Contact center leaders often only have time to think about the present: Who’s going to answer that phone? How many seats do I need to fill for tomorrow’s shifts? What am I going to say to that one angry customer who just keeps sending us emails?
There’s almost never any time to think about how you’re going to invest in the future of your contact center. I get it. But, let’s play a little game. Take 30 seconds right now to think through all the hurdles you have to jump this week. Got ‘em? Good. Now, what if you were able to connect to customers more effectively and efficiently – without adding to the crazies of your day-to-day? How many of those problems would still exist? And, how much more time would you have to dedicate to the other, bigger issues?
Enter a text messaging software.
Text messaging software lets customers connect where they want, when they want. And, even better, it gives agents flexibility, more efficiency and more autonomy. Not to mention, it makes agents more effective in solving real customer problems.
It’s What Customers Want
Each year, the CMO Council collects customer feedback from +2,000 participants to release their Critical Channels of Choice report. The survey asks consumers to identify which channels they expect and prefer a company to support and use. Recently, when survey participants were asked what communication channels they expected companies to provide, the top five channels named were:
Email (86% of respondents)
Telephone (65%)
Website (53%)
Text (52%)
In person (48%)
That means over half of consumers want non-voice communication channels to contact businesses. In an earlier study by the CMO Council and SAP Hybris, survey participants were asked to identify the attributes of an exceptional customer experience. The top three choices were:
“Fast response times to my needs and issues” (52% of respondents)
“Knowledgeable staff ready to assist wherever and whenever I need it” (47%)
“Rewards for my loyalty and recognition of how long I have been a customer” (42%)
That means, customers want experiences that save them money (77% of respondents), save them time (49%), or make their lives easier (47%). Adding text messaging software responds to these desires. Business texting software reduces time on hold, improves communication processes, and is critical for keeping with the times.
Time to Upgrade your Contact Center
It’s time for your contact center to keep up with current technology. More consumers are using email, webchat, social media, and self-service channels to reach customer service departments than ever before. Why? Because it’s way more efficient and accessible. If you’re like me, your phone is pretty much always within arms reach and you’re likely checking it any time you feel a buzz.
According to a survey from February 2021, nearly half of the respondents said on average they spent five to six hours on their phone daily, not including work-related smartphone use. It’s time for contact centers to acknowledge how customers prefer to communicate through the channels they naturally use every day, primarily through non-voice communication channels.
Ultimately, there are three main goals in updating your contact center tech:
Efficient service and reduced cost. Shifting customer interactions to automated channels like text and chatbots make services more efficient and saves time. With fewer phone calls to handle, you need perhaps fewer agents on a shift a time, reducing costs for your contact center.
Happier customers and employees. See better retention from customers and agents, alike. Digital solutions let you improve customer experience, reduce time on hold, and increase self-service. Tools like text messaging software help make the agents’ jobs easier.
Driving your overall digital transformation. When your contact center is more up to date, this has a waterfall impact on all your business processes. Automation may start in your contact center, but soon, operations across the board get more efficient.
Three Reasons Your Contact Center Should Offer Texting
So, where should you be investing your new modern tech? You already know customers are more likely to choose channels that are accessible through their phones, and typically non-voice channels. According to a study by the Northridge Group, 44% of consumers consider SMS/Texting to be the easiest customer service channel. Here’s why:
1. Text Messaging Software Improves Customer Service
The greatest benefit to business texting is that it cuts way back on waiting time for customers. Customers expect fast service, and when calling, sometimes they need to wait until an agent becomes available. This results in time on hold and frustrated users. With texting, agents can manage multiple conversations, providing a faster response. No more abandoned calls if a customer has the option to text you for a quick question or request.
Texting software eliminates the barrier between mobile and web. Texting gives customers the convenience of contacting customer service from wherever they are. This mobility allows the agent to continue the conversation with the user on the go.
2. Text Messaging Software Reduces Costs
Texting is cost-effective. In a study conducted by Forrester, it’s estimated that the total cost per contact of a chat session is approximately $5, while a call can be between $6 and $25 for highly complex issues.
But, more automation further cuts costs. Automating texting services can streamline operations. For instance, you can screen users before sending them to a live agent or send customers automated reminders and order details so they don’t need to call in.
