What are some best practices for customer communication during incidents?

customer communication

In the context of customer communication, an “incident” generally refers to an unexpected occurrence, problem, or issue that occurs within a business or organization. It could involve various scenarios such as:

Service disruptions
Technical failures
Security breaches
Product defects
Natural disasters

While an incident is unavoidable, having a response plan in place could stop you from cutting corners at the time of an outage. One of the important structural components of this plan is customer communication. During an incident, effective communication becomes crucial as it allows businesses to keep their customers informed, manage expectations, and address any concerns or questions they may have.

Incident Communication Best Practices

Allow us to share some best practices for managing customer communication during incidents.

1. Define roles

Because of the unpredictability of an incident, teams can panic when it occurs. At that time, the first step is to stay composed and form a response team comprising an incident manager, team lead, communication manager (preferably from your support department), and more roles.

The communication manager’s major responsibility during an incident is to keep important stakeholders informed. He will be responsible for communicating to customers that you are aware of the problem, have devoted resources to resolving it, and that you’re working promptly to do so.

2. Establish communication channels

There are a number of communication methods you could use to reach your customers. The most used ones are:

Status page: For up-to-date incident information right on the company website, a web page with a name like “status.company.com” could be added.
In-app messaging: Many companies inform their customers by displaying messages on their apps.
Mass Email: Companies with larger customer bases can utilize ESP to direct outage emails to their subscribers’ mailboxes.
Social Media: To reach a wider audience, making general announcements on social media could be an active communication tactic. You can link the social media post to the status page on your website, for your customers to access more details.
SMS messaging: Leveraging a messaging application, companies can shoot bulk SMS to reach their subscribers.

3. Decide what to share

While being transparent at this time is necessary, make sure not to share any restrictive business information. Avoid making any promises with regard to the timeline for fixes. One of the most important incident communication strategies is to determine what to share in what outage scenario. Creating templates for incident communication provides a fertile ground for effective and efficient customer engagement. Here are some examples.

Sharing information also depends on the customer category. A B2B customer might need more details than a B2C one. Another thing to keep in mind is the platform through which information will be shared. An email could be more detailed than a social media post.

4. Continuous updates

Don’t go radio silent after just one message. Set expectations about your next communication timing with them by adding something like “We will post updates every 30 minutes”. Drop in some check-in messages at regular intervals to assure customers that your team is working towards the resolution for them.

The incident is resolved and you have communicated that to your customers. You don’t stop there! Follow up with critically impacted customers, explain the issue to them, and the measures you will take to ensure it doesn’t repeat.

Final Words

Remember, effective customer communication during incidents not only mitigates immediate challenges but also contributes to long-term customer loyalty and brand reputation. By implementing these best practices, you can navigate incidents with professionalism, empathy, and resilience, ensuring that your customers feel supported and valued throughout the process.

customer communication