Thought piece · Customer comms
Seven rules for effective customer comms
Attention is the twenty-first century’s most valuable resource; no organisation can take it for granted. Our Customer Comms Programme ensures all comms abide by our seven rules – meaning comms that reduce customer calls, improve KPIs and keep customers loyal.
1. Never take customers’ attention for granted
Customers don’t wake up wanting to read your email, and in 2026 they’re actively looking for a reason not to open it – spam and scam attempts have made every inbox a battleground. The subject line decides whether a comm gets read or binned, so attention has to be earned, not assumed, from the very first word.
2. Use the right frame, so crucial updates aren’t read as a sales pitch
Customers sort incoming comms into mental folders almost instantly. Anything with the rhythm of a marketing email – breezy tone, exclamation marks – gets filed as junk and skipped, however important the content. Getting the frame right, so something serious reads as serious, matters as much as the message itself.
3. Start from where the customer is, not from where the organisation is
What’s obvious to you, like why interest rates push up prices, is often not obvious to the customer receiving your letter. That gap between organisational understanding and customer understanding is where misreadings begin. Good comms start at the customer’s level of knowledge, not the author’s.
4. Stay relentlessly focused on one CTA or takeaway
Every additional ask dilutes the one that matters. Try to retain a customer and upsell a tariff and cross-sell insurance in the same letter, and you don’t triple your chances – you give them a reason to write off the whole thing as sales patter and ignore everything.
5. Recognise there’s no average reader and optimise for this
Bills are the clearest example: most people skim for the headline figure, some check a specific payment, and a few go through every line in detail. You rarely know in advance which read you’ll get, so comms need to be designed to serve all of these needs, not just the average one.
6. Account for when, where and how people really read your comms
A newsletter scanned on the commute is a different comm to one opened at a desk; a bill glanced at late at night reads differently to one reviewed at the weekend. Time is relative too – a week can feel instant or endless, depending on what the customer is waiting for.
7. Reassure vulnerable customers, so they engage rather than avoid
Customers under financial pressure often go to real lengths to avoid unwelcome comms altogether, sticking their head in the sand rather than opening a bill or a letter about arrears. Comms need to be built specifically to lower that instinct to avoid, encouraging engagement instead of retreat.