3. Text Messaging Applies to Different Customer Requests and Needs
Chances are that in your contact center, there is one type of use case that drives most of the communication. For instance, maybe customers often call in about account details, order statuses, or shipping reminders. This type of communication can be automated or solved quickly via text messaging software.
Letting the customer self-serve can reduce the time of a call. And then, if an issue is too complicated to solve over text, customers can click the phone number and call into the agent they’re texting with. .
Three Steps to Take to Transform Your Contact Center
Hopefully you’re a bit more convinced about the need for text messaging software in your contact center. It’s time to catch up with your competitors to match customer preferences. But, where can you start taking steps towards a modern contact center?
Understand your customers’ needs. Every transformation starts with understanding your customers’ needs and preferences. Talk with your customers, send out surveys, and get their opinions on what they want. Every customer base is unique, so this knowledge can help you understand how to improve the customer experience and which aspects of the communication process can be optimized to fit your particular group of customers.
Identify why your customers reach out to you. Once you know your customers, it’s important to identify and prioritize the customer issues and questions that most frequently arise. Define what’s the best way to handle communication for each use case. Oftentimes, much of your troubleshooting can be handled at first via text and escalated if it is more complicated.
Automate the contact center. Automation enables customers to self-service, streamlines operations, and improves process efficiency. Text messaging software allows users to quickly send documents, photos, and videos. Consider how texting can smooth over workflows, where it can be automated, and how you can build it into your customer experience.
The impact of SMS online texting is often understated. However, texting is one of the most effective methods for reaching customers. 95% of text messages are opened and responded to within 3 minutes of being delivered. And, 98% of texts are opened, compared to only 20% with email. As seen in the graph below, consumers prefer to use their phones to message. It’s time for your business to meet those preferences.
Using SMS online for business has huge potential for contact centers. But, too often, people think SMS is only meant for the marketing team. Spoiler alert: it’s not. Sure, you’ve probably gotten those marketing texts before from business — “Text YES to get in on this amazing offer!” But, beyond boosting your sales, texting your customers can also be used to support existing customers. Overall, texting can improve operations and relieve stress and burnout among your customer service staff.
Typically, people associate business texting with direct or mass communications between a business and its customers. These blast texts can be a way for companies to send out highly targeted, permission-based, opt-in text messages to connect with and engage with customers. You can use these for marketing, service, or sales operations.
Ultimately, texting customers can come in several forms:
Sending promotions: Share product updates, releases, and sales with your customers. Texting is a quick way to catch your customers’ attention about what’s new for your brand.
Sending support texts: SMS online is an easy and flexible way to start conversations with your customers. They give customers a way to ask questions and follow up on an order or appointment. Besides helping solve issues faster, the user gets a better experience.
Gathering reviews, surveys, and polls: A text message is a direct line to the customer. You can use them to request feedback and reviews or prompt the customer to answer a quick poll or survey.
Supporting your sales: Let customers check on item availability. Or complete a sale with customers via text.
Why Use SMS Online Services for Your Business?
SMS online provides quick, cost-effective, and easy-to-analyze communications with your customers. By using texting, you’re saving time for your agents and your customers by giving them a way to have a flexible, to the point conversation.
In general, SMS online text messaging can help to:
A study published by Harvard Business Review showed that the average American spends an average of thirteen hours a year on hold trying to solve problems. And, according to HubSpot, 33% of customers are most frustrated by having to wait on hold, and 33% are most frustrated by having to repeat themselves to multiple support reps.
How can texting fix this? Text messaging values your customers’ time and leaves it up to them when to respond to communication. No more waiting on hold, humming along to some bad elevator music. Instead, customers have the flexibility to respond when it’s convenient in an asynchronous conversation.
Customers prefer the freedom of a text. And it’s less invasive than receiving a phone call from a sales rep or a customer service agent. Plus, agents can manage multiple conversations at once. This reduces stress since agents don’t have a long call queue hanging over their head. Many companies in the last year are realizing that SMS services can improve communication with customers and help all of their internal processes.
Key Features of Text Messaging That Empower Business Processes
A text messaging platform allows for more efficient and effective communications with customers. Invest in some key features to improve your operations across the board.
