The state of customer communications in 2025: What email marketers need to know
Every year, there’s a fresh parade of buzzwords promising to “reinvent the customer experience.” AI! Omnichannel! Personalization at scale! You’ve heard them all before. But when we strip away the jargon, the question remains: What actually makes a difference in how brands communicate with customers? Let’s unpack it.
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What actually moves the needle on customer experience?
Sinch recently put out its annual state of customer communications report, in which experts from a variety of industries like healthcare, financial services, technology, and retail shared their communication strategies for 2025. According to the report, the way to improve customer communications isn’t through more channels or louder messaging, but through doing the basics better: keeping customers engaged, informed, safe, and happy.
This blog breaks down what the report reveals for email senders, and how Sinch Mailgun helps email marketers meet the moment with tools that are smarter, more secure, and built for scale.
Table of contents
Today’s communication challenges are tougher to solve
Why email’s perception gap matters for your program
Email’s role in the modern channel mix
The role of AI in communication – and why it makes people nervous
Using AI responsibly in your email program
What are the biggest customer communication challenges in 2025?
In the report, over 4,000 consumers and business leaders weighed in on the challenges and opportunities for customer communications in 2025. The top challenges? Security and privacy, chosen by 44% of respondents, and integration complexity, selected by 38%.
Together, these challenges show just how much pressure the inbox is under in 2025. If customers don’t trust your emails, they won’t open them. If your systems can’t talk to each other, you’ll miss key signals. If you’re wasting resources on ineffective messaging, your ROI will vanish. The inbox isn’t just a delivery point anymore; it’s a battleground for credibility, coordination, and cost-effectiveness.
The path forward? According to the report – and what we’ve seen across thousands of Mailgun users – it comes down to three things:
Be trustworthy: Secure your sending infrastructure and show clear signs of legitimacy.
Be relevant: Send messages that are timely, targeted, and welcomed.
Be connected: Make sure your email platform works with the systems that power the rest of your customer experience.
We’ll break these themes down and show you how to turn today’s communication challenges into opportunities for smarter, stronger customer connections.
Today’s communication challenges are tougher to solve
It’s tempting to think the problem is volume. Inboxes are just flooded these days, right?
Not quite. Volume isn’t the issue; alignment is.
You’re not just competing for attention. You’re navigating tighter rules, higher stakes, and thinner margins. Regulations like GDPR, SOC 2, and ISO 27001 mean your emails need to be secure, verifiable, and auditable. Meanwhile, your teams are juggling global rules, complex stacks, and growing expectations. Every message now has to earn its spot. And if it doesn’t? It’s ignored – or filtered out entirely.
When every message has to earn its spot in the inbox, better infrastructure isn’t a nice-to-have – it’s your best chance at impact. So, how can Mailgun help?
Be trustworthy: Can customers tell if your emails are legit imate?
According to the report, email remains the backbone of digital communication in 2025 – reliable, scalable, and still the preferred channel for most consumers. 77% say they prefer email for promotions, 50% for customer updates, and 84% include it in their ideal multichannel mix.
Your customers’ trust is hard-earned, but it’s also fragile. Here’s the disconnect: 35% of people believe email is the least likely channel for phishing.
That’s... adorable. And dangerous.
"Spammers, scammers, and phishers love email because despite the risk, people still trust it. The best way to protect your subscribers (and your reputation) is to send email that's so transparent, relevant, and respectful, they couldn't mimic you if they tried."
Alison Gootee, Deliverability Advocacy Specialist, Sinch Mailgun
In reality, phishing is an issue no matter what channel. Over 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent every day, and spoofing is still a common attack vector, especially for brands without proper authentication. According to the report, 53% of consumers say they’ve received legitimate brand emails they didn't trust. And the issue isn’t limited to email: 39% report receiving scam messages via messaging apps, proving the need for clear trust signals across every touchpoint.
That’s your wake-up call. Because if recipients don’t trust your messages – even when you’re doing everything right – your open rates, clicks, and ROI suffer.
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Why email’s perception gap matters for your program
Email may carry the bulk of the phishing burden, but inbox providers are fighting back. Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, and others are tightening sender requirements, enforcing DMARC, and adding visual trust indicators like BIMI and blue checkmarks to help users quickly spot legitimate senders. These efforts are working to rebuild confidence in email.
Here’s how to close the gap between "secure" and "perceived as secure":
Step 1: Nail the back end. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC tell mailbox providers: “Yes, this really is us.”
Step 2: Make verification visible.
BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) lets a verified logo appear beside your “From” name.
Gmail blue checkmarks confirm that your logo and domain have passed DMARC alignment.
Why it matters:
Humans spot logos faster than text, so BIMI earns instant recognition.
A visible checkmark tells wary subscribers your message isn’t a phish.
A tiny icon packs a punch: 79% of consumers feel a verified logo makes a message more trustworthy.
Higher trust → higher opens → stronger sender reputation – a virtuous cycle.
