Chapter 01
The decisions you make connected to customer communications will resonate through the entire organization. So, before we start exploring consumer expectations and preferences, let’s find out about the challenges and opportunities you’re facing.
Sinch surveyed hundreds of leaders from four key industries: healthcare, financial services, retail, and technology. Their responses offer some eye-opening insights into where digital customer communications are headed next.
Security, cost, and integration challenges are keeping business leaders up at night. But there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. That’s why we developed a clear framework to help organizations enhance communication strategies, time, and resources where it matters most.
Different industries have unique customer communication needs, and that’s reflected in our survey results. While email and text messaging are widely used across all four industries, other channels have varying rates of adoption.
For example, retail is more likely to use other messaging applications (WhatsApp, Messenger, etc.) while healthcare communications are least likely to include those channels. Healthcare is most likely to use voice communications and in-app messaging. Financial services (FinServ) organizations seem to be early adopters of the emerging RCS (Rich Communication Services) channel while retailers may be lagging in that area. As we’ll explore in this report, the trust and safety factors of RCS make it ideal for certain communications in FinServ, which may be the reason for early adoption.
Perhaps what’s most noticeable about these results is that businesses are using a wide range of channels to meet customer expectations and provide an ideal experience for as many people as possible.
of consumers want to receive promotional messages via email marketing.
of consumers want to receive informational messages on more than one channel.
of consumers would trust AI-generated answers for informational customer updates.
of consumers want to choose their preferred channel when they opt in to communications.
As you’ll see throughout this report, the channel consumers choose as the “best option” depends a lot on the situation, the industry, and even their age.
We’ve highlighted a few stats from upcoming chapters to illustrate this fact. But here’s the point…
Customer communications get complicated when there are multiple channels and various opinions to address. That’s the first challenge – identifying the right mix for your company’s communication strategy.
However, it’s not the only challenge businesses face as they build communication programs that engage and inform customers while keeping them safe and happy.
Security and privacy (44%), the cost of customer communications (39%), and integrating communications with other systems (38%) emerged as three of the biggest challenges.
However, these three familiar problems weren’t too far ahead of other communication challenges presented to survey participants.
It’s clear that a significant number of organizations in healthcare, financial services, retail, and technology also struggle with everything from personalization to deliverability. This highlights the complexity of digital customer communications, the current landscape, and the many problems businesses are navigating.
Let’s take a closer look at the challenge of integrating customer communications from three angles:
1. Integrating communications with other systems and technology.
2. Connecting communication channels with each other for a more cohesive customer experience.
3. Integrating communications into a customer-facing application or platform.
Challenge 1
Connecting digital communications to technology such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, helpdesk software, marketing automation, and ecommerce platforms is essential. It enables everything from better personalization to improved operational efficiency.
Across industries, 55% of respondents say their communications are fully integrated with their tech stack. Still, 38% say they are partially integrated and 6% say they are either minimally integrated or not at all.
Interestingly, 38% of respondents also indicated integration with other systems was a top challenge. This suggests that the goal of achieving full integration is an opportunity for many organizations.
While many businesses face this challenge, the fact that 55% say communications are fully integrated with their tech stack proves it can be done.
Challenge 2
Meeting customers’ needs and expectations through multiple communication channels makes sense. It also creates challenges.
You could call it “communication sprawl.” But tackling this challenge has huge benefits. When channels are connected, information and conversations can flow seamlessly from channel to channel. That’s optimal for cohesive customer experiences, especially when it comes to keeping people happy with reliable support.
Sinch’s research found 59% of businesses say their communication channels are fully integrated. 36% of respondents say communications are partially integrated, and just under 5% are either minimally integrated or not at all.
Customer Story
Find out what live entertainment company Family Quest did when their tech stack and messaging solution was no longer meeting their needs.
Family Quest’s CEO explains why integrating text communications with their customer relationship management (CRM) platform was a must for attracting crowds to fun events.
CUSTOMER STORY
Yet another way communications need to integrate is with customer-facing applications. Automated messages triggered by account signup, payments, and activity within the app keep users informed and engaged with your product.
Casey Henry is CTO at the tech startup SparkToro. See why it was important to find the right way to integrate email communications into their application.
Challenge 3
If an application or platform such as a client/patient portal is part of the customer experience, you’ll rely on developers to integrate communications with your app.
This is often done using APIs and SDKs that make it fast and efficient to connect channels like email, voice, and text without building everything from scratch. But there can still be challenges…
Our survey found that a slightly higher number of respondents view cost (17%) and security (18%) as the biggest issues when connecting applications and customer communications.
