What Can Proactive Customer Communication Do for Your Business?

Your customers want to hear from you—probably more than you realize. But what can proactive customer communication do for your business?

I took a sneak peek at some new data on proactive customer communication that examines how companies are using outbound communications and the valuable results they achieved. It’s part of a research study conducted by Forrester that Genesys commissioned.

The study shows that companies are proactively sending, on average, nine different types of communications to their customers using a variety of channels. The breadth of these communications being sent throughout the customer journey is not surprising.

Think of when and how the companies you do business with proactively communicate with you: sales promotions, new customer welcome, product updates, appointments and billing reminders, outage notifications, fraud alerts, customer satisfaction surveys, loyalty programs, and more. These helpful and timely communications, when done well, can be game-changers in optimizing customer experience. How does your organization compare?

Why is Proactive Customer Communication a Priority?

It always comes back to the customer. The Forrester survey found that 65% of responding organizations are prioritizing keeping customers proactively informed about their accounts, products, and services. The top objective is improving customer satisfaction—and they are seeing great results!

Proactively communicating with customers is a critical element of omnichannel engagement. In fact, 36% of organizations are using outbound communications to streamline customer journeys. This eliminates the need for customers to reach out to other parts of the organization for updates. Engaging, educating, and updating customers by proactively delivering timely, relevant, and individualized communications over their preferred channels is a cornerstone of delivering a low-effort customer experience.

Reap the Financial Rewards

Keeping customers informed about their accounts and the products and services they use is proven to benefit bottom-line profitability. As you can see in the chart below, the Forrester data points to a direct correlation between proactive customer communication and profit-creating attributes by improving satisfaction, growing revenue, lowering costs, and creating efficiencies.

The Forrester research study also defines a new maturity model of proactive customer communication. This maturity model reveals that organizations that have incorporated higher degrees of omnichannel engagement into their proactive customer communication strategies are realizing greater benefits than those who have not yet done so. These organizations typically send more types of communications, and also offer more opportunities for customers to opt in. They are also more effective at sharing customer information and contextual data across channels and interactions. The result is a more seamless and holistic customer experience.

Proactive customer communication is a critical part of a successful omnichannel engagement strategy. Find out how much outbound can help improve your customers’ experience and create new business advantages today.

To learn more, watch the on-demand webinar with our guest Art Schoeller, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research. He will take a deep dive into the Forrester research and share the findings on proactive customer communication, to include usage, benefits, and how omnichannel maturity fits into your strategy.