You’ve recently started using SMS marketing to grow your online store, but your job doesn’t end here. If you wish to keep your customers engaged with you for a long time, there’s one important thing to keep in mind – customer satisfaction. In this blog, you’ll learn how to keep your customer satisfied using sms marketing and the advantages of keeping your customers satisfied.
Do you know that there are more than 4 billion users of SMS services? Short message service, or SMS, has reduced the usage of phone calls and emails as the preferred method of private communication. But why should brands use SMS marketing?
You get instant engagement, 90% of users read SMS messages within the first minute of receiving them on their phones.
97 percent of smartphone users routinely communicate with their peers via text messaging.
People prefer text message communication or sms communication over other means of communication. Brands must communicate with consumers in their preferred language if they want to develop a personal connection and increase customer satisfaction.
What are the advantages of using a text messaging platform for customer satisfaction?
Text messages can include all announcement and information types, such as payment reminders, past-due alerts, document availability alerts, account updates, promotions, and more, allowing you to efficiently give your customers the information they need to manage their accounts in a timely and legal manner. All these factors help a brand to improve customer service.
According to research, 64% of consumers want brands to SMS them more frequently.
Immediate SMS Notifications
Customers are kept constantly informed and engaged with your company via message and automated communications. Compared to email, SMS messaging has a four to six times greater open rate (98%). It is obviously much more convenient as compared to other means and customers rarely have a bad experience through texting. For example, when you sms customer, you get an instant access to their personal inbox and it gets easy to have a conversation with them.
Faster Remittance
Faster payments are advantageous for business. Billing systems that allow customers to “pay by text” can boost response rates, make it easier to access accounts, and boost collection rates, all of which are positive factors for your collection approach.
Real-Time Responses
The cornerstone of good customer service is prompt and helpful responses from customer service representatives. SMS messaging is internet-free and compatible with all mobile devices. SMS messages do not go via junk email filters as emails do. The message service even has high response rates as compared to other means. When companies respond to customers in real-time, it becomes more convenient for them and they don’t opt out.
Personalized and discreet text messages
Mobile devices are highly individualized, allowing for the customization of messages for each individual consumer. As a result, responses are frequently more immediate and personal. Since private information cannot be overheard during a phone call, SMS texting is even more private than a phone call.
Global reach
SMS may be sent to any of the over 10 billion active mobile devices worldwide because it is synchronized across all cell operators. And it’s comparatively, less expensive and less time-consuming than phone calls.
How to use SMS to improve customer satisfaction?
Customer satisfaction is one of the most often tracked critical performance indicators for modern enterprises (KPIs). Over the past few years, firms have improved their customer service, but at the same time, consumer expectations have grown.
For instance, compared to a year earlier, 66 percent of consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 and 54 percent of all consumers had increased expectations for customer service.
So, how can we improve customer experience with text messaging? Well, here’s how:
Respond Immediately
Customer service teams are given the ability to reply to all incoming messages right away thanks to business SMS. Even in the middle of the night, when a customer messages, they anticipate some form of response (can be automated responses); after all, messaging etiquette states that waiting more than 20 minutes to react to a text can be considered impolite. Automated messages include Welcome SMS messaging, customer feedback forms, etc.
Reminder Notifications
Customers should be alerted with appointment reminders, subscription renewal reminders, and many more. By doing so, brands will gain customer loyalty, and customers get a good customer service experience. Personalized reminders or alerts can easily be scheduled and sent to the customer at the desired time. To brands, it might seem like a simple reminder SMS message but it’s actually one of the best marketing strategies to gain customer engagement.
Two-way communication
Customers expect openness, authenticity, and a personal touch; they are no longer interested in corporate branding that is outdated. Customers want to text with humans, not bots and thus, two-way communication is preferred. Try to inject some personality into your text message while maintaining professionalism to give clients more of what they desire. This may entail vivifying your tone, including the odd emoji, or even including GIFs where suitable. To give clients the impression that your agents personally composed each text, you should customize as many elements of your communications as you can while using automations.
Post-Service Text Message
Any brand that is successful relies on customer feedback. It offers you a fresh viewpoint on your company as a whole and teaches you about some of the limitations of your customer satisfaction strategy. SMS messages can be used for this as well. You can send a simple thank your text message to your customers after they make a purchase from you. This will not only make them feel special but your brand will receive customer preferences, too. You can also ask customers to give feedback about your services.
Transaction and Order Updates
Making sure customers are taken care of involves keeping them informed throughout the entire transaction process and even while holding a conversation with them. The goal is to reduce the frequency of most common queries. For example, queries like “Where is my order?” and “What is my tracking number?”. Sending them communications after their order has been placed, after the item has been dispatched, and after the delivery has been finished will improve their experience.
Discounts and Promotions
SMS text messaging can be a terrific tool for bridging the gap between a company’s physical location and its online presence. The support team can use SMS to target customers and send relevant and timely discounts and promotions when they are physically close to their store, thanks to geo-fencing. These exchanges might be one-way or two-way. When there is two-way communication, the salesperson can reply to the clients if they do so.
Live Chat
When using a live chat option, 92 percent of clients say they are most satisfied. The customer must visit the website or mobile app through their personal devices to engage in live chat, though. Your agent can better serve customers by responding to their requests thanks to the two-way SMS capability. Good customer communication is an important factor while running a company.
What Is TCPA Compliance And Why Is It Important?
In the US, bulk SMS and phone call broadcasts are governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). In 1991, the TCPA was enacted into law in response to an increase in unchecked and intrusive telemarketing calls and faxes. Since then, SMS messaging has been included.
In essence, the TCPA prohibits the use of automated phone systems and telephone solicitations (telemarketing). It restricts the usage of fax, SMS, automatic dialing, prerecorded voice messages, and misuse of customer phone numbers.
Companies must abide by stringent solicitation regulations and follow the National Do Not Call Registry without the explicit approval of the customer. Subscribers have the right to file a lawsuit against businesses that violate the TCPA rules as protection.
Any firm that directly contacts consumers and customers over the phone should place a high priority on obtaining their consent, which is a requirement under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
Not only is it crucial to continue consumer outreach through texting, but it’s also crucial to make sure your communications comply with TCPA. Although the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) was first developed to combat telemarketers, it now extends safeguards to a wide range of delivery channels, including SMS text messages to protect the existing customers.
Conclusion
It is evident that SMS dominates the market when it comes to providing a successful consumer experience. It is hard to overlook the strength of communications and the powers it possesses to generate a fantastic brand resonance for a digital firm that wants to build an irreplaceable part in the consumers’ lives.
The goal of your company must be to go above and beyond what your consumers expect since only then will you be able to increase their satisfaction, as is the case with any top-performing customer service technique. When you include SMS in your services, it transforms into a very practical channel for connecting with and even interacting with your clients.
But in the end, the service providers who assist you in getting there will determine whether your SMS marketing campaign is a success. You can move a step closer to achieving great success by working with businesses that can assist you in developing an SMS strategy and providing a platform for automating the process.
