How to Improve Customer Communication Effectiveness in 2024

Let’s find out some result-driven tactics.

If you’re looking to improve customer communications performance quickly and boost contact center efficiency in 2024, I’m thrilled to share the perfect evergreen solution: align the communication abilities of your telemarketing team with the preferences of modern clients. In other words, the majority of small and mid-size businesses should consider utilizing now popular means of communication to address client inquiries/customer requests and generate leads with no hassle.

Since the beginning of time, so many businesses have utilized an inbound sales approach as their primary revenue generation strategy—which is why a robust system that handles inquiries and requests from potential buyers is mandatory for every client-centric company.

During the last 50 years, customer service and contact centers have shifted from only fielding incoming calls to a mix of different channels: including email, online chats, direct messengers, and social media. Customer behavior has mimicked these changes with demands that now exert more pressure on companies, especially with respect to company responsiveness and availability on customer service channels.

Thus, it is essential to offer your consumers as many contact channels as you can successfully manage.

Per Aircall’s study, in 2019 most clients preferred to communicate with businesses by phone. Hence, over the long period of time voice communications remained the primary driver for client acquisition and retention, meaning that entrepreneurs should continue to welcome incoming calls.

The remarkable advantage of these traditional phone calls is that they summon the highest engagement rate among prospects and customers. Marketers admit that incoming calls do help foster conversions, but per this 411 Locals report , small and mid-sized businesses miss about 62% of calls. This means that almost two-thirds of clients may seek out competitors due to a lack of communication options.

5 years have passed, and now in the US, text messaging is gaining ground but phone calls are still likely the more popular service channel overall.

Phone calls still hold the top spot for many, particularly with older demographics or for complex issues, around 30% of US consumers prefer phone calls for customer service. Whereas, nowadays according to Walden University around 46% of US consumers prefer texting businesses.

In 2024 around 55% of consumers prefer email for business communication. Online chat and messengers are the second-most popular channel for general inquiries, with the popularity of message outreach among clients growing exponentially over time.

Neil Patel—a well-known digital marketer—mentioned during one of his podcasts that many people nowadays would rather message support or salespeople on social media than wait on the phone to communicate with them.

Relatedly, modern society is addicted to texting anywhere and for any occasion. Seventy-five (75%) of millennials —the soon-to-be dominant consumer audience—would rather text than talk. Undoubtedly, one main reason why people are inclined to text is that it offers a kind of freedom that calling simply doesn’t: allowing them to answer at the most convenient time for them, not to mention the inherent gift of time to think about their answers before responding.

Similar benefits apply to a sales or customer support team. One sales rep can handle only one call at a time, whereas teams can address multiple incoming messages simultaneously. Therefore, in comparison to incoming calls, business messengers and social media might help you generate more sales in a similar timeframe.

The best practice for strong communications marketing is utilizing an omnichannel customer experience that connects traditional and popular contact channels to provide a seamless customer journey. While it is silly to deny the continued importance of fielding incoming calls from clients as a crucial part of business, the impact of social media and messaging platforms cannot be understated. Additionally, offering multiple customer contact channels alleviates the pressure on contact center staff and improves the lead generation process.

Thus, your sales and support team should employ messaging platforms—such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Messaging—to engage with inquiries directly through chats. Moreover, these messengers and social media channels must be composed within a single interface, allowing systematized requests and the ability to visualize all communications.

Several incoming message management and communication marketing services have already found their way to the market.

For example, Umnico— an omnichannel messaging service for businesses —provides a robust platform to increase social media and messenger sales while enhancing user support. This multichannel messaging service supports the majority of communication channels including WhatsApp, Instagram Direct Messenger, Facebook Messenger, live chat, and it can be integrated within popular CRM strategies.

CRM integration can help ensure that leads generated through your lead ad campaigns receive the attention they need in a prompt manner, increasing conversion rates.

A variety of alternative message marketing solutions are available as well, but I can define Umnico as the most affordable option that supports both voice and text-based communication. Furthermore, the solution boasts affordable and simple yet intelligent communication management functionality that can benefit small business endeavors.

Now, let’s review how to maximize a combination of incoming calls and messages to address inquiries with heightened returns.

People who use messaging on their path to purchase do so for a range of reasons: namely trust, reassurance, and accountability. Therefore, an incoming message will likely represent the first touchpoint in your customer journey, and businesses should utilize text-based communications to address essential and common client requests—automatically generating leads, scoring them, and then transferring qualified leads directly to sales reps to close the deal at a higher rate.

Instant messengers can also be used to effectively follow up on or re-engage leads, with this approach deemed less intrusive than hot calls and more responsive than email.

It is vital to note that in 2024, a plethora of Western companies and enterprises around the globe are aiming to reduce their contact center load with a mix of customer contact channels including social media comments, business messengers, and online chats—creating a flow of incoming messages that both contact centers or sole entrepreneurs can process with decent efficiency.

To sum up, these digital transformations affect all aspects of our lives, including how we interact with our clients. As messaging can play a role during every stage of the customer journey, you should learn how to introduce your products or services through chats. Likewise, your brand should work to operate multiple channels all in one place to sell your products and provide customer service by scheduling appointments, arranging delivery, sharing information about new offers, and so much more. Luckily, modern message marketing solutions are available to cope with and successfully overcome related communication management challenges.