Consumers may think email is safe, but it’s up to senders like you to keep it that way. The inbox only stays trusted if brands actively work to protect it.
Pro tip: BIMI is optional – but DMARC isn't. And since DMARC is a prerequisite for BIMI, you’re already halfway there. If you're putting in the work to secure your infrastructure, why not add a trust signal that boosts engagement? Use Mailgun’s guide to get set up, then monitor everything in real time with Mailgun Inspect.
Be relevant: Are you sending customers what they actually want?
Omnichannel messaging – that is, messaging that can reach any user, anywhere, anytime, with any message – certainly sounds great... until it overwhelms. What most customers want is relevant messages, on channels they choose, at a cadence they can tolerate.
The report found that 58% of consumers want to choose how they’re contacted. But many also expressed frustration with messages that are irrelevant or too frequent.
And when brands ignore those boundaries? Engagement drops, and trust erodes.
“Imagine you meet someone new, and you want to be friends. But instead of playing it cool, you text them 50 times in a row: 'Hey.' 'What’s up?' 'Did you get my message?' 'Why aren’t you answering?' It’s awkward. From an email perspective, some brands are doing that.”
Natalie Hays Sr. Product Marketing Manager Sinch Mailgun
In other words: customers don’t want more messages. They want better ones. (For more insights on reaching customers, check out Mailgun’s Deliverability Academy).
Here’s how to avoid being that sender:
Let subscribers opt down (not just out) via a preference center – and let them unsubscribe in one click
Use rate limiting to prevent fatigue – and stay on mailbox providers’ good side
Segment by engagement level to maintain relevance – and avoid spam traps
These aren’t just good manners, they’re deliverability best practices.
Email’s role in the modern channel mix
Even as new channels like chatbots and SMS become more popular, email is still the preferred source for 75% of users to hear from brands. It remains the workhorse for key lifecycle moments: password resets, receipts, shipping updates, appointment reminders, loyalty rewards, and more.
But overuse (or poor use) can turn email into noise fast.
With Mailgun, you can clean your email list before sending, schedule emails based on real engagement signals, and steer clear of inbox fatigue. It turns email into your VIP lane – where quality beats quantity, and every message earns its place.
The role of AI in communication – and why it makes people nervous
In 2025, AI is no longer a novelty, it’s a default feature. But the report shows that customers aren’t totally sold.
95% of businesses say they’re using AI, but don’t start singing "Kumbaya” just yet:
46% of businesses worry about data privacy and security
34% of businesses are concerned with the accuracy and reliability of AI
So, while AI might power your marketing stack, it won’t fix a broken strategy. If anything, it magnifies your weakest link.
How you apply AI matters more than whether you use it. Customers want personalization, not automation theater. They want relevance without creepiness, and they want to feel like a human is still steering the ship. So, how do you pull that off?
Using AI responsibly in your email program
Here’s where AI does shine in email communications:
Smart segmentation: Predict who’s ready to engage, and who’s tuned out
Fatigue management: Spot unsubscribers-in-waiting before they ghost
Send-time optimization: Tailor delivery to when users actually open emails
AI may boost your capacity, but it won ’t save you from bad messaging. Trust in AI comes down to how it’s used, and whether the outcomes feel respectful, timely, and transparent. It’s not about writing every subject line with a bot; it’s about using AI to listen better.
Be connected: What does smart email integration really look like?
Full communication systems unification sounds great until you try to build it.
According to the report, only 55% of businesses say their communication systems are fully integrated. That means nearly half are still juggling disconnected tools, manual workflows, or brittle point solutions. The truth is that few teams have the time – or budget – to chase perfection.
Mailgun helps close the gap without demanding a full rebuild. You can plug email directly into your CRM, ecommerce stack, or support systems without overhauling everything else. With robust APIs, SDKs, and native integrations, it’s easy to make email part of your stack.
“I wrote your code five years ago, and I don’t think I’ve touched it since.”
Casey Henry, CTO, SparkToro
Wrapping up: Navigating 2025 with confidence
So, what’s the takeaway for 2025? Email isn’t going anywhere, but how you use it will make or break your results.
As we’ve seen, the year has already brought fresh challenges. Trust is fragile, channels are multiplying, and expectations are rising. But with the right foundation, email can still be your most powerful lever.
Here’s what winning programs have in common:
Trustworthy infrastructure – with SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and visible trust signals like BIMI
Relevant messaging – powered by smart segmentation, fatigue management, and respect for user preferences
Integrated systems – so email works with your CRM, support tools, and ecommerce platforms
That's what Mailgun was built for.
The 2025 state of customer communications report shares insights from 2,800 consumers and 1,600 business leaders, all pointing to one thing: Better communication keeps customers engaged, informed, safe, and happy.
Want to see how your approach stacks up, and where it can be improved?
The state of customer communications report 2025
Effective digital communications keep customers engaged, informed, safe, and happy. These are the four pillars of customer connection. This interactive report from Sinch offers fresh, practical ways to elevate the customer experience and make every message count.
