Design Is for ALL Customer Communication!

By Pat McGrew, EDP, Kodak

Last time the topic was design for bills and statements. We discussed some of the caveats about design caused by legislative requirements that go into effect this year and next year. If you didn’t read it, go back and take a look. It sets the stage for this month’s discussion: extending design beyond the bill or statement!

During the past few months, my post box has been stuffed with notices from every credit card provider I do business with. The gas cards, department store cards, and general purpose cards sparked an avalanche of notices, changes in terms and conditions, and other notices—all designed to let me know that something has changed in our relationship. At the same time, a few of my cards reached expiration dates, causing another flurry of mail, including card carriers and notices of new PIN numbers. I began stuffing them into an envelope during August with a plan to see who was taking this customer communication channel seriously. Sadly, I haven’t found a single one of my providers who is making an effort.

Let’s take a step back. Notices come in several forms. Many are done in the style of a letter, while others come in the form of a memo. The distinction is that a letter begins with a salutation and a memo lacks the formality of a letter. There are also notices that come in the form of brochures and pamphlets. No matter what business you are in, at some point in the customer life cycle there is usually a need to communicate to a customer outside of a normal bill or statement mailing or a direct mail campaign. These notices, regardless of the reason they need to be sent, rarely meet the most basic requirements of good customer communication.

One of the common notices of the past few months is the notice of change in terms. In some cases it arrives in a letter format and in others it arrives in a memo format. The common characteristic among all that I have received is that not one has the logo of the company I am doing business with. In fact, many of the envelopes look no different from the myriad envelopes containing offers to refinance my home at a fantastic new rate and ran the risk of being pitched straight into the bin. I can imagine that in many homes these “important notices” do go straight to the recycle bin because there is no reason to open the envelope.

Moving beyond the lack of logo, in many cases I cannot tell which credit card the notification pertains to. I had to go sifting through gas cards, department store cards and other pieces of plastic to figure out what card they were talking about and then try to decide if the effort to keep the card was worth it. In most cases, it isn’t. What is worse is that nothing in this important communication gives me any reason to continue doing business with the organization. Nothing says “We value you as a customer, but we have had to make some changes. Here is the value you get from our relationship; we hope you will continue to trade with us.”

Sadly, this is the most important point in the customer relationship. A change is occurring and there is no attempt to explain why, despite the change, there should still be a relationship. Next time, let’s talk about how to rethink the value of these notices. It doesn’t have to add cost to add value!

Pat McGrew, EDP, is the Data-driven Communication Evangelist at Kodak. Her email address is Pat.McGrew@kodak.com, Twitter is PatMcGrew, and blog at http://patmcgrew.growyourbiz.kodak.com/.