Effective Communication for Customer Retention

I have, recently, been grappling with stiff-necked challenges of high processing fees and very-often slow settlements for my royalty payments. While all these were going on, I had hoped things would get better as loads of reassuring messages from the Fintech company in which my USD account was domiciled kept turning my heart away from competing alternatives.

The primary reason I never had to consider the thought of switching to an alternative Fintech company was because the existing one was my first Fintech and the excitement of receiving my first successful international settlement through them alone blinded my sense of judgment. So, changing them was, for me, an inconceivable idea.

As a provider, there are many customers of yours who are presently caught up like me and are about to be presented with an opportunity to leave or the very last reason to stay put. Any strategic direction or position, at this point;  if ill-calculated, could cost your business, and if well streamlined, could retain your customers.

Back to my experience with the Fintech company. Last week Monday, I got a message from them asking me to bear with them, as usual. They told me that my unprocessed funds would be reversed within 3 to 5 business days and that they were "sorry" for any inconveniences the delay might have caused. I know some of you have had similar experience and a picture or more is currently flashing through your mind right now.

I have little or no qualms with the messages but everything is wrong with the constant use of the word "Sorry". The moment I saw that the mail notification was from them, what came to my mind was, "Hope this is not another 'We are sorry' message. As I began to read, it was just as predicted.

The lesson from this write-up to a service provider is that:

A.  Never allow your customers predict your communication especially when it is sent for the purpose of addressing a negative situation.

B. Try to tweak your messages and avoid constant use of familiar words like, "We are sorry". Instead, you may use words like, "We take full responsibility for this delay", "We sincerely have your interest at heart even as we promise to restore normalcy within ..., etc.

C. Employ expert business content creators to draft your business contents in order to avoid negative business positioning.

And finally, before I tell you what I did to the Fintech company, let me make you understand that their failure to communicate effectively made me to compare their services to available competitions. It really opened my eyes to all of the benefits and opportunities I had missed. I am sure, by now,  I need not tell you what my decision was.

Thank you and God bless for staying tuned up till this point.

Brendan B. Michael

Writer, Author, Publisher and Business Strategist.

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