Insights

HVTO Best Practices: Using Simple Communication – a Differentiator

Scott Draeger, M-EDP
Customer Communication Strategist
HP Exstream

Using Simple Communication a Differentiator

Simplicity is a huge trend at the moment. Since October, Steve Jobs’ face has been watching us from the cover of his best-selling biography, reminding us about the elegance of simplicity. The idea for this article stemmed from a great article on American Banker's website about how consumer perception of complex language reduces consumer trust. I was pleased to see references to some of my favourite sources for disruptive thoughts, like Siegel + Gale and Movenbank. Then I saw the simplicity theme addressed by several disruptive tweets from NextBankAsia.

So, I wanted to jump on the bandwagon and write about the benefits of integrating simplicity into a holistic customer communication strategy and explain why simplicity can be an effective differentiator. This article also seeks to explore the perception of simplicity and to help you understand what you can do to deliver simplicity.

But that doesn’t sound simple at all.

Simple is different

To put simplicity into a classic management category, Harvard Management Theorist Michael Porter would probably classify it as customer intimacy.  From personal experience, I can vouch, for example, for the unnecessary complexity of my insurance policies and bank accounts.

As you look across your competitive peer group, think about the competitors that are improving customer acquisition rates, reducing customer defection rates, and increasing profitability. If someone in your competitive peer group is trending the right way in these areas, they are likely to steal your customers by making it easier to conduct business.

Simplicity starts with communicating a clear value proposition in the marketplace. It continues by making it easy for a prospect to turn into a customer. It builds by delivering clear communication during the delivery of the service. And it pays off with increased transactions, actionable referral programs, and customer renewals. Simplicity must exist throughout the entire customer experience.

Perception of simplicity

When you consider improving your communication strategy, put yourself in your customer’s position. Are you reducing the burdens that you might have been imposing on your customer? Are you making efforts to increase the trust that your customers place in your brand? Are you helping them fill out forms? Are you giving them advice instead of just transpromo sales pitches? If you are doing all of these things, you are using simplicity in communication as a differentiator to ultimately increase trust.

Personally, I would prefer to spend less time managing, monitoring, and analysing my accounts with banks, insurance companies, telecoms, retailers, and even the government. I feel respected when I am required to put less effort into dealing with companies. I feel appreciated when I receive relevant, concise communication. My trust in vendors increases when they communicate using my chosen channels. When the legalese dwindles, trust increases. Vodafone, Allstate, and QBE are examples of companies that have earned my personal trust through simplicity in communication, and I have referred people to them, mostly on the basis of clear communication.

Delivering simplicity

Overly complex customer interactions are created when a business becomes lazy about externalizing IT costs. When a business refuses to invest in the interoperability of core systems, the customers must make up for that inefficiency with extra keystrokes and, seemingly, brute force. Disparate systems force customers to absorb the inefficiencies you have created. Customers are often forced to:

• Fill out redundant forms, because departmental systems are not connected
• Read irrelevant offers, because the CRM is not targeting well
• Enter duplicate data, because channels cannot interact
• Educate themselves on your entire product range, because you are not advising
• Constantly compare you to competitors, because they believe you are deceptive

But where do you start?

Easing the burden on customers will certainly decrease their frustration levels, which is a positive impact for your brand’s position in their minds.

Start by looking at your projects. When you are implementing your projects and redefining your communication strategy, begin by asking some questions to assess the broad impact:

• How is the customer’s data going to move through the entire business?
• What else can the collected customer data accomplish?
• Can we write legal text to apply to multiple accounts?
• Why does this customer process require a keyboard and mouse?
• What more could we do to impress the customer?
• How can we reduce the time it takes to close the entire deal?
• How can we make it easier for customers to recommend us to their friends and colleagues?

When we start asking these questions, we begin to head down the path of differentiation. Complexity happens when you cut corners on internal integration. Boosting your interoperability increases information availability, which removes the burden from your customer. This closes the door on opportunities for abandonment, non-renewals, and defection. It’s as simple as that.

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Scott Draeger, M-EDP recently moved to Sydney to become HP Exstream’s Customer Communication Strategist for the Asia Pacific region. This move immediately follows the completion of the HP Exstream’s Design & Production version 8.0. He graduated from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and has worked in the digital document industry for 15 years. In 2007, he earned an International MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, and joined HP Exstream as the Product Manager for the HP Exstream Design & Production product during the 7.0 Development cycle. In 2009, he became the Manger of Product Strategy for the entire HP Exstream software portfolio. This included the definition, development and release of the 8.0 portfolio.  In 2010, Scott earned his M-EDP (Master Electronic Document Professional) designation from Xplor International. In 2011, Scott earned Xplor’s coveted “Chairman’s Award” for participation in the organizations efforts to deliver vendor-neutral continuing education in the customer communications and electronic document industries globally.