience rises to the top of whether or not the customer will decide to keep doing business with a brand.”

— Shep Hyken

Increasing Efficiency While Improving Experiences

In today’s fast-paced world, it is easy for a person to forget about the appointment they made a month ago. Unfortunately for businesses, when an appointment is missed it means a negative customer experience, as well as a decrease in efficiency and a loss in revenue. In the case of medical appointments, quality of patient care decreases because of conflicting schedules and the high probability of being rescheduled to a different doctor. Time is wasted for the doctors and nurses who sat around waiting for a no-show patient — time that could have been used to treat another patient and increase efficiency at their office.

According to theToronto General Hospital,practices where patients are not reminded of their appointments had around a25% rate of missed appointments,while practices where reminders were sent via either phoned reminders or emails saw a rate of missed appointmentsdecrease to 10-12%.Today people are more likely to see a text message with the facts quickly and clearly stated than answer an unknown number phone call.

Enhancing CX

By offering proactive communication to customers like status updates and notifications, businesses begin to communicate important information as needed, without requiring tiresome consumer-initiated check-ins and avoiding customer enquiries that diminish the overall customer experience. The best customer engagement begins when every message ties directly back to empowering consumers.

Customer communication in the digital age shouldn’t be simply sending messages but should allow customers to take action, i.e. pay debts, avoid lengthy phone calls, solve problems. At Zappix, we take this need to empower customers to heart. It’s at the core of products like Outbound Engagement that gives businesses the power to communicate directly to their consumers and in return enables the consumers to act on those notifications. Outbound Engagement allows businesses today to proactively send messages – via email, text message or other channels – to consumers regarding appointment reminders, bill payments, promotional follow-ups, and more through instantly interactive visual interfaces. Instead of simply notifying patients of upcoming appointments, Outbound Engagement sends a reminder and connects to medical providers’ schedules, letting patients confirm, cancel, and reschedule their appointments directly from the reminder.

Direct, Engaging Communication Is The Future Of CX

By creating a direct line from companies to their consumers, businesses are able to enhance the customer experience. Zappix’s Outbound Engagement increases efficiency and enhances the customer experience. Zappix clients use the platform in medical centers to automatically and proactively send information regarding appointments with patients through text or email to reduce no-shows. Outbound Engagement is also in use at debt collection services where texts and emails are sent to large distribution lists to actively engage the debt collection process and connect with the debtors. By enabling businesses to engage with their consumers, by acting proactively, and by doing so in a simple and engaging way, a consumer’s experience greatly benefits and a business’s efficiency and revenue increase.