Evgeniya Pikina, VP at Mitto, Emphasizes the Importance of Reliable Tech Connectivity for Customer Relationships

Reliability can mean a world of difference when it comes to customer-brand relationships. A simple Google search will reveal horror stories about customers with missing packages, triple charges, and other common customer service issues. What typically stands out against these relayed stories is that they are usually told by someone who received poor customer service during their bad experience. While scenarios like this are not unique to the online landscape, technology has made the way brands deal with these scenarios ever important. 

In a recent interview with Doug Green of the Telecom Reseller podcast, the VP of Business Development at Mitto, Evgeniya Pikina, discussed why brands must nurture customer relationships through reliable communication tech. Pikina touched on ways that omnichannel and conversational commerce tools can help the customer create their own story and offered some insights on where she feels the future of customer relationships is heading. 

About Mitto & Omnichannel Communication

Pikina is the VP of business development at Mitto, an omnichannel communications company focusing on customer engagement technology and business communication solutions for a globally connected world. Mitto aims to provide integrated and scalable tech solutions that allow businesses to connect efficiently with their customers.

While most companies will mention how COVID-19 changed their sales and communications tactics, Mitto was aware of what an extended lockdown and social distancing meant. On a personal level, Evgeniya Pikina mentioned that the pandemic lockdown re-emphasized a need for people to connect with others. Consumers took to apps to communicate with their loved ones and feel less lonely. In turn, people grew to expect communication to come more quickly. Add that to the fact that the pandemic had customers shopping online more frequently, and you can see how that would have impacted customers worldwide. 

“We want everything faster now,” Pikina said. The pandemic made consumers more acutely aware of brand communication capabilities and made consumers closer to their phones. This fundamentally changed how we interacted with the resources on our phones, relying on shortcuts for even simple apps. “For example, we bookmark the pages and add widgets on our phone screens for faster access to the application or the preferred news channel.” Consumer lives rely heavily on phones, so businesses must meet consumer needs in the middle to stay relevant in a competitive world.

Excellent Consumer Experience Goes Beyond Tech

Anyone who has dealt with an app with a lot of potential but too many bugs and poor customer service can tell you this – it doesn’t matter how unique or interesting the idea is. Without support, the idea sinks. 

This idea goes double for brand tech, which is supposed to connect the consumer with the content. If we add in consumer-level personalization and support, this can go a long way toward boosting a brand’s reputation in the eyes of the customer. According to Evgeniya Pikina, brands that understand the customer are often the brands that go the distance. And if they can come to a fitting consumer conclusion with the help of technology, this makes the brand’s job easier. 

As Doug Green stated in the podcast, “It’s not just a great flight experience or a great hotel experience, but they understand me. They understand my wants. They like me. They know who I am.” Pikina calls that the “emotional click.” With every purchase or brand interaction, the brand should strive to provide a memorable connection with the customer in a way that “clicks” for them. Whether that is through branded values, consideration of consumer pain points, or even something as simple as a logo, this is the start of a consumer-brand story. 

The Art Of Consumer Storytelling 

Pikina goes on to say that storytelling is integral to everything we do as humans. As such, it is critical to both brands and customers alike. When brands use updated technology to track data, interact with consumers, and utilize that to tell customers a “story” that both relate to them and allows them to ‘choose their own adventure,’ that is one very critical way in which brands can utilize technology in a way that benefits both the consumer and the brand. It helps consumers humanize the brand and helps brands understand their customers. 

This personal connection is what Pikina believes drives customer retention rates. Not only does the brand create an enduring story that allows the consumer to connect with the brand at that precise moment, but it also allows them to remember the brand in the future. Logos do this, but so does a great customer experience, like a good transaction or customer service event.

Add in tools like SMS, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and SMS – and brands can even further personalize the way they connect with consumers and tell their story by doing the following: 

1. Gathering data, like shopping preferences, safely allows brands to learn more about their clients and better tailor their needs in the future.
2. Creating consistency across all communication methods. Omnichannel communication providers like Mitto allow brands to better navigate their messaging apps to remain consistent in voice and message rates. 
3. Creating personalized conversational messages. Using AI or Chatbots in a way that allows consumers to interact as though they were talking to a real person and building a connection with the brand in a way that is engaging. 

Doug Green goes on to ask Pikina, “So, what it sounds like you’re saying is technology plays a pivotal role in brand customer connectivity. I mean, this anticipation, for example, of, “I know what you bought, and I think this maybe is what you’re interested in.” After this, Doug suggests that without AI or data gathering, it may not have been possible to create this type of experience on a large scale (or for every customer).

Since technology has evolved so rapidly and consumers have evolved to expect the type of rapid response that comes standard with this technology, this was to be expected. However, as social creatures, humans still couldn’t overcome the need for personalized communication. There had to be a way to bridge the gap. That’s where omnichannel communication companies like Mitto step in.

Mitto and other omnichannel communication companies combine the power of data analytics, communication, and AI to give customers the feeling that they are interacting with a real person without waiting in line. Mitto’s tech runs on self-adjusting AI that checks to see which communication path is best for the customer before sending it out. It also analyzes other routes to ensure the message can be delivered even if one route is non-functional. It does this while utilizing other customer service analytics to provide the best possible customer experience. 

Only with methods like Mitto’s will brands be able to continue to stay relevant to their competitors. Customers will always seek out brands willing to tell them their stories and work with them in a way that emphasizes their uniqueness and humanity.