Let’s get down to the basics. If your customers are unsatisfied with your business, your business will fail. It really is that simple. Keeping customers happy is a priority to build a profitable and successful company. But how do you know if your customers are happy with your service and your product?
For a customer service team, customer satisfaction (or CSAT) is one of the most measured key performance indicators (KPIs). Every contact center manager knows — if you don’t measure customer satisfaction, you can’t identify unhappy customers. If you don’t know who is unhappy, you don’t know who will churn, and you can’t figure out why they’re unhappy. It’s in your hands then to understand where unhappiness exists and improve your service to improve your customer satisfaction.
One simple way to boost customer satisfaction? Connect with customers using business texting.
What is Customer Satisfaction and Why is it Important?
First and foremost, we need to understand exactly what customer satisfaction is to know how business texting can help it. Customer satisfaction is the measurement of how happy a business’ customers are with its products and services, and it can be a powerful indicator of where the company is headed.
The future of customer satisfaction lies in greater use of technology, automation, and personalization. With new technology added into the customer experience, though, customers have greater expectations (as seen below).
According to a Deloitte report, customer satisfaction took on an important role during the COVID-19 pandemic, when businesses felt the impact of the pandemic on their bottom line. Maintaining customer loyalty and trust was paramount for survival, so many companies began to focus more on their customer experience. This means, businesses are using customer satisfaction and experience as a means of competition.
It’s time to join in on the competition. How can you meet customer expectations? How can you keep customers happy while keeping your budget under control? Add business SMS to your omnichannel solution to help.
The Importance of SMS for Business
Customers want to know they can reach you in a myriad of ways. If they prefer talking with an agent directly on the phone, they want a phone number to call. If they want the flexibility and low stakes of sending an email, they want to know they can shoot you an email. And, if they want to text you, they should have a way to do so.
Texting is worth the investment. SMS is the most used communication channel, with 4.2 billion people using SMS globally. How does it fit into your business?
Customer Service and Support
Customer service is at the heart of many companies’ success and is the heart of customer satisfaction. Providing an excellent customer service experience makes your customers want to come back. Consumers expect customer support to be fast, effective, and simple. Texting offers a way to give quick responses and start a two-way conversation that can be escalated to voice, if necessary.
Texting integrates well with your other channels with customers to boost customer satisfaction. It helps you lower wait and hold times by deflecting from your IVR. You can offer a flexible form of communication that live chat can’t compete with. If customers want a more personalized access to your help, texting gives them casual and personal conversations that email can’t. Texting, when added to your other channels offered, gives customers more options to reach you how they want to.
Customer Engagement and Sales
A Harvard Business School study found that for a 5% increase in customer retention, you can increase profits by at least 25%. That means that keeping your customers engaged can have a direct impact on your profits. One way to engage your customers is through sending out promotions and discounts. Not only does this potentially increase your sales and revenue, but also gives your customers a reason to remain loyal to your brand.
Use SMS for direct and personal access to your customers and to connect and engage your audience. Keep customers in the loop about new products or upcoming events. Send out personal birthday messages with a coupon to remind customers you care.
Context-Based Marketing
A business texting platform helps segment your target audience. You can send messages according to context. For example, Uber sends a message to airline passengers as soon as they land, inviting them to call a car to pick them up from the airport. Use texting to reach your customers where they are to keep them satisfied with your service.
3 Ways to Use Messaging to Boost Customer Satisfaction
So, SMS can fit easily into your business strategy. But how exactly does it support customer satisfaction? Here are some creative examples of how business SMS can be used to keep customers happy:
1. Send out exclusive content—pre-launch
When you have a new release or launch, why not build anticipation in the group with the highest chance of conversion: your existing customers? Send SMS messages offering your customer base the option of ordering before the launch. Make them feel special! They’re part of the club. Sending a text gives you the chance to target this high-intent group directly.
Yes, yes, I know. Email exists. But with the reliable open rate of texts compared to email, you’re more likely to reach your customers if you shoot them a text. This can create loyalty and enhance conversions.
2. Use gamification
We’re all a bit tired of telemarketers and stock promotional emails. Customers are less likely to open content when it’s pushing a sale on them. But, with gamification, you can creatively engage customers in your latest deals.
Gamification means incorporating gaming elements into a non-gaming context to make the experience more enjoyable for the customer. For example, you can engage customers with a loyalty reward program that is also a game. Like McDonalds’ Monopoly game. Using texts to communicate, let customers accumulate points to cash them in for products or discounts for future purchases.
3. Follow up
How can you keep customers satisfied? Find out if they are first! Send out surveys and questionnaires via text and email that ask customers to rate your product or service. Then, use the responses to guide your CX strategy and grow your business.
Then, use those analytics, insights, and administrative tools built into your text messaging service so you can improve issue resolution. Or look through records of text interactions to help you understand how to address customer concerns better.
Pairing Your Business SMS Strategy With Good Management
A business SMS platform can help meet your customer expectations. But texting can’t fix your customer experience on its own. Pair your SMS strategy with strong management for real growth in your customer satisfaction. There are other factors to take into account:
Prioritize Good Training and Coaching
Customer satisfaction doesn’t come without training and coaching agents to use the technology well. Provide best practice guides and an internal knowledge base for agents so they have resources to grow. Meet regularly with your texting team and collect successful and some unsuccessful texting interactions with customers. Use these to model how agents can more effectively communicate with customers. Support your agents in their work and grow together.
Be Personal
Although automation can save you a lot of time and effort, messages should be as personal as possible. Business texting platforms can help you insert personal details (e.g., the customer’s name) so you can send personalized messages to mass groups. Stay aware of your customer history and use it to create a personalized experience to keep customers satisfied.
Keep in Touch
Customer satisfaction happens when customers feel seen and heard. Use scheduled messages to follow up with customers. Keep track of important dates — like the customer’s anniversary with your brand or their birthday — and send out personal messages to help customers feel known. When you meet your customer where they are, and build the experience around them, you’ll see customer satisfaction soar.
Want to learn more about how Textel can boost your customer satisfaction? Let’s connect.
This article published on March 23, 2021 and was revised on April 14, 2022.