A customer opens a statement, sees a charge they don’t understand, and reaches for the phone. While the statement arrived on time and the total seems accurate, they still have questions: how are the charges calculated? Why was an additional fee applied? How your organization responds, and the effort it takes to get answers, will shape how they feel about your brand and service.
Inspired by Aspire CCS’s 2026 State of the Industry research and discussion, this three-part series examines changing customer expectations, the move toward interactive communications, and the operations needed to support them. In this first instalment, we look at why customer communications deserve a larger role in your customer experience strategy.
The series draws on Aspire’s research involving more than 300 enterprises across three continents, alongside practitioners’ experiences. The research and discussion examined a shift from simply producing documents to helping customers understand the information they receive, what it means for them, and what actions they need to take next.
How to Build a Customer Communications Strategy
A customer communication strategy defines how your messages support customer needs and business requirements. It establishes what each communication should accomplish, which content and channels it needs, who’s responsible for it, and how you will measure success.
For a customer opening a bill, success may mean understanding an increase and making a payment without calling customer support. For someone reading a coverage notice, for example, it may mean knowing how a charge affects them and whether they need to respond. Planning around those needs helps teams decide which explanations and response options belong in the messaging.
A useful starting point is to identify the moments when customer communications matter most, such as a routine balance update or a notice about an expiring benefit. Both may be necessary, but they call for different levels of explanation and support. Prioritizing by urgency, complexity, and customer impact helps teams decide where to invest first. It also provides an opportunity to review communications that meet internal standards but leave recipients unsure of what the information means or what action to take.
That review should include timing and sequence. A reminder that arrives before the original notice, or instructions received after a deadline, can leave customers confused about next steps. Reviewing related messages together helps teams identify gaps and give customers the information they need when they need it.
Why Are Customer Expectations Changing?
Customers who can review a transaction, find an explanation, and contact support in a portal may be frustrated when a statement sends them elsewhere to complete the same task. Moving a document from mailbox to inbox improves delivery speed but does little to resolve an unexplained fee or unclear instruction.
Aspire highlights younger consumers’ preferences for conversational, app-based engagement as one of the forces shaping customer communications today. The impact for communications teams is practical: customers need a way to ask questions and respond, whether they are reviewing a balance, checking a condition, or deciding what to do about a notice.
Expectations can also change with the circumstances surrounding a message. Someone managing a familiar monthly payment may want quick confirmation, while a customer facing an unexpected increase may need time and reassurance. A useful strategy allows for both situations without assuming everyone wants the shortest possible interaction. Speed matters when it removes unnecessary work, and access to a person matters when the customer needs a conversation.
Simplify how you create, deliver, and manage interactive customer communications.
AI Is Influencing the Conversation Before It Begins
Customers can ask an AI assistant to explain financial terminology, compare borrowing options, or prepare questions for a provider before visiting their website. Organizations therefore need to consider how their own information supports someone who has already begun that research elsewhere.
During the webinar, Kaspar Roos, CEO and Founder of Aspire CCS, relayed an observation from Chris Herring, formerly SVP and Head of Digital Experience Platform at Citizens National Bank, who estimated that 10% to 15% of site traffic comes from AI tools such as ChatGPT.
When customers arrive at your site after using an AI tool, they may already have specific questions. Your communications can help them understand how what they’ve learned applies to your products and services. Someone who has compared loan options, for example, may need to confirm eligibility or clarify conditions before applying. A general product introduction may not give a customer the answers they need to take that next step.
Consistent, clear explanations also help service teams respond when customers bring information from an AI tool. Staff need to approve information they can use to clarify a term, correct a misunderstanding, or explain why a general answer may not apply to an individual situation. Direct, relevant answers can help customers feel more confident in the support they receive.
Build Better Experiences Around Your Customers’ Preferences
Convenient digital services should be part of a strategy that also respects a customer’s channel preferences and accessibility needs. A customer may use an online portal for everyday account tracking while preferring a printed record of an important change or personal assistance with an unfamiliar process.
Printed communications need clear explanations and contact details, while digital communications should make it easy to explore relevant information. Recording preferences is only useful if your delivery processes reliably honor them.
What Role Does Customer Communications Management Play in Customer Experience?
Customer communications management (CCM) supports the creation, management, and delivery of your messages. Customer experience management (CXM) places your messaging within the wider customer relationship, asking how each interaction affects the customer’s confidence, satisfaction, and willingness to stay. That perspective gives communications teams a reason to assess the experience after delivery, as well as the work required to produce communications.
Communications investment is often assessed through production costs, delivery costs, and the effort required to meet business needs.
Aspire’s research suggests that organizations with a stronger customer experience focus are investing more in their communications, treating them as part of the wider customer relationship rather than simply a production cost.
Trust is particularly relevant when the news is unwelcome. If a customer’s bill is increasing, for example, the communication should explain why, how much more they will pay, and when the increase takes effect. A considerate tone and an invitation to ask questions can help show empathy and encourage customers to reach out for support.
Promising an easy solution that the service team cannot deliver risks creating a second disappointment. Communications teams should therefore ensure the promises they make can be delivered.
Measure the Impact of Your Customer Communications
To understand how communications affect customer loyalty, examine whether customers receive unexpected information, feel overlooked, or struggle to get an answer. Instead of assuming that a friendlier tone will improve loyalty, teams can examine whether communications leave customers feeling surprised, overlooked, or unable to get an answer. Those are specific experiences that an organization can investigate and address.
To build a business case for improving customer communications, start with messages that frequently lead to repeat calls or complaints. Identify what customers find confusing and how much it costs to resolve their questions.
Use those findings to decide where clearer wording, better instructions, or a simpler process could help. Then measure whether those changes help customers understand the message. For example, clear instructions for submitting information could reduce incomplete forms and follow-up requests.
Compare results before and after each update, including service costs and customer satisfaction, and account for any changes in the audience or process that may have influenced the results.
How Can Customer Communications Reduce Friction?
Communications reduce friction when they answer likely questions and make it easier to complete a task, such as paying a bill or responding to a notice. Achieving that requires coordination between teams.
Customers experience messages from marketing, billing, compliance, and service teams as coming from one organization. A helpful onboarding message can lose its value when the first bill is confusing, especially if the service team cannot see the information the customer received.
A shared strategy gives those teams clear responsibility for the content customers receive and the service that follows. In part two, we’ll explore how organizations can rethink regulatory communications, moving from static documents to interactive experiences.
