S-Docs Blog

How Customer Communication Tools Help Consumer Goods Companies Build Brand Loyalty

Written by Ashlee Dinsmore | Mar 13, 2024 7:14:41 PM

Picture this: You're strolling through a big box store and find yourself in the paper products section. As you push your cart along, you're greeted by a sea of paper towels. Bounty, Brawny, Viva, you name it — they're all vying for your attention. How do you choose? They all have their upsides and downsides; chances are, you’ll pick the most familiar brand.

That’s the kind of cutthroat competition that prevails in the world of consumer goods. With so many options for paper towels and other products, getting people to stick with one brand isn’t easy. 

That's why customer communication is important — it's the secret sauce that helps brands build lasting connections. Personalized offers, emails, and branded documents help engage buyers, drive brand loyalty, and keep loyal customers coming back for more instead of searching for a new brand of paper towel.

Why Exceptional Customer Communications Matter to Consumer Goods Companies

Talking with customers and sending relevant marketing communications is key to building trust, establishing credibility, and creating a sense of loyalty. Exceptional customer communication is more than just fixing problems or answering questions. It’s about making people feel special — like they’re more than just another sale. Over 70% of consumers say they now only engage with marketing messages tailored to their interests. Personalized communication is what leaves a lasting impression on consumers.

On the flip side, when customers feel like companies aren’t paying attention or communicating with them, they feel frustrated and dissatisfied, and will ultimately look for another brand of paper towels. Companies that invest in customer communication tools understand this and are making a strategic move to build brand loyalty.

What are the Types of Customer Communications Tools?

When making an effort to stay in touch with customers on an ongoing basis, companies have various consumer goods technologies to choose from that help them streamline and enhance their communications. To connect with customers in a meaningful way, you can turn to any combination of the following tools:

Live Chat Software: Customers talk to brands in real time through live chat, where they can ask questions, get help, and receive immediate responses. Live chat software allows you to provide instant support, boosting engagement and building a better customer experience.

Email Marketing Platforms: Send personalized and targeted emails to your customers, as well as promotional offers, product updates, and relevant content via email directly to your customers' inboxes. Email marketing platforms provide an easy, cost-effective way to maintain brand visibility, nurture customer relationships, and drive repeat purchases.

Social Media Management Tools: Use these tools to manage and monitor your social media presence, schedule posts, create content, and use the analytics to track results. By utilizing social media management tools, you can engage with customers, build a strong online community, and address customer feedback promptly.

Virtual meeting platforms: Sometimes, nothing can replace a face-to-face conversation, even when you’re on opposite sides of the country. Video conferencing allows you to meet with customers and provide real-time support. Virtual meeting platforms offer additional functionality such as recording meetings and sharing files, providing an efficient way to collaborate with team members in your company.

Text messaging software: Now that 90% of U.S. adults have smartphones, businesses send marketing messages and customer updates via text. Since customers keep their phones close to them, texts are a convenient way to reach out.

Survey Software: How do you find out what your customers want? Ask them! Send surveys to measure customer satisfaction, do customer research, and get feedback on specific interactions or products. You can use surveys to collect valuable insights from customers that you might not be able to get otherwise.

CRM Software: Customer relationship management (CRM) software lets you track customer interactions and is also used to personalize communications to provide a better experience. With Salesforce CRM, you can schedule follow-up communications and store customer data to better anticipate customer needs.

Automated Document Generation Platforms: To truly create sophisticated, branded, personalized documents with ease, you need a document automation tool — one that integrates with Salesforce to merge data and generate documents for customer correspondence and other use cases, streamlining communication and eliminating tedious paperwork.

Customer Communication Challenges

Talking to customers has always been challenging. In the modern marketplace, consumer goods companies face additional hurdles that can hinder efforts to build brand loyalty and impact overall customer satisfaction. 

Lack of Personalization

Generic, one-size-fits-all messages fail to resonate with customers and can make them feel undervalued. Personalizing customer messages is essential for building connections with customers and fostering brand loyalty, yet many consumer goods companies still struggle with this. 

Inconsistent Branding

When using multiple channels to communicate, your branding should remain consistent to avoid confusing customers and diluting your brand identity. Even worse, inconsistent branding runs the risk of eroding customer trust and weakening brand loyalty. 

Inaccurate Data

Consumer goods companies collect vast amounts of customer data. However, you need the right tools to manage and interpret this data. Inaccurate and misinterpreted data leads to miscommunication, wrong targeting, and missed opportunities.

How Consumer Goods Software Drives Brand Loyalty

Customer communication tools like S-Docs help you overcome these challenges by creating seamless and personalized communication experiences for your customers at scale.

Customer Communication Tools Ensure Branding Consistency

Consumer goods software tools let you maintain consistent messaging, visual identity, and tone of voice across all customer touchpoints — no matter how many different brands you’re managing. This ensures consistent branding, helping to establish brand recognition and trust. These consistent messages help consumer goods companies create a cohesive and memorable customer experience that fosters brand loyalty.

S-Docs does this by providing customizable document automation that pulls customer data from Salesforce into pre-built templates that merge correct branding information every time. This ensures that your customers are receiving a consistent, personalized experience each time they interact with you.

Consumer Goods Technology Improves Operational Efficiency

Brand loyalty is key in the consumer goods industry, and 88% of customers say they’ll buy again after receiving exceptional customer service. Improve your service response by implementing consumer goods technology like S-Docs document automation, which provides a centralized solution for managing customer interactions, while streamlining communication and automating responses. 

The operational efficiency you gain from automating your document generation helps you manage and respond promptly to customer inquiries and resolve issues, increasing customer satisfaction and brand loyalty — and giving your reps the time they need to focus on building relationships and delighting customers.

Customer Communication Tools Personalize Communications

As technology advances, 73% of customers expect more personalization. They know that they’re providing data that companies can use to personalize their messages, offers, and recommendations. Yet when you have multiple brands — and hundreds of possible messages per customer — it’s almost impossible to personalize messages manually. However, it’s in your best interest to use the data you’ve gathered to demonstrate you value your customers’ needs and deliver messages tailored to them. 

That’s where S-Docs can help. Personalized communication helps you show customers that they’re important to you and not just another number. It helps foster a sense of loyalty and encourages repeat purchases. S-Docs combined with your Salesforce CRM lets you analyze data and automatically provide personalized, targeted recommendations and promotions aimed at your customers’ unique preferences.

Customer Communication Tools Ensure Data Accuracy

The data that you’re collecting from customers must be accurate. If not, it’s worthless. Customer communication tools can ensure data accuracy by integrating with a CRM, validating data, and eliminating redundancies. Using a document automation tool like S-Docs allows you to pull dynamic data from Salesforce, ensuring you’re delivering accurate, relevant messages and building trust with customers.

Customer Communication Tools Enable Multilingual Communication

Chances are, your consumer goods company has employees and customers around the world. A customer communication tool like S-Docs with several language translation options can support multilingual communication so you can engage customers in their native tongue, without seeking out additional costly solutions or adding unnecessary complexity to your workflow. This makes it easier to provide customer support and messages in your customers' preferred languages, making them feel valued and understood, while also ensuring smoother overall operations in your multinational company.

S-Docs Delivers Modern, Personalized Customer Experiences

No matter how good your paper towels are, your consumer goods company needs to deliver more to get brand loyalty from customers. It takes exceptional experiences and personalized communication to keep customers happy. S-Docs document automation helps you deliver consistent branding and provide personalized communications while improving efficiency for your employees. 

Request a free demo today!