Besides those two options, however, most other challenges were chosen by between 8% and 12% of respondents. This suggests that all these factors may be problematic, and each business has unique concerns.
Finding the right people and partners to work with makes overcoming a variety of challenges much easier.
Emerging channel
Have you heard? There’s a transformation underway in customer communications. RCS for Business could change the way consumers interact with businesses on smartphones.
RCS brings many benefits to the table, but are leaders in healthcare, financial services, retail, and technology aware of it?
Across all four industries, we found that 87% of business leaders are at least somewhat familiar with RCS.
Need to get caught up? No problem. Check out Sinch’s RCS Hub to discover more and watch this short video to learn the essentials.
The outlook for RCS is very positive. On average across all four industries, 59% say RCS will be game-changing for business messaging. Another 32% see it as useful – even if it’s not essential.
Business leaders in tech were the most likely to see RCS as a game changer. Those respondents are also more likely to have their fingers on the pulse of innovation.
1. Technology (71%)
2. Healthcare (56%)
3. Financial services (55%)
4. Retail (53%)
The truth is all industries stand to benefit from using RCS. It is poised to make the business-to-consumer messaging experience more engaging, convenient, and safe – and that leads to happier customers.
We asked survey participants to select up to three of the biggest benefits of using RCS in their communication strategies.
Topping the list, 48% believe RCS will improve security. That’s partly because it is encrypted in transit, making RCS more secure than basic SMS. In addition, only verified senders can send RCS business messages, making them safer to interact with.
40% of business leaders think using RCS will help them increase customer engagement and nearly 37% say increasing customer trust is a top benefit.
The true value of RCS in customer communications will depend on how you choose to use it, because every one of these benefits is a possibility.
Find out what consumers think of common RCS messaging experiences in upcoming chapters.
Emerging opportunity
There’s no denying the fact that artificial intelligence is revolutionizing many facets of our work and lives.
Digital customer communications certainly stand to benefit from AI in multiple ways. That includes everything from better personalization to efficient customer service. At the same time, this technology is advancing so quickly that people do have concerns.
Top among them in our survey of business leaders are data and security (46%), accuracy and reliability (39%), as well as customer trust and perception of AI (34%).
Fewer respondents had ethical concerns or worries about employee displacement from implementing AI in customer communications.
We’ll show you more about consumers’ expectations, comfort levels, and concerns around AI in upcoming chapters.
“Consumers have become more and more demanding. Generative AI in communications enables companies to leverage their insights and information to instantaneously answer customers. I think compared to where we are today, in terms of customer care and customer service use cases, we’re going to start to see AI handle 10 times the volume that it’s already handling today.”
Plenty of organizations are already using artificial intelligence to improve their communication strategies. Here’s a look at some of the potential use cases and how popular they are in healthcare, financial services, retail, and technology.
We asked business leaders to identify the emerging communication channels they expect to take advantage of in the next 12 months.
Nearly 63% plan to adopt AI voice bots in 2025, making it the most popular emerging channel. Around 48% also plan to invest in or adopt video chat capabilities.
60% of financial services respondents say they’ll invest in AI chatbots, which is higher than the average of 46%.
Only 29% of retailers said they’d invest in other messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger. That’s lower than the 42% average across industries we surveyed. But as noted at the start of this chapter, retail is the industry most likely to already use these other messaging apps.
Only 4% of all business leaders surveyed said they weren’t planning to invest in any of these opportunities in the next year. These results show that the world of digital customer communications is constantly evolving, prompting innovative companies to explore new opportunities and stay agile.
In the next year, 46% of all business leaders we surveyed plan to focus on improving the way communications integrate with their tech stacks. That’s despite more than half saying they’re already fully integrated. 43% will prioritize adopting emerging technologies in 2025. Here are some additional insights:
• Personalization efforts and optimization of existing communication channels were both chosen around 40% of the time.
• More than 35% of respondents plan to implement more AI and automation into their communications.
• A combined 22% say they’ll either maintain or reduce their investments in communications.
• Healthcare respondents (25%) were the most likely to indicate they’d reduce investments. The same percentage of healthcare companies plan to maintain investments. Less than 3% of all other industries said the same.
These results suggest most companies will be looking for ways to enhance and improve their communications in 2025. And why not? It’s one of the best ways to improve the customer experience as well as operational efficiencies.
