In a B2C Marketing department, the Marketing Manager manages user acquisition channels. Moreover, the Customer Relationships Manager or CRM Manager manages the communication channels within the customers and final users The final objective is to increase user retention and reduce customer churn.
Furthermore, the CRM Manager should know all existing user communication channels, their context, and objectives. The manager should also know how to measure them, aligning results with the company’s marketing strategy.
The main contexts for the communication with the customers are engagement, customer support and communications for the customer lifecycle management.
Customer communication channels for engagement
While the product team is mainly responsible for achieving engagement, the CRM Manager could design different strategies to achieve increases in engagement through the use of different communication channels. These strategies should also align with Product and Marketing strategies. For example, you can use a newsletter to inform customers about a product update, a push notification could include a promotion code or the company could use their blog or social networks to write about an event article for customers.
The main objectives for these communication channels are:
- Keep customers engaged.
- Getting customers to come back.
Metrics to evaluate these communication channels could be: number of reactivations, %reactivations by channel, open rate, click rate, etc. For example, with these metrics we could validate that 20% of our customers are repeating purchases through promotions published on the blog. We could also learn that push notifications drive more interaction than social networks.
Customer communication channels for the customer lifecycle.
The CRM team uses these communication channels to optimize the customer lifecycle. The CRM Manager must define defining the appropiate communications at the right time into the customer’s life to optimise the conversion funnel. For example, when doing an online purchase you should receive an email confirmation with purchase details. When experiencing a product for the first time, you should receive different messages to improve your onboarding experience.
All of these communications help to:
- Keep customers engaged.
- Get customers not to leave.
And they we can evaluate through the following metrics: session time, %drop-off by step, etc. For example, we could encourage purchases when the customer is most willing to buy.
Communication channels for customer support.
In addition, in any B2C business, there is always a customer support dedicated team, from call center, email, chat, etc. CRM Manager is responsible for defining all channels and customer care protocols for each case This aligns them with the company’s communication strategy. For example, Amazon instantly sends an “automatic-response” informing you when the team will assist you. In a call center, agents guide you through questions depending on your problem.
Main objectives for customer support are:
- Keep customers satisfied.
- Getting customers to come back and getting customers not to leave.
Possible measurement metrics could be: number of call entries, %entries by channel, satisfaction surveys, etc. For example, we could define that less of 1% of our customers are getting in touch with us to inform about problems or that 70% of the queries are related to incidents or complaints.
We cannot classify a communication channel into a single context as any channel could be used in any context and different purposes. For example, you can use a push notification for engagement, customer support and lifecycle management at the same time. It is an issue for the CRM Manager to define the strategy and objectives for each communication channel.