Lessons From Germany: Communicating with Customers

Lessons From Germany: Communicating with Customers

Powering modern communication is what we hang our hat on. That means giving you the tools to build instant, context-driven, interactive communications into the apps that interface with your customers. It also means customizing that experience in every region where you do business so that you portray a local familiar brand.

This was the idea behind commissioning a small survey in a not-so-small country where we offer voice- and SMS-capable phone numbers, Germany.

The results were enlightening.

First, it’s notable that Germans are communicating with businesses and brands quite a bit. 74% of Germans, or about 6 in 8, are doing so at least monthly.

 That statistic, in and of itself, isn’t exactly mind blowing. But it’s important context when we look at the next stat – that about half of those who responded were NOT satisfied with their experience communicating with companies.

Ineffective customer communication is like dry rot, much more destructive than it ever appears on the surface. It doesn’t just mean low customer satisfaction scores, it means a degrading brand and shrinking revenue. You lose business right away because customers don’t get the information they needed, can’t figure out how to respond to simple promotions or, worse, lose interest in your brand or business.

 There’s an opportunity here to change the perception of the customer and to use communications as a competitive advantage, rather than treating it as a necessary evil. If we dig one layer deeper into the survey, there’s some insight as to why customers are generally unsatisfied and how you can respond.

Speed of Response

More than anything, people hate it when they have to wait on a company for information or support. We’ve come to expect instant feedback in today’s digital world and now B2C communication is measured by the same bar.

The survey reinforced this notion, showing that about half of German respondents were not happy with the time it took for companies to respond.

But again, there’s an interesting twist here.

The vast majority of Germans (92%) are mostly using email to communicate with companies. And yet 80% of respondents don’t open their email right away! So even if you respond to a customer’s email in seconds, they may not notice until the next time they check that email account. So all your hard work may be going unnoticed.

Mobile Communications

Lots of companies in Germany and really everywhere are going down the path of mobile apps to communicate with customers. In many cases, that’s the right instinct as more people get comfortable interacting with companies over an app. This is especially true for your strong advocates and dedicated customers who will almost definitely download and use your app.

But it’s still going to take some time for mobile apps to get 100% customer adoption. Part of this is simple demographics. In Germany, the survey found that mobile apps are far more common among German millennials compared to any other age group. Millennials were 58% more likely to use mobile apps.

Bottom line, companies really need to think through their entire mobile approach and what different methods can be used to maximize reach and engagement. What’s the uptake of your mobile apps? What groups are making the most use of them? How do you ensure that those who don’t download your app get a great experience too?

Data Privacy

People have become hyper-vigilant in a world where financial data is often mismanaged and where almost everything we do is tracked, logged and analyzed for commercial purposes. Because B2C communication tends to involve an exchange of personal information, consumers care about how you manage data privacy.

 This came through in the survey with vigor. 80% of Germans don’t even want their phone number exposed when they’re communicating with a company. Whether that means you masking their phone number or other techniques, they want companies to take precautions.

Germans also want companies protecting their information with strong access control. 82% wanted their accounts protected with not just a password but some other factor of authentication. As we get more comfortable with multifactor authentication on mobile devices using biometrics like fingerprints, people are also getting more comfortable with things like SMS verification as a second factor of authentication or to alert users of dubious activity on their account.

What Does It All Mean?

While this survey was exclusive to Germany, I think the lessons are universal. A big swath of the German public is unhappy with how companies communicate with them. They want communication to be timelier, more mobile and more secure.

The heavy reliance on email looks like one obvious misstep and our expectations for mobile apps might be premature.  SMS is one medium that rated well in the survey, with German respondents twice as likely to open SMS immediately, compared to email. SMS was also effective across all demographics.

Offering an experience that’s local also seems to play well in Germany. Germans wanted access to local and toll-free phone numbers as well as local language.  Over 70% of Germans wanted German speaking customer service reps and German text-to-speech (TTS) menus.

The major takeaway seems to be that multiple modes of communication and a local German experience are needed to boost the chances of reaching and delighting your German customers. And I think that’s a takeaway that will work not just in Germany, but anywhere.