Marcela Gonzalez
Lex Evan started selling homemade brownies on Instagram in 2019 through a business he was reticent to launch. He wanted to make a delicious dessert without any processed or artificial ingredients.
However, his guiding principle of Radical Ingredient Transparency™ is not the only thing that has propelled his business. In late 2022, he sold nearly $20,000 to the same 200 customers the company started with.
This brand loyalty can only be explained by Lexington Bakes’ company culture—he wants his customers to know that he sees them not as simple order numbers, but as real people who have the right to understand and enjoy what they’re consuming.
This is highlighted in his social media communication, where he frequently asks his followers for advice and feedback.
Another person who highlights communication as a path to success is Chris Stephens, founder of the Canadian digital marketing company Twirling Umbrella.
He mentions good communication and customer service as key skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur. This small business hones its communications by developing and keeping close relationships with its clients.
Having said this, how relevant should customer communication be to you?
Why Customer Communication is Important
Consistent and transparent communication generates a feeling of trust within your customers.
If you show them that you care about their opinions and concerns, keep your promises and deliver their expectations, you’ll be much more likely to have a loyal customer base.
This ties to customer retention. Although it’s a neverending debate, it’s advised to make customer retention a priority against customer acquisition. While new customers can help you reach your short-term revenue goals faster, don’t underestimate the potential of your current customer base:
Repeat customers spend around 31% more than new customers.
Retention is cheaper than acquisition—by about five to six times. You can reduce your marketing budget when you already have a customer base.
Focusing on retention can lead to improving the customer experience, resulting in loyal customers expressing their satisfaction with positive word-of-mouth.
Existing customers can give you valuable feedback that can help you meet their needs better.
They are also 50% more likely to try new products compared to new customers.
Many customer retention metrics can provide valuable insights into your business’ performance, such as churn rates (the number of customers who dropped your business over a certain period), revenue impact, and repeat purchase behaviour.
Communicating regularly through different channels is essential for maintaining customer engagement and excitement. By keeping your customer base informed about new products, promotions, or events, you’ll create a feeling of anticipation.
Furthermore, establishing this communication from the start gives your customers a space to express their feedback, concerns, or suggestions—and if you reply to these inquiries in a timely and empathetic manner, you’ll demonstrate a commitment to customer satisfaction that will strengthen the trust they already have in your business.
Main Communication Channels
After highlighting the importance of frequent communication, there are various communication channels your small food business can use, which include:
Social Media
This is the default platform for engaging with customers in real-time. Encourage interactions by holding contests, sharing updates, behind-the-scenes, etc.
You can ask your audience to leave comments and share their stories with your business.
It’s a great way to collect feedback without having to spend efforts in distributing questionnaires or requesting formal reviews. A simple poll or a text box in your Instagram Story is enough to gather a good number of your buyers’ opinions.
Your content should have a purpose, however. Posting multiple times a day won’t add to your business if your customers don’t see value in your content—focus on creating relevant posts that adhere to current trends or that educate your viewers.
Email Marketing
Don’t just use emails as a sales promotions channel—a personalized birthday greeting, reaching out to say hello after a long time, or post-purchase surveys… they will not necessarily get you an immediate sale, but will keep your business in the mind of your customers and make them feel valuable.
Email newsletters are a powerful tool that can reach a large audience and help you build stronger customer relationships. You can share everything from exclusive offers and product updates to customer stories and educational resources.
To craft a successful newsletter make sure it is accessible, has catchy and concise subject lines and keeps a consistent schedule.
Website and Online Platforms
To attract and retain customers, your online store needs to be user-friendly (both on desktop and mobile), visually appealing, and honest.
How you choose to communicate your products is just as important. Be accurate and transparent in your marketing materials, as studies show that 47.1% of customers are turned off by boastful or dishonest marketing.
Since they don’t have the chance to see or feel the product, customers’ buying decisions are based on your descriptions, images, videos, and reviews. That’s why you need to provide as much information as possible to address their potential questions and concerns.
This means including both the good and not-so-good reviews, a FAQs section, and detailed product specifications like:
Ingredients
Nutritional information
Shelf life and storage
Serving suggestions
Organic, gluten-free or non-GMO certifications
Customers value honesty and transparency above everything—avoid exaggeration or setting up your products as something they’re not. You’ll have fewer returns and post-purchase dissatisfaction.
Do Not Forget: Tailor Your Communication to Your Audience
Are you aware of how kids don’t speak to their friends as they do to their parents? Or how your register changes in a formal environment? Similar considerations have to be taken into account when you’re communicating with customers.
Let us explain: As important as it was to have the concept of your business clear when you started it, knowing who you’re addressing your product to and which are the best ways to talk to this audience matters just the same.
You shouldn’t come across as too sales-y. Feel free to post content that doesn’t necessarily have to do with your business but is something of interest to the local community.
You can insert bits of humour here and there while keeping the serious image of a business owner. Analyze your audience’s interests to make jokes and comments that relate to their experiences—always keeping in mind timing, context, and cultural sensitivities.
In general—and in any communication channel—you should avoid:
Using industry-specific terms that may confuse readers
Speaking in a tone that doesn’t align with your brand (eg. too formal or informal)
Turning to negative language instead of highlighting the positive aspects of your product/message
Abusing of clichés and buzzwords
Not checking your work before sending it out there—although it happens to everyone, typos and grammatical errors can make you look unprofessional
Communication Strategies
Active Listening: Effective communication requires as much listening as it does speaking. When you interact with your customers, try to truly understand what they’re trying to communicate instead of jumping right away with a response. Ask questions, paraphrase their statements and, perhaps most importantly, avoid interrupting them.
