With a leading omnichannel communication platform, companies have at their fingertips the control and capabilities to develop and deliver engaging, personalized billing and other communications experiences. But some fundamentals that drive customer satisfaction and retention are often overlooked: Creating easy-to-understand communications that are also correct, compliant and consistent across all print and mail, email and text interactions.
Customers are frequently frustrated and confused by their bills, payment and other transactional communications, making them a leading cause of customer churn. Last year, 1 in 5 consumers switched providers due to poor communications, according to recent Aspire CCS research. Worse, some consumers think companies are developing bills that are difficult to decipher on purpose: 49% say utility companies intentionally make bills confusing and more than a third don’t trust their bills to be accurate, according to Arbor’s 2025 US Electricity Bill Confusion Survey.
To build trust and improve customer retention, companies need to leverage a customer communications management (CCM) platform with omnichannel capabilities to make their print, digital and mobile communications more understandable and customer-friendly. Clear communications help move consumers beyond simply opening and setting them aside to actually engaging with them and, when relevant, acting on them—such as paying the bill or responding to the refi offer. Better communications can also decrease billing-related calls, which account for 50% of contact center volume, according to CSG research.
Repeated positive communication experiences drive customer trust, satisfaction and relationships, helping to reduce customer turnover.
What confuses people about their bills?
Confusion starts with the presentation of the information, especially for billing statements. Bills regularly feature dense copy in a small font and prominent disclaimers and new-product offers, forcing consumers to hunt for billing details, such as specific charges, usage and rate changes. In addition, jargon, technical and complex language reduce comprehension.
That’s not all. Consumers in the Aspire CCS survey cited other issues that make communications hard to understand, including:
- Containing information that seems contradictory or inconsistent with previous messages.
- Using terms or phrases that aren’t explained in context.
- Failing to explain what action the consumer needs to take or why.
How to create customer-friendly, omnichannel customer communications
An omnichannel communication platform enables companies to improve accuracy, clarity, consistency and compliance for more readable and thus actionable communications. Here’s how.
- Centralize communications to simplify development, management, distribution, tracking, archiving and reporting on print and mail, email and text messaging.
- Automate the integration of customer data with reusable communication templates based on business rules, populating from a repository of images, logos, text and other content blocks.
- Replace hundreds or thousands of letter and statement templates for every conceivable situation to dozens (or less).
- Automate the insertion of mandated disclosures, expediting compliance updates as regulations change and supporting secure omnichannel delivery that meets industry standards including HIPAA and SOC 2 Type 2.
- Streamline the switch to new, improved and mobile-first bill designs and enabling customer-friendly features, such as charts and infographics that display customer-specific usage trends, spending patterns, or other relevant information.
An omnichannel communication platform allows companies to cater to other customer expectations, including personalization and choice of delivery channel. Increasingly, consumers are looking for interactive elements – such as QR codes or text messaging keywords in printed documents and links in digital communications. Elements like these make it faster and easier to make payments, find additional information or locate other resources.
For more details, read the blog Designing a Customer-Centric Billing Statement.
Companies send a large variety of digital and print communications to each customer over the course of a year. Each one is an opportunity to deliver an experience that builds trust and loyalty—or chips away at them.
An omnichannel communication platform makes it easy to improve customer experience with clear, accurate, compliant and consistent communications. Companies that are easy to do business with are the ones that keep and grow their customer base.
Key Takeaways:
- Companies are driving away a significant number of customers with communications that are inconsistent and confusing.
- An omnichannel communication platform enables companies to overhaul their print and digital communications to make them easier to understand, accurate, compliant and consistent.
- Personalized, understandable billing and other transactional communications improve customer satisfaction and reduce customer turnover.
Contact us today to learn how we can help your organization.