Instead of your staff writing and sending texts all day, a platform can automate some of the essential steps like:
Creating and maintaining the list of recipients
Scheduling messages
Interacting with your customers using canned responses
With text messaging, businesses can analyze their interaction with customers and improve their communications beyond the initial sales. Some ways text messaging can improve your business processes are:
1. Send out mass texts.
Although it has a bad rap, mass texting doesn’t mean sending unwanted messages. Always always allow for customers to opt into and out of texts with you. But, mass texts, or blasts, can improve marketing communications and start conversations with customers. Use mass texts to:
Create brand awareness: Let customers know more about your business. Include messages about a new website, a re-opening, or a new product release.
Increase interest: Most sales messages go in this category—offers, promotions, season sales. However, you can also craft messages to provide tips and advice, reaching out to targeted customers (e.g., follow-up care instructions after medical treatment, menu recommendations, healthy eating advice, and more).
Request feedback: Surveys and polls allow you to gather valuable information to refine your business strategy.
2. Build customer relationships.
Communicating one-on-one with customers is a way to build a relationship and gain trust. Texting is uniquely personal and allows for a much more conversational tone than email or even live chat enables. Customer service agents also can easily send texts with multiple forms of media, allowing for a flexible way to send helpful tutorials or troubleshooting videos and photo guides. One-on-one business texting ensures a company can maintain a human connection while keeping costs under control.
3. Send automated responses.
Use text bots to have conversations with the user and solve basic problems. Like bots integrated in live chat, bots in texts can answer simple questions, send customers self-service tools, and direct customers to the help they need. Use automated responses to send appointment reminders, product recommendations, product updates, and customer support tools.
4. Integrate with your existing platform for greater efficiency.
Integrate SMS texting into your current customer service platform and CRM system to improve the efficiency. You can automate workflows and get rid of manual and repetitive tasks. Keep communication and client data under a central interface. This makes operations more efficient and customer experiences more personalized. And, lower stress for your agents by keeping everything they need to succeed in one space.
Why It’s Time for Your Business to Add SMS Online
As consumer opt-in rates have increased, so have businesses signing up for text messaging services. In fact, 42% of business owners and marketers say they’ve texted their customers using a text messaging service in the last year. And, 57% say they plan to increase their text marketing budget in 2021. Will you join the trend?
Implement SMS online texting services for your business. It will not only improve your marketing, but also helps operations across the board. Improve your key business processes with Textel’s innovative texting tools. Then, you can connect with customers where they are, using the phone that’s in their back pocket.
This post was originally published on February 23, 2021 and was updated on March 9, 2022.
How many communications channels does your business use to engage with customers? Based on numbers alone, businesses can’t afford to miss out on Facebook Messenger’s 1.3 billion users and Twitter’s reach of over 69 million users in the US. Aside from social media, chances are you also have an email account for customer queries. Yet, there is an effective still often overlooked communication channel. As a business, are you taking advantage of using texting?
Believe it or not, business texting—good old SMS and MMS—actually improve the customer experience your brand provides. Among the many channels used by companies to communicate with clients, in some aspects, SMS and MMS can improve customer experience more than technically advanced options for a number of reasons.
On average, people only read 20% of their emails but open and read 90% of their text messages—and that’s within three minutes of receiving them. So, regardless of whether you want eyeballs on your latest promo or you have an urgent message to a specific customer, the numbers indicate that business texting is your best bet to reach them.
In comparison, other communication channels are more or less categorized between marketing promotional blasts and one-to-one correspondence. For instance, Twitter is geared more towards sharing marketing materials or additional useful insights to a larger audience: customers get a feed of what their followed brands are blasting. Do that on Messenger, however, and you could easily alienate your clients. Most people have Messenger profiles directly linked with their Facebook accounts and typically consider conversations within the app more personal. Messenger is reserved more for one-on-one chats with customers with actual queries and not just people on the lookout for the latest thing to like or share. Email offers a more formal appeal that doesn’t lend itself well to quick queries where customers are looking for answers in minutes.
There is simply no other communication channel that offers the incredibly high open and read rates of SMS and MMS.
Business Texting Bridges Gaps in User Experience
The sheer simplicity of SMS or MMS texting eliminates the user barrier because of technical difficulty. In other words, everyone from Baby Boomers to Millennials can easily use texting and would actually prefer it.
Technologies used by teens in the US to stay connected to friends and family they no longer see in-person during the coronavirus pandemic in April 2020. (Image Source)
According to research by Statista, teenagers in the US much preferred texting compared to calling, social media, and messenger apps to communicate during the pandemic lockdowns, when activities in all these channels naturally increased.
