Customers today are increasingly social and mobile, and their attention spans are shorter than ever. They are constantly bombarded with promotional messages, and one of the biggest challenges for brands is cutting through this noise, and connecting with customers in an effective way.
Despite its age, SMS is still a very reliable channel for customer communication, boasting lightning-fast delivery and impressive 98% open rates.
A2P text messaging is growing rapidly. According to Juniper Research, the number of SMS and text messages sent by brands and enterprises worldwide grew from 3.2 trillion in 2019 to 3.5 trillion in 2020, demonstrating increased widespread adoption of a technology that had already been around for a while.
In this article, we share some useful tips on how you can harness SMS messaging to boost brand loyalty.
Give your customers peace of mind with transactional messaging
SMS is a popular channel for delivering transactional messages informing users about account changes, order statuses, or to deliver instructions. Following an online purchase with a receipt that includes tracking and delivery information, gives the clients a peace of mind that the purchase was successfully processed and will get to them shortly.
Another transactional message application is reminders and alerts. Time-triggered reminders can be beneficial for both the brand and its clients. Notifying your consumers about the appointment keeps them happy, while securing your sale opportunity. Moreover, scheduled notifications can actually be helpful for your clients in case they require your services on a regular basis, for instance if they need to resupply on contact lenses.
Since the SMS work as the clients are on the go, the cleverly applied real-time alerts can be even more valuable than the reminders. Whether your client’s flight status has changed, their hotel reservation is ready, or they are next in the queue, a brief notification will make their life easier and let them know you really care.
As an added benefit, you may use your transactional messages as the opportunity to highlight other aspects of your offering. This can be a great strategy, as long as you keep the core message of the communications that you are sending, clean. However, do not include related product offers either, since there is a danger of alienating customers with this hybrid outreach.
And finally, remember: transactional messaged should not be bland. Using witty yet crisp and descriptive copy is a great way to win your audience over.
Offer real-time customer service via SMS
Most people hate calling customer support by the phone: waiting on hold and being forced to schedule a time for a call. Not being able to do anything else can be infuriating, not to mention the corresponding social anxiety. Additionally, resolving certain issues might take a couple of calls, which only makes the entire communication process more aggravating — something you will definitely notice during your next customer satisfaction survey.
With messaging replacing voice as a new standard for communication, texting becomes a viable solution for both customers who are not social media-savvy (or simply do not own a smartphone), and for brands that are looking for opportunities to optimise their expenses while improving their CSAT score. Many businesses already use texts to send a notification, reminder, or to share some other vital information, but since the conversational element of SMS is similar to live chat, brands can use it to their advantage.
SMS short codes allow for a two-way chat through that will give your business one more avenue in which to improve upon your customer service. Quality customer service is crucial to creating brand loyalty, and what’s more, consumers want to communicate via text with businesses — in fact, according to eMarketer’s SMS Marketing 2021 report, 43% of US consumers chose to proactively text a business.
Keep a finger on the pulse with polls and surveys
Tracking customer satisfaction is vital for monitoring the “health” of the products and services you provide. Obtained when the product or service is delivered (or shortly thereafter), the survey results provide brands with an insight, necessary to uphold the impeccable quality.
Through the use of SMS short codes, you can conduct polls and even short surveys to both find out what your customers liked about their experience and to learn where you can make improvements. Additionally, the clients that provided you with a reply are the ones you can target in the future since they are the best candidates to be your advocates, as well as invaluable sources of insight. Tailor-made campaigns and offers aimed at such clients will result in positive word of mouth and even deeper insights. The trick, though, is to apply all this knowledge.
Making the most out of SMS messaging
As we learned, SMS can be a surprisingly robust and versatile tool, that can be invaluable for customer engagement if applied the right way.
Contact GMS experts to learn more about our customer engagement tools and solutions today!