I’m sure you have heard this before: just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase a business’s profitability by 75%. Customer experience and loyalty have lately been brought into the epicenter of marketing operations, as the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic impact affect critical KPIs at organizations across a variety of industries.

Many businesses are redirecting their strategy to focus more on customer experience, from both a proactive standpoint and a reactive one. During a crisis, it all boils down to customer communications across the appropriate channels. For most industry sectors, email marketing is the key to customer experience and loyalty. Doing it effectively can have a direct, positive impact not only on sales but also on customer engagement and loyalty. So, how can an organization improve its emailing practice? Here are a few tips to help transform the ability to educate and inform, minimizing frustrations for both marketers and customers during challenging times.

Make it relevant

Like most of us, customers probably receive hundreds of emails every day. Each morning they go through their inbox and choose what’s for reading and what’s for the junk folder, or prioritize those emails that appeal to them most.

Content that’s relevant to your customer base, which is short but well-written, is more likely to be read. If your audience is large and diverse, do some segmentation and adjust your content to match each group’s interests and needs.

Make it clear

During a crisis, it’s more important than ever to understand customer data. Knowing where customers are in their journey can help organizations identify needs and create opportunities for proactive message development.

By being proactive and offering helpful information to customers, brands can effectively evangelize their customer-first approach, while demonstrating their ability to understand customer needs by effectively merging data with communications and thoughtful messaging.

Be human 

Even when it’s generated automatically, the email is still a communication stream and, like any other type of communication, it can bring together all the characteristics of human interaction. Emails come packed with expectations.

People expect your emails to follow the usual norms and principles of social interactions. Particularly during the lockdown, It’s essential to keep in mind that your audience is made up of real people – so be friendly, be candid, and use normal language.

The reality is, organizations must discover how to balance “business as usual” with crisis-sensitive messages. In addition to message testing for tone and relevance, brands can also use communications tools to send “just because” messages. This could be anything from a “We’re here for you” message to “Here’s how we’re adjusting operations to accommodate your needs during these times” — a positive, uplifting break from the typical doom and gloom.

Invest In Proactive Outreach To Lighten Customer Service Backlogs

While ramping up a customer service workforce takes time, strategizing marketing communications to mitigate the burden on customer experience is something that can be done with speed and efficiency, and provide rapid return. Clear, informative messaging has the ability to proactively address future confusion and allow for self-troubleshooting.

Tightening your messaging strategy and content makes it easy to further support your customer-facing workforce by maintaining consistency and minimizing confusion as the team engage with customers. These “front-line” interactions hold a lot of weight for the overall brand and can be the difference between well-informed, satisfied customers and confused, dissatisfied ones.

Ask for feedback

No matter how good you are, or how closely you are following your well-designed strategy, there’s always room for improvement. By asking your customers for feedback you can maintain a healthy, open, two-way communication between your organization and your target audience, while showing that you are willing to adjust and cater to their needs.

Bonus: collecting feedback will help you remain relevant to your customers’ needs and interests.