The growing cost of ineffective communication on customer

How can you overcoming the cost of ineffective communication?

Customer support and service leaders today know that business success increasingly centers on the customer experience. Companies must deliver efficient and compelling interactions to drive customer satisfaction—and impact against the bottom line.

But one overlooked factor often prevents them from delivering on these needs: ineffective communication. When communications among employees and customers break down, it creates immense costs for support functions by making it harder to provide quality service, impacting CSAT and NPS scores, and impeding growth and productivity. For example, even before the start of the pandemic, we knew that poorly written communication costs businesses an astonishing $400 bn annually. 

This is especially true in functions like customer support, service, and operations that depend on clear, compelling, and consistent interactions to deliver results. And now, changing customer and employee demands are increasing both the cost of ineffective communication on support teams — and the value they stand to gain by overcoming it.

Why meeting new demands hinges on effective communication?

Customer support and service functions are at a turning point in their evolution. Leaders now have increasing responsibility to drive business outcomes and profits, but that is a monumental feat when they are grappling with an array of new customer and workforce challenges.

For one, the explosion of ecommerce and omnichannel in the past year means ticket volumes have reached new highs across an increasing number of channels. Keeping up with this influx is difficult enough, but customers also expect more quality and personalization out of those interactions. In fact, 73 percent of support leaders say customer expectations are increasing, but less than half are actually meeting those expectations. These trends mean leaders need to improve both the quality and efficiency of communications to meet customer demands. 

Moreover, increasing globalization and expansion make it challenging to connect and empower dispersed, diverse teams on the front lines with customers. One recent study found more than half of companies now rely on outsourcing to meet customer demands. Most U.S. companies also struggle with language barriers that can hinder collaboration. These shifts create more opportunities for disjointed, disconnected communications that leaders must address to maintain efficient operations and a consistent brand experience.

Overcoming all of these challenges and quickly capturing results starts with effective, efficient communication. With support teams and customers interacting in more ways and places, communicating effectively across touchpoints resolves issues faster and lowers the cost per ticket, while improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The business case for investing in effective communication

Customer support leaders already know they need to invest in new solutions to keep pace with demands. In the coming year, over half (55 percent) are increasing their spending on technology to grow their operations.

But too often, these well-intended investments go to manual tools and training that don’t sufficiently scale, or to new platforms that create digital overload among teams. Surprisingly, nearly half (46 percent) of support leaders believe their current technology stack holds them back from reaching their goals. That is because support teams and customers don’t need more tools and ways to engage; they need to optimize existing interactions and engagements.

In particular, written communication is on the rise and offers a tremendous, untapped opportunity to uplevel performance. With support agents inundated with requests, customers are turning to more self-service chat options and channels like text and messaging apps for support. Recent research from Grammarly also found 43 percent of professionals are emailing more and 41 percent are texting more now than before the pandemic.

By enhancing all of the written communications happening across platforms, leaders can unlock significant gains in both quality and output. And new technology and AI capabilities are now available that can help manage and automate communication processes, while integrating seamlessly into existing systems.

Let us look at a real-world example. One of the world’s largest global CX management companies deployed an AI-powered writing assistant to improve the quality and efficiency of customer support, resulting in a 17 percent boost in CSAT and a 22 percent increase in tickets addressed per hour.

How? By better engaging and meeting customers’ needs the first time, they were able to manage a higher number of tickets, resolve them faster, and deliver an overall better experience. Internally, the technology also provided coaching to improve the entire team’s communication skills, saving them on training costs and allowing continuous improvement over time.

How to evaluate the impact of effective communication?

The opportunity is clear, so how can support leaders assess the value of more effective communication on their functions?

It starts with identifying the key performance metrics that matter, then taking an outcomes-based approach to building the right strategy. Leaders can begin by asking themselves three questions:

1. What outcomes matter most for my function? (e.g., CSAT and NPS scores, YoY growth and performance increase, lower support costs, etc.)
2. In what ways are written communication issues impacting performance? (e.g., inefficient or off-brand interactions, low first-contact resolution, inability to manage ticket volume, etc.)
3. What are the consequences of not addressing these factors? (e.g., trade-offs between quality and costs/efficiency, pushed or lost deals, high service and training costs, slowed growth, customer and employee churn, etc.)

If communication-related challenges impact one or more of your goals, it’s time to invest in overcoming the issue. The cost of ineffective communication has weighed on support functions for too long and continues to grow — but so does the value waiting to be discovered.

Conclusion

Amid the many challenges facing support and service leaders, communication may be the last thing on their minds. But in a world where success increasingly depends on delivering memorable experiences, effective communication is the single most important investment leaders can make to gain a competitive advantage—and capture both customers and results.

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For more about how Grammarly Business can improve your customer satisfaction and performance through better communication, visit www.grammarly.com/business