Developing positive relationships with consumers is becoming increasingly important as both energy providers and their customers confront the uncertainties of today's world. While traditional print mail -- including monthly invoices -- and the customer service call center remain viable and important channels of communication, the so-called "new media" offer many additional ways to convey information and even to interact with consumers. For example, the Internet is home not only for your corporate Web site, but also of new vehicles for reaching out to customers through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

The ability to successfully implement a multichannel marketing communication strategy will most likely be the single biggest challenge -- and opportunity -- for energy providers over the next few years. As energy costs and consumption are impacted by events that may be beyond local control, it becomes more and more important to build trust and loyalty with customers. And today, meeting consumer needs effectively means more than having the information they want. It also means providing access to it morning, noon, or night via print, electronic, the Web, and mobile devices. A carefully planned customer communications management strategy answers these requirements and is supported by the robust technologies that can make it happen.

Deploying the power of multichannel campaigns requires having the ability to determine the communication preferences of each customer and being able to deliver compelling content through that channel. Whether a customer prefers to communicate via paper (mail), electronic (e-mail, Internet), mobile devices, or a combination of these channels, being able to meet these delivery preferences is quickly becoming an expectation rather than an option.

The key issues

Designing a multichannel communications initiative raises several key issues that must be considered to develop an effective program. Following are the most common:

• Obtaining quality data: Customer information can be created and stored in disjointed silos across the enterprise, for example, from billing histories, meter readings, and the call center. Gathering and consolidating useful data about customers can be a challenge. Be sure your communications solution can tap into and merge data from these various sources.

• Integrating all delivery channels: Once you've identified and collected the data required for your program, the next consideration is ensuring the ability to coordinate and integrate it across a range of media output channels. For instance, will the next invoice for each customer reflect their concerns and their preferences? Will it be delivered in their preferred channel? Does it take advantage of feedback obtained through a channel like e-mail? This is a critical aspect of a successful multichannel framework.

• Designing for multiple channels: The content that you deliver to a customer on their printed statement may be in a completely different format and layout than the content you deliver to that same customer via the Internet or to their smart phone. Because of this, another critical success factor for a multichannel communications is creating flexible content that automatically changes to match the delivery channel. Without this kind of flexibility, designing for multiple channels can become a painful and complex process.

• Efficiently managing multiple channels: Managing the process, users and roles, interfaces, and update methods of a variety of communications channels can seem like a daunting task. For instance, user roles and permissions should be honored anywhere in the framework. Additionally, the ability to manage content -- independent of the documents and channels that receive them -- is crucial. Be sure your solution has these management capabilities or you may overwhelm your organization with all the details of process and content complexities.

Options to fit your needs

Organizational commitment, accountability, and having the right technology in place for managing customer communications across all media channels are essential to a successful program. Software solutions are available to address the requirements of a multichannel, personalized communication strategy, and they are user-friendly enough to provide the flexibility needed to allow business users to create interactive, point-of-need, personalized documents. However, these solutions offer varying capabilities, so it pays to do research to find exactly the solution you need to achieve your communications objectives.

Many energy providers have recognized the value of outsourcing their physical print/mail operations to service bureaus and BPOs. This makes a lot of sense because print/mail operations are capital intensive, and are not a strategic or core capability of a utility. There are cost benefits to be gained when outsourcing your print/mail fulfillment, but these benefits should not jeopardize your organization's customer communication capability. Questions continuing to face organizations include: "What do I outsource and what do I keep in-house?" and "Do I want to own the software to enable my communications strategy or let someone else do it?"

One main challenge that arises for companies when they outsource their customer communications is that they risk losing the control, speed to market, and relevance of their documents and messages - their main contact with the customer. A successful multi-channel strategy will leverage the power of your non-technical, customer-focused employees to design, deliver, and maintain meaningful personalized customer communications while meeting the business and technical requirements of your print/mail provider to ensure optimum delivery.

Utility providers need flexibility and autonomy to complete interactive, point-of-need, personalized documents for customers, while ensuring accuracy and costs are controlled through centralized production and fulfillment. Insourcing customer communication management while outsourcing print fulfillment provides a way to make this possible.

Meaningful communications are the lifeline between energy providers and their customers, and it's wise to consider this a core capability of your business. With the broad acceptance of Internet-based communications and the increasing prevalence of smart phones, customer expectations are rising in terms of how you communicate with them. Implementing a well-thought-out customer communications strategy can help you forge stronger relationships with customers by getting important information to them more quickly -- and with a personal touch via the channel they prefer.

Other Posts by: Doug Cox

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