Insights · Customer communication
The next customer update is part of the work
Growing service businesses need to give communication the same ownership they give delivery.
By Gayon Brown
Co-Founder, Liftwell Consulting
· 4 min read
An email can be polite and accurate and still leave a customer with work to do. If it does not explain what happens next or when they will hear again, the customer has to decide when to follow up. Their chasing becomes an informal way of managing the job.
My view is that the next customer update should have the same clarity as a delivery deadline. A business can be working hard without giving the customer a reliable way to understand what is happening. That uncertainty is where trust can begin to weaken.
Follow the responsibility across teams
In a past software-support role, I helped with a display problem that needed engineering input. I documented the device model and screen dimensions so the engineer could investigate. The engineer corrected the sizing issue, and the customer confirmed that the application displayed properly after a refresh.
My contribution was coordination and follow-through. The technical fix belonged to engineering; checking that the customer could use the application again was also part of closing the case. Sending the issue to another team was one step in that process.
The same responsibility applies when a service job moves from an office to a field team, a supplier or a reviewer. Someone still needs to know what the customer has been told and what they are waiting to hear.
Give the next update its own owner and date
Completion dates can depend on people outside the business. The next communication should still be something the team plans and manages.
For one active workflow, I would record the current action, who is handling it, and the next customer update. Name the person responsible for that update and set a realistic checkpoint. The person communicating does not have to be the person doing the technical work, but they do need access to an accurate account of its status.
This also requires a decision about authority. Staff should know which routine updates they can give themselves and which changes need approval. Otherwise, assigning an update to an employee simply creates another message waiting in the owner's inbox.
Make the waiting useful
An illustrative update for a software-support case might read:
Illustrative update
The technical team has the screen details needed to investigate the display issue. I will check progress and update you by 3 p.m. tomorrow, even if the investigation is still open.
Choose a checkpoint that reflects the urgency, the likely investigation time and what the team can reasonably commit to.
Updates should add useful information. An automatic message saying a request is important can become noise when it is repeated without context. Explain what has been checked, identify any dependency and give a next step. If a promised checkpoint will be missed, tell the customer as soon as that becomes clear.
The point is to help the customer plan without asking staff to manufacture progress or send constant messages.
Use the chasing to improve the process
A business can begin by reviewing a small set of recent jobs. Compare the updates promised with the updates sent, then note where customers had to ask for information that was already due.
Keep genuine new questions separate from missed communication. A customer asking to change an order is different from a customer asking whether anyone has checked an overdue request. Counting every incoming call as a failure would give the team a misleading picture.
Look for the repeated point where communication breaks down. Perhaps the office cannot see a field update, or a reviewer finishes a check without notifying the person speaking to the client. The useful change may be one clearer handoff or a decision about who can respond. Start there and check whether the pattern changes.
Connect reputation work to the delivery record
Google's Business Profile guidance explains that replying to reviews shows customers that their feedback is valued. Approved replies are public, so the response also becomes part of what other people can see about the business. [1]
A useful public response needs accurate facts about the experience behind it. Repeated complaints about unanswered messages should prompt a review of how updates move through the business. Better wording on the review page will have limited value if the next customer encounters the same gap.
That is where I see operations and reputation work meeting. Listening to the complaint can reveal something the team needs to change inside its daily work. A clearer record then helps the person communicating explain what has happened and what is being done.
At Liftwell, our process-improvement work focuses on how responsibilities and handoffs operate in practice. A useful starting point is to trace one live job from the customer's last update to its next internal action. Before that job moves again, write down who will contact the customer and when.