Spreading the word to customers on responsible business initiatives
TSB have done a great job with its Do What Matters Plan. It brings together its social and environmental commitments to deliver a long-lasting and meaningful impact for its customers, colleagues, suppliers, communities and the planet. Internally, the plan was well recognised and received. Now there was work to do to communicate it externally to customers. At a time of increasing public scrutiny, this had to be done safely and meaningfully. Demonstrating the positive steps TSB is taking for people and planet which would resonate and feel relevant.
TSB asked for our help to uncover and define a customer communications strategy that would use responsible business topics to deepen relationships with existing customers and encourage connections with new ones.
Ensuring internal support was critical. The first step was building a business case for the activity, offering clarity on the benefits the communications would bring. We also used this opportunity to demonstrate how responsible business comms could easily integrate into existing customer communication campaigns, channels and content, minimising commercial pressure and any increased need for extra resource.
- TSB’s first external responsible business communications strategy
- Six focus groups to understand the activities and stories that resonate, testing the platforms and formats most likely to appeal
- NPS customer data collection exercise, to capture existing customer awareness and understanding and provide a future benchmark
The focus groups and NPS questions uncovered levels of existing customer awareness, understanding and interest. We identified key areas they wanted to hear more about, as well as the topics or activities they were least keen on. These were broken down by segmented audience groups to give deep insight.
We used a data driven mapping exercise to link business priorities with opportunities. This helped align what the business wanted to communicate with what both customers and non-customers wanted to know more about, including an exploration of appropriate channels and potential format options.
We developed external communication principles to offer a clear direction for the strategy development, reporting back to the wider business at the end of each phase.
We shared our findings and recommendations with the marcomms and responsible business team in an internal workshop, co-creating a tactical roadmap for how to embed responsible business activity into customer communications. A collaborative approach brought internal stakeholders on board, enabling team to take on responsibilities against key actions.
TSB now have a clearly defined strategy for customer communications and importantly, ownership across the business to deliver it.
