If you’re from anywhere north, bundling means one thing: layering. It is essential. Without layers you get awfully cold, awfully quick. By pairing things together you’re suddenly a lot more comfortable. We’re not all coming off months of snow, ice, wind and more snow, but we all gain value when we mix, match, and combine things together – even if it isn’t necessarily thick winter gear.
What:
Weather bundling might only be helpful some of the time, but there is a type of bundling that is good for everyone regardless of physical location. To start, let’s look in more detail at what communication bundling is. Bundling in general, and in business, is when several products are packaged as one. The value of one is added upon and supplemented by the combined products. A common example is when you see a printer packaged with ink. Technically, the printer is the only product, but to increase value the ink is thrown in. Likewise, communication bundling occurs when multiple communication services are all brought to optimize efficiency and value. Together this type of bundling helps contribute to a company’s overall communication strategy and outreach.
Typically, we can see this happen in two different ways: First, through the use of multi-channel communication, seen by combining independent channels such as text and calling together during a single use case. For example, in an emergency CAT situation, you can choose to send a warning notification from a text or a phone call independently to two different customers. Two channels addressing the same customer touch point.
Another way we can see communication bundling is through cross-channel communication. Often the best way to communicate is by starting with one channel, say an automated phone call, and then transitioning to receive the information through a text message. This is frequently seen during retail marketing campaigns. When done correctly, this provides a continuous and smooth experience for your customer.
Why:
Why should you bundle communications together? Companies offer bundling options to not only provide better value, convenience and to enhance brand loyalty for their customers and partners, but to maximize their own wallet share in the industry as well. When it comes to communication bundling, the focus – or the why – is to provide value to the customer with a seamless customer experience. When your customer has a positive experience, then your business wins. We’ve all been frustrated when information we seek is not easily accessible or is plagued by seemingly pointless steps before we get what we are looking for. Communication bundling seeks to smooth the journey by allowing your customers multiple ways to receive the information they want; through the channel they want.
Your customer might hate phone calls and text messages from people who aren’t family and friends, instead preferring business communications to reach them via email. Other customers’ might actually prefer text messages because their email inboxes are full of spam and clutter leaving your important notification amongst millions of emails never read. In both cases, businesses using communication bundling allows greater connection by appealing to each of their customers’ needs individually. Remember the adage "Don’t put all your eggs in one basket"? Communication bundling helps prevent those types of losses. Another benefit of bundling comes through the power of customer touchpoints. The more touchpoints you have, the more data you can collect to ensure you can provide the best service possible (Oracle, 2024).
When:
Next, when is it appropriate to use communication bundling? Always. Communication bundling is excellent during a lot of “when’s.” Use it for those moments that require urgent attention, like making an insurance claim. Your company’s preparation allows you to send the right message, at the right time, through the right channel. If, heaven forbid, other incidents occur such as devastating hurricanes or fires, or even a simple car crash, and someone needs access to claim instructions and next steps, sending the information through an automated phone call would be ridiculous as there is no way for your customer to look back and confirm the instructions. However, by using more than one channel you can acknowledge the claim using an automated personal text or call and send the forms they will need to fill out via email, thus, creating a unified customer experience. Again, the need for communication wasn’t premediated by the customer, but you, as the insurance company, are prepared to provide the best seamless experience for your customer.
Communication bundling is also perfect for when you have a lot of customers, all with individual tastes, and you are trying to please everyone at the same time. As mentioned in the "Why", every customer has their own preferences for their use cases and sometimes there are best practices too. By using omni-channel, cross-channel and multi-channel communication bundling, keeping your customers informed doesn’t have to be painful. Instead, you can reach them legally and easily in a blast of automated preference-based channels. Customers can get the information they need in their preferred channel of choice.
How:
Perhaps the most pivotal question to consider is "How?". How do you make it work for you and your company? By either building it, buying it or partnering. Each option depends on scale, resources, volume and workflows.
Build
There are multiple perks to building something on your own, the biggest being that it’s tailor made by you. You get full control over operations, and you already know what communications you want to bundle together and what you prefer to keep separate. The cons are… you’re building it yourself. You can’t exactly blame the engineer… when you are the engineer. It can also bring a large commitment of resources, time, and money. Still, full control and tailoring can easily make up for it.
Buy
On the other hand, there’s the ‘why build when you can buy’ philosophy. It can be much faster and include less of a technical learning curve, and typically the companies selling are willing to work with you to ensure it’s quick to start and is added seamlessly to your existing stack. However, it too can be costly and the initial stages tedious as you do your research on possible vendors to ensure your company needs are met.
Partner
When you achieve communication bundling through partner integrations the hard work is already done. It’s an effective way to integrate directly while taking advantage of others’ established expertise and solutions through APIs. On the flipside, in order for your partnership to truly flourish long term, you need to find and partner with someone who shares the same values and have each others’ best interest in mind.
Now What?
We know why we use bundling – we like the perks we get out of it. Through effective communication bundling, the value you bring to your customers increases, giving them a smoother customer journey and increasing their engagement and loyalty to you. What type of bundling you’d like to do depends on your business, the pain points you’re trying to solve, and the circumstances surrounding your immediate communication. Remember, it is possible multi-channel communication is not what you’re looking for in one area, but cross-channel communication is. Regardless of how, the value of having more than one avenue for communication cannot be overstated. Which is why it’s important to determine how you want to achieve it – either through building it yourself, buying from others or partnering.
Happy bundling!
For a deeper look at building, buying or partnering... check out this blog or TaraTalk.
References
Oracle. (2024). What is Cross-channel marketing?. Cross-Channel Marketing | Oracle Canada