What’s in your multi-channel portfolio?
If you ask the typical marketing manager this question they will likely be focused on direct mail, mobile, social and web as channels – most still don’t consider account documents such as bills, notices and statements (transaction documents) in their purview. If you ask someone in operations they will likely be focused on transaction print or electronic delivery of transaction documents.
If you ask the customer what multi-channel means they will answer you in terms of the information and activities that they want access to, and the channels or devices they want to use to access them. “I want to receive my bill on paper and pay it from the web,” or “I want to receive my bill online but I’m going to mail you a check or pay by phone with a credit card.” These days there are few customer interactions that don’t involve more than one channel. According to Forrester Research data published in 2009, 75% of all customer interactions at that time involved at least two channels.
So rather than asking what’s in your multi-channel portfolio, you should be asking, what is in your customer’s multi-channel portfolio. How do they want to interact with you to conduct business in a way that is meaningful and convenient for them?
Yesterday I asked “how should this work?” Today I’m suggesting that you think about how your customer wants it to work.
Elizabeth Gooding is the editor of the Insight Forums blog and president of Gooding Communications Group www.GoodComm.net
