Customer service is vital from the point of view of keeping your customers updated about your products and services, providing assistance when they hit roadblocks or even helping them set up events and seeing through it till the end. So where does SMS come into picture here?
Businesses have long since undermined the simplicity yet high effectiveness of SMS. It is a goldmine of inciting engagement if strategized correctly so as to not fall into the “spam” zone of your customers contact list and 89% of the population wants an alternative customer service option other than just voice calls.
How Do Businesses Perceive SMS?
Today only 7% of consumers resort to SMS to communicate with businesses, far behind email, voice calls and even direct mail. Make no mistake, though: consumers would love to text businesses, but few realize it’s a possibility. Businesses often times feel that SMS is intrusive, but then so are voice calls and emails!
Customers find themselves in a comfort zone while texting rather than interacting over voice calls or emails. Customer Support can use this consumer behavior to their benefit and exude that comfort while engaging with customers.
Reinventing Customer Support Strategy with SMS
Since we are already aware of the myriad benefits of SMS in Customer Support, here is a quick roundup of how you can harness SMS to channel your customer support efforts better.
1. Get their Feedback using simple polls:
I’m sure many of you must have had a bad experience while you visited a restaurant or browsed products at an electronic store. Customers won’t tell you their experience unless you ask for it. Instead they will tell their peers about their bad experience and that is the end of it. A simple SMS poll seeking your customers’ review will be helpful for you to get first hand data about their experience with your brand. And why through SMS? Because, it has high response rates (45%) especially when compared to email (6%).
2. Update on a Product/Order Status:
Customers who have placed an order with you like to be kept in loop about its current status of till it reached them. Sending emails from time to time is a good practice, but it ends up in the Updates or Spam folders, only to be missed by the customers. SMS is a more sure shot way of keeping them in loop, plus one can’t really miss an SMS, especially when it is about an order status. Also, 78% of customers prefer having an SMS conversation with businesses. So, there isn’t anything for you to lose out there!
3. Book Appointments:
While businesses today are churning out sales through a mobile app, generating leads and booking appointments isn’t difficult! It is in fact convenient for the customer as well the service provider to book appointments like those with the hairstylist or at a doctor’s clinic! Simply send an SMS with the required service request to the business and they in turn revert with the timings along with a confirmation!
4. Send Reminders:
Now that you booked an appointment or tickets for a show, sending SMS reminders are so useful!! SMS has a 94% open/ read rate, which should explain how easy and convenient it is for customers to stay updated!
Texting or SMS basically puts the power of communication in the hands of the clients and empowered customers. And so, it would be lethal to ignore SMS as a tool for customer service function of your business!