Meanwhile, a survey by the AARP found that 70% of adults aged over 50 own a smartphone and are on social media. Yet, for those aged 50 to 69, text messaging is the “tech tool most used to stay connected,” overtaking email as a preference.
Customers Value Genuine One-on-One Communication
SMS texting is usually an intimate mode of communication. It’s one approach companies use to foster their relationships with their customers. It is essentially an ideal channel for customer relationship management (CRM).
Even if you don’t have a CRM strategy in place to maximize the value of SMS and MMS as a communication channel, the back and forth that business texting affords creates a one-to-one experience for customers who find value in being personally serviced even among thousands or even millions of other users. They know you can be reached and can easily reply in an interaction that is genuine and not canned.
Of course, even canned responses provide value customers can appreciate. A quick automatic response that answers your customer’s query keywords can give the user a fast service. This provides text messaging with an advantage compared to Messenger and email.
Centralizing Business Messaging Under One Contact Number Improves Brand Recall
Among the details customers often recall about a business are their brand name, logo, tagline, and contact number. While Twitter handles and Facebook brand page and Messenger profiles are ubiquitous nowadays, a central contact number can unify incoming customers’ communications and improve their user experience.
Through business texting solutions, customers no longer have to search for your company’s Twitter or Facebook accounts or like and follow your business pages to get in touch. Texting software allows customers to text into your landline or 1-800 toll-free numbers, simplifying the contact channels and making your business readily available.
Texting’s Immediate Accessibility and Ease of Use Provide Great User Value
SMS is by far the simplest, straightforward, and accessible method of communication by phone for clients, without requiring an online connection or smartphone. This immediately gives business texting an advantage when it comes to customer experience.
Textel solutions are designed to simplify the way companies connect with their customers. Our integrated cloud platform gives your customers a smooth and great experience, enables texting to toll-free and landline numbers, manages multiple text conversations, sends images, documents, and emojis. You can learn more about how Textel provides a complete texting messages solution. Start leveraging a texting message platform that takes your customers’ experience to the next level.
If you would like to learn more about optimizing your customer experience with business texting, contact us.
Texting reduces call volumes, especially when it’s used in tandem with an IVR to deflect calls. However, incoming texts require a response, which still demands time and effort. Text automation takes your messaging to the next level by kicking your message response time into high gear while increasing your availability.
What the Heck is Text Automation?
Text automation describes a set of features designed to reduce or remove the manual work required to respond to a text. Not all customer calls require a lot of time to resolve (like a Zappos employee a few years back who spent 10 hours, 43 minutes on one). Texting automation better utilizes agents by focusing on calls that require their expertise – not on the mind-numbing ones. That means happier agents, faster response times for simple questions, and a better customer experience in general.
Textbot to Live Agent
If you’re familiar with chatbots, textbots are the same thing but over text. Just as chatbots reduce the need for a live agent to chat, textbots can save agents from needing to respond to every text. It can also gather the necessary information from a customer before passing the text over to a live agent. For example, a textbot can:
Gather essential account information like customer name, account number, or phone number.
Collect demographic information like location, age, education, or marital status.
Qualify or disqualify a customer based on GPA, income, projected purchase date.
Once customers respond to a textbot, it can check to make sure the customer correctly provided the information. For example, if the textbot asked someone for their age, and the person replied, “Mars,” the textbot would recognize this as an invalid response and ask for clarification.
Auto Reply
Auto replies respond to texts immediately. You’ve probably already encountered an auto-reply message over a phone call if you tried calling someone after hours (“Thanks for calling [name of business]. We are currently closed. Our hours are…”). Auto replies via text operate the same way and, yes, an everyday use for it is to respond to texts received after regular business hours.
While it might sound like a minor feature, auto-replies are essential to the customer experience. Imagine texting a business’s phone number and getting no response. It would make you immediately wonder whether the number was valid. Worse, a non-response could make you think that the business had terrible customer service. Auto-replies create trust between your business and your customers.
Quick Reply
Quick replies give your agents a powerful tool to resolve common issues quickly. Rather than typing up a response to a customer question, agents can select from several canned responses – all the agent has to do is click the response and hit send.
If possible, use your team’s reporting tools (whether from a contact center tool, CRM, etc.) to analyze common questions. If that’s not available, ask your team. A best practice is to create quick replies by skill level. That way, your agents only see quick replies applicable to the questions they receive.