Be Knowledgeable: Know what the features, benefits and limits of your products are. Offer additional resources like recipes, blogs, and Q&As to become a repeat business that’s also a top adviser on the food industry.
Empathy: Needless to say, compassion and understanding of customer concerns go a long way: Almost 90% of customers say good customer service increases their likelihood of making future purchases. However, the opposite is also true: Multiple bad experiences can make 73% of customers drop a business for good.
Transparency: It’s worth mentioning again—be honest about your products, any hidden pricing fees, and your business practices. Don’t make misleading claims (think of greenwashing) that could lead to misunderstandings and loss of clients.
Be Proactive: This is all about reaching the finish line and running the extra mile. Stay ahead of customer needs and anticipate issues by providing self-service options, offering multiple communication channels, following up low reviews immediately and rewarding customers for their purchases.
Measuring Communication Effectiveness
Although communication is a rather abstract concept whose efforts could seem hard to judge, there’s, luckily, more than one way to do so.
KPIs
Key Performance Indicators are metrics used to gauge the performance of a business or, in this case, a specific part of their performance or department. They normally follow the SMART criteria and can let you know…
How well your content performs with your audience (Engagement Rate Score)
How easy it was to solve a concern or how user-friendly an aspect of your product was (Customer Effort Score)
How fast you reply to customers (First Response Time)
How your product matched the customer’s expectations (Customer Satisfaction Score)
How loyal your customers are (Net Promoter Score)
How much time it takes for your business to close a customer ticket (Average Resolution Time)
For small businesses, tracking KPIs can be done manually through spreadsheets and mathematical formulas; specialized business software; and Point-of-Sale Systems whenever you’re selling at farmers’ markets or fairs.
Customer Surveys
Customer surveys give you specific feedback on your communication efforts, products, and customer service.
Because you can widely distribute them through email, website, or social media, they help you continuously learn what areas of your business can be improved.
It’s important to create a targeted survey depending on what you want to know: Is it customer service? Pricing? The buying experience? This will help determine the timing of your surveys and the questions to include—you don’t want to risk overwhelming your customers with an endless questionnaire.
Other tips include asking close-ended questions, mixing question types, avoiding leading questions and offering incentives to encourage participation.
Be sure to follow up the surveys by expressing gratitude and directly addressing any concerns or questions that come up.
Social Media Analytics
Platforms like Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social can help you track metrics like likes, shares, comments, and mentions, as well as letting you know which content performs the best and the optimal posting times.
Conducting a sentiment analysis is another crucial step in understanding how your communication and brand are perceived. It involves identifying and categorizing the emotional tone of customer feedback.
Although many sentimental analysis tools can streamline the process, the principle is as easy as:
Taking an afternoon to sit and read through your comments and reviews
Classifying them as “positive” “negative” or “neutral”
Measuring the intensity of the sentiment (slightly negative or very negative?)
Jotting down trends and patterns in customer sentiment over time
This will leave you with a mix of customer satisfaction insights, areas to keep an eye on and opportunities to refine your communication strategy.
Communicating with Employees as a Small Business Owner
Customer satisfaction is only one of many elements of success. While it is essential, the people behind a business are the ones who ultimately drive development and growth, and as such they should be considered in your communication strategy.
And if you’re working on your own but aren’t opposed to the idea of delegating some tasks, keep this section in mind for later!
Effective communication with employees can:
Reduce conflict: Open communication and the existence of communication channels give people the chance to clear and tackle misunderstandings before they escalate.
Boost engagement and morale: When employees feel listened to and considered, they’ll be more likely to feel connected to their work and your small business’ mission. (And the environment will be a lot more harmonious!)
Improve customer service: While poor or lack of communication can lead to misinformation reaching customers, if your team feels valued they will carry that feeling in their interactions with customers, being more responsive and understanding.
So if you want to foster an even more positive work environment and enhance your employees’ experience, consider these simple but useful strategies:
Be Accessible
Let your employees know that they can approach you with questions, concerns, or ideas at any time. You can create opportunities for dialogue through weekly or monthly check-ins.
Apart from these one-on-one meetings, when gathering feedback consider using anonymous surveys, as they will help employees feel more comfortable when expressing their feedback.
Make sure to exercise active listening and keep a tab on the issues raised. Remember to show an open and calm disposition—rushing and small talk won’t lead to trust.
Recognize Your Team
Loyal and happy employees perform better and are more prone to stay: 69% say that they would work harder if their efforts were better recognized.
Whether it’s a milestone or a small win, don’t hesitate to acknowledge contributions through an employee of the month program, a party, gifts, a meal—even a little thank you note! There are many ways to celebrate success that are easy and will motivate their recipients.
You can also make it easier for your employees to recognize each other by installing a Kudos board, providing post-its, and encouraging social media appreciation through comments and likes. It might just look like a “Good job,” but it can go a long way in creating a tighter and more motivated team.
Have Multiple Communication Channels
Mix different communication channels to reach and engage your employees at all levels.
Face-to-face meetings allow for verbal and non-verbal cues that enrich communication. It’s ideal for more complex messages that lead to back-and-forth exchanges, and can help build stronger bonds within your team.
Emails keep your employees informed on important updates, news, and events. They allow you to address larger groups of people while also allowing you to contact them individually to follow up on discussions or concerns.
Instant messaging tools like Microsoft Teams or Slack are convenient to keep everyone connected. Communication is quick, easy, and can be traced quickly just like an email thread can be. Platforms like Discord allow you to create different channels to divide your operations.
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