Why Messaging Services of the Post-App Economy Will Save Customer Service

Sadly, the cartoon above typifies far too many service interactions, whether at hotels, airlines, rental car agencies, or other service brands. While indifferent service is always an affront, the value today’s consumer places on authenticity and individual recognition make it especially problematic. Fortunately, messaging services (described in Welcome to the Post-App Economy) provide service brands with the tools to deliver authentic, personal interactions at scale.

What brand values resonate with today’s consumer?

As consumer preferences have evolved, service brands increasingly connect with customers based on their values. Among iconic service brands, authenticity and one-to-one recognition stand out as leading brand attributes.

Authenticity

From hotels designed to integrate with their location and decorated with regional materials to locally-sourced farm-to-table restaurants, “authenticity” has emerged as a northstar for today’s consumer. To quote writer David Sze’s comments on the travel space: “For the 21st century traveler, authenticity has become the goal and measure of travel.” Legacy hotel brands use locally-based culinary experiences to signal their commitment to authenticity. Accor announced a local F&B initiative in October 2015, and local wines are a tenant of the Sheraton rebrand. All this speaks to service brands recognition of a broad desire for authentic, first-hand experiences.

But while brands seek to create this feeling of “realness”, convincing the consumer of a brand’s authenticity requires more than just new sourcing. Like Justice Potter Stewart’s observation on pornography (“I know it when I see it”), authenticity is hard to define but impossible to fake. And as more service brands clamor to claim this mantle, it becomes harder to cut through the noise and genuinely connect with guests. Airbnb CMO Jonathan Mildenhall argues that the their experience is built on diverse local practices generated by millions of hosts; how can legacy brands built on standardized practices tap into the vitality of their local operations and teams?

One-to-one Relationships

Being remembered, being greeted by name, being known as a unique individual are all ways that brands cement their relationship with the consumer. And while personal interaction has always been a hallmark of great service, consumers now see these interactions as a cornerstone of memorable brands. At the Luxury Interactive Summit last October, Milton Pedraza, CEO of the Luxury Institute, said, “as consumers are more sophisticated and products become more commoditized, it’s the delivery of an experience across channels and a personal relationship that differentiates brands.” Brands that recognize and communicate with their customers as unique individuals will stand out.

How do these consumer values connect with Post-App Economy?

As described in “Welcome to the Post-App Economy”, consumers increasingly expect to interact through messaging platforms and commercial messaging volume is growing quickly. However, messaging is more than just another communication channel. Messaging interactions enable a qualitatively different customer experience that speaks to consumers’ desire for authentic, one-to-one relationships, as the following three points make clear:

• Create intelligence across a brand. In the analog world of voice or face-to-face interaction, sharing information with teams or across departments is difficult, especially in a shift-based organization. As the cartoon above illustrates, poor information exchange forces consumers to repeat themselves, which leaves the consumer feeling devalued and anonymous. By contrast, messages create a communication trail with each customer visible to every employee. Armed with interaction history, employees never start a conversation from zero; instead, they pick up right where their colleagues left off.
• Treat consumers as unique individuals. When customer-facing employees are equipped with the history of a given customer, they can treat them as a unique individual. They can greet a customer by name. They can refer to experiences that have happened in the past. They don’t repeat the same questions that other employees have already asked, and they don’t require the customer to rebuild every interaction from scratch. By demonstrating that the customer is known, brands build one-to-one relationships and create long-term loyalty.
• Enable human interactions and authentic connections with employees. In their personal lives, consumers have learned how to use social media to communicate their identity with a well-chosen profile picture or a few choice words in a bio. Facebook and Linkedin allow someone to be “known” without ever meeting. Messaging platforms provide a canvas where employees and brands can be express their identity. And knowing the individuals behind a brand is a far more powerful way to build an authentic relationship with customers than just changing wine sourcing or lobby decor.

In sum, messaging platforms enable service brands to deliver unique experiences at scale that resonate with today’s consumer.

To see how consumers are using messaging in practice, download this study of consumer messaging behavior.