Why companies need to stop sending “A message from our CEO”
My inbox has been flooded with these emails “from our CEOs” ever since COVID-19 took over our lives. They all sit in my inbox, unread. Compared to: “Urgent: client sign off needed.” “Can you help me with this?” and “Your Amazon order has been shipped,” the CEO emails can wait.
And let’s be real. It’s not from the CEO. The CEO wouldn’t have sent an email titled “A message from ME”.
Authenticity officially reigns over fame, power, and perfection in 2020. And businesses need to be more strategic about what they say and how they say it. Looking at the different responses to COVID-19, we now know which companies are empathetic to and focused on their customers’ needs, and which are trying to squeeze out the last pennies of all their stakeholders.
Survival during crisis is paramount, and it depends on having customers that still want to buy from you. In good times, and in bad. Customer-facing communication needs to be on point to keep those customers around.
Here are 4 business communication mistakes that are costing customers:
- Not focusing on the customers
Make it plain and simple for your customers on how you are serving THEM, and start more sentences with “you”. Just as “A message from the CEO” doesn’t convey why it’s relevant to the customer, so is “It’s been hard for us to do XYZ…” “We’re taking extra steps to support you. Learn more by clicking on this long and boring document that is not written in plain language” and other conversations that end up being one-sided.
2. Talking without a goal
Communication is not an information dump despite what we were taught in school. It’s about getting people to do what you want them to do. Read your email, buy your products, vote for you. Whatever it may be, make your goal clear to your audience. Call to action. Don’t leave them at the end wondering, now what?
3. Sounding like Siri
Translating the warmth of your voice into your digital communication is key. Write like you talk. Times have changed. We don’t need to be overly boring to be considered professional. More people choose products based on how they can relate to you, belong to a community, and stand from something. So initiate that human connection.
4. Not communicating enough
Nurture your relationship with your existing customers. Don’t disappear. Don’t leave people wondering if you are open, when you are open, how are you open, what’s available and what’s not. Most people can find alternatives quicker than you can update your social profiles. As restrictions relax, make sure you are front and center in your customers’ lives, letting them know how they can and cannot reconnect with you and your products. Be consistent on all of your digital platforms. And equally important, share your plan and rough timelines of eventually getting back to “normal” and what that normal might look like. If you can’t meet people’s needs, they will go elsewhere. But if you let them know you will soon be able to meet their needs, they might just stick around.
People don’t buy the what, they buy the why. COVID-19 made it clear. We need to get better at communicating digitally. Fast.
Originally published on my email newsletter Beeamp (be amplified).
