– Complex decision-making is often supported not by single messages but by multichannel communication packages that need to be evaluated in their own right. The purpose of this paper is to present a new analytic approach to this package evaluation task combining textual analysis, functional analysis (FA) and media synchronicity theory.
– The authors combine textual analysis, FA and media synchronicity and demonstrate this in a single case analysis of a multichannel communication package offering mortgage information.
– When applied to a mortgage communication package for consumers, the evaluation reveals significant problems concerning the contents and timing of mortgage information and the channels chosen to convey it.
– This paper outlines a new direction for evaluating multichannel consumer information, in that it does not focus on user channel preferences but on channel requirements stemming from the communicative task to be performed.
– This paper enables designers to optimize the design of multichannel communication packages and its individual components to support customer’s decision-making processes with regards to complex products.
– Improving information to guide complex decision-making processes leads to better informed consumers.
– Research into effective multichannel communication within marketing is in its infancy. This paper offers a new perspective by focusing on channel requirements stemming from the communicative task rather than consumers’ channel preferences.
