What Siri cannot do

The days of writing a press release and controlling how your company is viewed by the audience are long gone for us in public relations, but have we also thought of customer virtual experience in our marketing and communications strategy? 

You do not have to be a retail business to think about this. Today a customer can ask Siri to search for “The best jeans in Riyadh” for example, and your website may or may not be on the list, or they can go on Twitter and check your conversations to decide whether they like your brand’s personality and want to be associated with you as a company.

How can we bring our communication skills and knowledge to this new era of engagement?

Here are my 7 things you should consider in your communication today:

• Everything now is about the experience, from shopping online/speaking to your front-line team member to browsing your leadership articles, you want to create a feeling of belonging or of interest in your brand. 

• If you cannot respond right away on Twitter or Instagram, don’t be there! I mean it, customers more and more expect you to be there for them, to answer their late-night questions about a last-minute purchase, and if you cannot have members who are equipped with the right communication style (Which can be trained by the way- happy to help!) Then you will lose that great opportunity to engage and get them to experience your brand. 

• Make your brand human, we all make mistakes and it’s better to admit it and to be upfront than to pretend you are the perfect brand – you will gain loyalty and trust, and that’s valuable. 

• Online means your customers can reach other offers with one mouse click, one turn of a tab, and for that your communication needs to always answer this simple question “What’s in it for them?/Why to choose you?” You don’t have to make the answer included openly in your messaging, but it should allude to why you are different and unique.

• Customers can ask Siri and Alexa for help, but they need a connection from you, so be authentic.

• Think of the worst-case scenario for all your new online platforms or e-commerce sites and plan how will you reach out to the customer, and how will you make their experience pleasant.

• Stimuli are bliss – get used to practicing crisis communication scenarios tailored to your business to be ready and have everyone know their role, ideally before a crisis happens!

Need help figuring out your online communication strategy? I would love to help you find solutions!