If you are a startup, you are surely trying to come up with new and innovative products or services. But, besides the outstanding product offering and solution inventiveness, you should be focusing on creating a great customer experience. Since customers are the lifeline of any business, great customer communication is one of the essential pillars for winning new and retaining old ones.  

Customer communication

Thanks to market volatility and saturation it is becoming increasingly difficult for startups to reach new or keep old customers, despite the top-of-the-line product offering. So in order to stand out, spread the gospel about their product/service and gain attention, startups need to focus on establishing exceptional customer communication practices.
Take it from your own experience: how likely are you to purchase a first-rate product from a brand that has poor or nonexistent customer communication?

In this context silence is not golden and communicating effectively and responding appropriately by meeting customers’ expectations should be part of your business culture and values, right from the inception. It is what can set you apart early in the journey.

Establishing brand identity, staying competitive, and gaining attention rely on customer communication. And a robust strategy developed around it can lead to better engagement, satisfaction, experience, and in turn, greater retention.

So, as a startup that has just begun operations, how can you make sure that your customers understand what you have to offer and why they should choose your brand?

1. Leverage omnichannel communications

Your customer may be happy to receive SMS for shipping and delivery notifications, but for promotional and marketing messages they may prefer email. And, to chat with you, they may only use WhatsApp.

Omnichannel has become a key strategy for all companies regardless of sector or business model. However, for a startup to survive and flourish, omnichannel communication becomes even more important since it enables seamless switching between channels. Omnichannel empowers you by propelling your customer’s journey to a whole new level through personalized conversations with a consistent approach across channels.

Read how Infobip assisted UN agency to streamline omnichannel communications and boost donor retention.

2. Establish a brand

Branding isn’t just for established businesses, startups can gain a lot from establishing a distinct brand image. However, using customer communication towards brand building is so much more than creating an attractive logo.

Being genuine and honest in your customer communications can help you find your brand voice. You can create conversations that can lead to establishing a brand identity that values customers and leverages interactions for business growth. This is critical when it comes to gaining traction in the marketplace.

Read how Solidaridad increased its reach as a brand using voice communication through Infobip.

3. Ace communication during customer journeys

If good customer experience is magic, a customer journey map is the spell book. And, when the right solution finds the right audience with a particular problem at the right time, the result could be mystical.

By personalizing your customers’ journeys through effective communication, you can assume the role of seeing your solutions from their eye. Embedding seamless communication in the customer journey highlights that you are on the same page as them, you have spotted their pain point, and can be trusted.

Read how Infobip helped Ringo in creating a truly digitized customer journey, resulting in higher customer retention and acquisition.

4. Get more customer reviews

As a startup, wouldn’t it be great for you to get more and more customer reviews – hopefully more of them being positive. Prospects trust reviews as much as personal recommendations. Customer reviews are the cheapest and most compelling source of promotion available to startups.

If you are looking for more customer reviews, you can leverage communication in building review requests into workflows and pick the right moment to ask for a review.

Read how Flamingo increased Customer Ratings with Infobip Conversations platform.

5. Scale the business with chatbots

With a lot of startups contributing to the adoption of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, having a chatbot as a communication channel for your own customers becomes pertinent.

Chatbots are a great way to differentiate your business from your competition. A chatbot can be used to answer customer questions, offer product information, and help with customer service issues. Some businesses have been using chatbots in their marketing campaigns.

Read how a chatbot created by Infobip helped ChatFin in their customer engagement.

6. Think global

How can you, as a startup, extend your success in the home market to a new market, globally? Did you know Japan has its own photo size preferences, and people in Brazil often leave voicemails over WhatsApp rather than typing? The world is lopsided, in terms of growth and opportunities. These dissimilarities in communication approaches and preferences are rarely written anywhere – only a local expert would be aware of them.

Infobip’s 75+ offices around the world allow you to react faster and have everyday interactions with your customers. We provide 24/7 customer support, technical solutions in-line with needs and local requirements — based on proven best practices.

Read how Infobip assisted Uber in scaling their operation globally.

Power up your startup

In order to help startups successfully implement any one of these examples in their gameplan, we are offering free product credits (up to $60,000) for Infobip communication solutions through our startup program.

From delivery notifications, authentication messages to chatbots, our plethora of solutions can help you take a step forward in creating first-rate customer communication practices.