I am a quintessential consumer like the billions on the planet and here is my experience with some of the brands from my life.

Finance brands talk to me

One day, I got a call from my bank to inform me that a customer relationship manager has been appointed, who will interact with me via inbound and outbound calls. I was advised to save this person’s name and contact information, so that I can dial this person directly for any help, any information, or to report a bug and so forth. I did have a few conversations with my customer relationship manager and got my queries resolved. The bank service is good, but these one-on-one personalized conversations further enhanced my brand loyalty. I started buying all my insurances from its sister concern that operates by the same brand name. I had accounts in a couple other banks, but I closed them. This is my only bank now, and I intend to keep it that way. I open every email from this bank, read every SMS and answer all their calls.

Automobile brands talk to me

Likewise, a customer service associate from my car dealer’s office contacts me from time to time to find out if everything is fine or if I need any help. I am already  a loyal customer of this brand, though I bought the car less than a year back. It’s not just because the car is great, but also because of these conversations I had with their representatives.

FMCG brands don’t talk to me

Like everyone else, I use a lot of FMCG brands through the day – personal care, foods,  electronics and so forth. I have used some of these brands for ages. I am happy with most of them. They are an integral part of my life, nonetheless there is some void in my relationship with them. I do not have a sense of bonding with these brands that I have with my bank and my car brands. I have feedback, I have questions, I have suggestions. I want a particular variant of a particular personal care product, but it is not available at the local stores. I have been looking for years. I tried giving feedback on their website but did not hear back.

Is our love for FMCG brands one-sided?

We love the brands we use in our day-to-day lives.  Sometimes we have the need to talk directly to someone from the brand, give feedback, share a light moment, thank them or just tell them how much we love the brand, and how we cannot live without the brand. 

We can go online, but there are moments when we want to connect with someone from the brand offline. There are times when we just want to pick up the phone and talk to a person. There are times when we want to talk from our heart via voice and not via the keyboard.  And then there are millions of consumers who are not online, so the only way they can reach out to you is via voice.

High volume – a boon or a bane?

While B2B and other B2C providers can build individual customer relationships via CRM tools and customer service departments because of their lower customer volumes, it is the FMCG brands that are unable to connect with individual users because of their astronomical consumer volumes.

Automation is the answer

Problems arising from high volumes have always found solutions in automation. FMCG brands can use automated solutions to connect individually with consumers. For example, Voxta Communications is developing innovative products to help brands talk to high volume consumers. The Voxta platform uses speech recognition technology to recognize customer input and respond accordingly on both inbound and outbound campaigns.

FMCG brands should add voice to their marketing mix and occasionally touch base with consumers to make them feel that they love consumers as much as consumers love them. For instance, they can add a click-to-call CTA to their mobile display ads. Or they can combine TVCs with interactive voice campaigns… and so forth. One-on-one conversations can go a long way in deepening relationships with consumers and sustaining brand loyalty.

I do hope that I will be able to connect with voices from the brands I love and talk my heart.