“Meet your customers where they are.” If you’ve ever been in any type of customer-facing role during your career, I’m positive you’ve heard this phrase countless times. So, where are your customers in the age of digital customer engagement channels?
Are they living inside their email inboxes?
Well, we hope they are, because we really want them to open and read and click all the emails we send them! (Raise your hand if you just had this thought. No judgment, I promise.)
Do you live inside your email inbox?
No? So why would your customers? And, if your customers are not, in fact, living inside their email inboxes, why would you rely so heavily on email as a digital engagement channel to interact with them?
Don’t get me wrong, I love a strong email campaign when it’s done with intentionality and personalization. And I completely understand that when you’re just starting to build a digital customer success strategy and program, email is often the simplest, fastest low-hanging fruit. But digital customer success is more than just sending automated emails. With so many other channels at our disposal, it’s well past time for customer success leaders to think more creatively about reaching their customers where they are.
How? By using channels outside of email, of course! Here are my top four favorite alternative digital engagement channels for customer success teams.
1: In-app notifications and guides
You want your customers to be in your product using it as much as possible, so communicate with them there! It’s no accident that I placed this first on my list, in-app is one of the absolute most effective digital engagement channels for CS teams out there. My favorite way to describe the concept of in-app communication is to say “it’s like Microsoft’s Clippy from the 90’s, only actually helpful.”
ChurnZero’s in-app tools help you reach customers when they’re at their most engaged, within your own product.
The goal of in-app messaging should generally focus around educating your customers and guiding them through your product. It tends to be especially impactful during onboarding, as the right messages and guides, shown to new customers based on their behavior in your platform, can help them quickly and easily get up to speed and start making your technology a part of their routine. While not the primary purpose, this channel can also come in very handy during urgent, time-sensitive situations, such as notifying customers of an outage.
Whether you utilize in-app functionality in your favorite customer success platform, or your product team has already built this capability into your product natively, it’s an absolute no-brainer!
2: Casual conversation tools
I’m always tempted to title this category as “chat,” but I don’t want any confusion between interpersonal chat tools like Slack, WhatsApp, and SMS text message, versus chatbots. While chatbots are an increasingly common and effective automation option, I tend to think of them more as a reactive customer support tool than one for proactive customer success. So, I want to focus on the other messaging channels I mentioned instead.
When used thoughtfully, casual chat channels like Slack, WhatsApp, and text message can be incredibly impactful in effectively communicating with your customers. This can be controversial, I know, especially since I’ve included channels that are generally considered “personal” rather than “professional.” But remember, your customers already live in these spaces everyday, so this is really the ultimate in “meeting your customers where they are.”
3: Customer community
I love customer communities because they offer a one-to-many structure but are absolutely filled to the brim with personal connection. Since a lack of human-to-human contact is such a common knock on digital strategies, this is a great channel for those who are concerned about their customer interactions feeling too impersonal.
Communities aren’t new, to be certain, but have shifted over time from almost exclusively being owned and managed by marketing teams, to now frequently being implemented and run by customer success. This shift has been prominent over the last several years, with the annual Customer Success Leadership Study reporting that while just 24% of CS organizations utilized community in 2020, this had jumped to 32% by 2023.
ChurnZero redesigned its customer community to put organic engagement and useful content front and center.
If you have an existing customer community that’s run by marketing, support, product (or someone else entirely), this can be a great example of meeting your customers where they are. On the other hand, if you’re starting from scratch, you may end up with more of a “if you build it, they will come” mentality.
4: Video content
Alright, so video isn’t technically a delivery channel, but rather a medium that should be included in your digital strategy. But it’s worth mentioning on this list because it really can be that valuable. Videos can be delivered through any and all of the channels I’ve already mentioned (and yes, via email too.)
Training modules, product tips, live and recorded webinars, video case studies, even automated executive business reviews (EBRs) in the form of animated videos – these are all innovative ways to use video to take your digital customer success to the next level.
So, are you ready to break out of your email (in)box? I know your customers are! They want to interact with you on their terms, in the places they already are (or the places they want to be). Happy automating!
Marley Wagner is a freelance Digital Customer Success Consultant and Fractional Chief Marketing Officer. Her work centers on helping B2B tech companies increase revenue and accelerate growth with both prospective and existing clients through organic channels that emphasize brand reputation and trust.