It’s That Easy
Automated texting has a massive impact on your customer experience. Fortunately, implementing them in your communications is pretty straightforward. If you still find the idea of text automation intimidating, don’t worry – Textel can help you every step of the way.
Having a strong customer experience strategy impacts way more than just your customers. In fact, more often than not, it drives net new and growth revenue, higher employee engagement and satisfaction and, of course, brand loyalty. Take a look:
84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue.
73% of consumers say a good experience is key in influencing their brand loyalties.
Companies that excel at customer experience have 1.5x more engaged employees than their less customer-focused competitors.
Clearly, your customer experience strategy matters. How do you shape the customer’s journey to reflect this? In
Call deflection with IVR is an important piece of the customer experience strategy, reducing wait times, repeat calls, and costs. But, imagine this: there’s a call queue with 15 customers waiting on hold. They’ve been punching numbers into your IVR to be directed to a customer service rep… only to be left waiting and enjoying your (I’m sure lovely) hold music.
Your IVR is supposed to be a tool that’s supporting your customers. But when call volumes are just too high for your agents to handle, it does little on its own to alleviate stress for your agents and reduce hold times for your customers.
However, when you include texting in your IVR strategy, you’ll be able to salvage your customer experience and lessen the load on your contact center’s call volume.
What is IVR
First — a little refresher. What is IVR? IVR, or Interactive Voice Response, is an automated system built into your phones. When customers call in, IVR requests information from your callers, either by voice or through their keypad. Then, it routes them to the necessary department or generates basic info for them — like their shipping status, bank account balance, hours of operation, etc.
Why use Texting to Deflect IVR Calls?
Traditional IVR systems have their shortcomings and can negatively affect your customer experience strategy:
It’s not personalized. IVR is an incredibly limited interaction between company and customer. That means, it’s a pretty impersonal experience. Think about it, if your first experience with a brand is a bot, how does that impact your lasting brand impression?
It offers no record of the interaction.Customers are calling to get information from you, but when that info is shared verbally from a bot, it can be hard to remember. I’ve certainly sat on calls with IVRs, waiting for them to go through all the number options a couple times because I can’t keep track of which one fits my needs. And, when I’m done with the call, it’s easy for me to lose track of everything the voice said. But, IVR offers no written record of the interaction for customers. Customers shouldn’t have to keep a pen and paper in front of them to recall their questions and info.
It’s slow and inflexible. IVR on its own is a pretty slow process. Customers have to sit through the IVR as it lists a whole menu of items and repeats its message over and over. They can’t multitask because they may miss something. And, truly, customers grow impatient. This kind of inflexibility discourages customers from calling for help, and ultimately drives them away.
But, when you add texting into your IVR, all three of these shortcomings are resolved. Here’s how:
How does Texting fit into your IVR system?
Add texting into your IVR script by prompting customers to request a text from you. If they do, they’ll immediately drop out of the call queue and open a conversation with an agent or a bot devoted to answering texts from customers. Then, they’ll start a direct conversation through their phone’s messaging. This makes for a much more personal conversation. Customers can ask questions, send media, add in emojis, in a two-way conversation.
Adding texting into your IVR also creates a record of communication for customers and for agents. It establishes a thread between your business and the customer. So, if your customer forgets anything you’ve shared, all they have to do is pop open the text thread to see the information. Best of all, when texting is part of your contact center solution, your agents can see the text history for better context on the customer relationship.
Texting is more flexible for everyone. Customers have a simple way to reach out to you from the phone in their back pocket. They can be cooking dinner, picking up their kids from soccer practice, or be in the middle of the work day and still can carry on a conversation with a customer service agent. Texting makes things easier on agents, too. An agent can handle multiple simultaneous text conversations and use things like auto-replies and canned responses to be more efficient.
Texting as Part of your Overall Customer Experience Strategy
How then does texting fit in your overall customer experience strategy? When you give your customers the option to text you, you’re giving them an easier, more efficient way to reach you. Customers today prefer fast service over anything else. Actually, 71% of consumers believe that a quick response from a service team can drastically improve their customer experience. Texting lets your customers receive that quick response and lets you serve more customers in a day.
With texting, customers don’t have to wait through an outdated IVR or wait a few hours to receive an email from you. They’re saving time out of their day by picking a flexible form of communication. And, your agents are maximizing their time by handling multiple customers at the same time.
