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.
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.
Modern contact centers must support multiple channels of communication to make it easy for customers to engage with them. While everyone provides phone and email support, some contact centers are just beginning to explore other channels like live chat and texting.
Messaging More Important Than Ever
Phone and email have led customer contact strategies at contact centers for decades, but nowadays organizations must be available via live chat and text message. This ensures they provide an omnichannel experience to their target audience. Messaging can close the generational divide in your buyer personas by appealing to their preferred method of communication at the moment of interest.
Contact centers are quickly learning that voice-only support isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Massive increases in call volume due to things like COVID are making it difficult to provide a quality customer experience. With email rendered ineffective by a mountain of spam emails, messaging has shown itself to be a must-have communication solution for capturing and engaging a contact.
Not all messaging is created equal
While messaging is critical to a modern contact center, it’s important to understand that not all messaging is created equal. There are subtle but significant differences between live chat and texting which a contact center should consider as they pursue omnichannel.
Perhaps the most important consumer habit to consider is impatience. 81% of consumers find it frustrating to be tied to a phone or computer screen while waiting for customer service help. This is interesting considering that live chat requires being tied to one screen. When you’re online at your desktop that’s ok, but often this is not the case.
How is texting different? Think about it, when you’re at a computer live chat is easy. But on your smartphone, chat is a little clumsy. You’re required to stay on your mobile browser until the chat session is over and most of us don’t operate our phones that way. We bounce around between apps or send a message and set our phone down as we multi-task constantly.
Texting provides an easier mobile experience than live chat. You can send a text, navigate to other apps, or set your phone down and when a text comes back in you’re notified with a sound/vibrate and banner so you don’t miss it.
With consumer data now showing over half of all customers visit websites from their mobile devices, providing mobile-friendly messaging is more important than ever.
Comparing Live Online Chat vs. Texting (SMS)
While both live chat and texting provide excellent alternatives to email and phone calls, there are important differences to consider. Keep in mind that live chat was designed to solve problems in an online environment not necessarily a mobile environment. Let’s look at how live chat compares to business texting.
There is value in both texting and live chat as they relate to customer communication. A true omni-channel solution should have both. However, using live chat alone to fulfill your messaging strategy ignores consumer’s need for immediate accessibility. Texting delivers the same value as live chat but it also provides on-the-go access without being tied to one screen.
With a business texting platform from Textel, no customer messages will get lost in the shuffle at a contact center either. Best of all, Textel integrates seamlessly within NICE inContact and Genesys Cloud‘s chat windows to allow your agents an easy to use way of texting through the tools they use every day.
Contact centers are all learning one thing – when it comes to pandemics, flexibility is the name of the game. Remote work coupled with daily regulatory changes across state, county, and city boundaries are forcing IT decision makers to re-evaluate the systems they depend on to keep employees connected to each other and their customers. Texting should be at the top of their list. Here’s why:
Voice Calls are an Unacceptable Bottleneck
COVID-19 disrupted every facet of human life. Travel plans were scrapped, education was turned on its head, and virtually every service provider from healthcare to supply chains changed how they operated overnight. With disruption comes the need for help and contact centers were overwhelmed by a tidal wave of customer calls. In fact, as recently as July 15th contact call center call volumes jumped to over 800% of their normal levels!
If we consider that the industry standard for average handle time (AHT) is 6 minutes and 10 seconds (including wait, talking, and wrap time), an 800% increase in call volume will absolutely destroy AHT if a contact center isn’t adequately staffed.
Texting is 4x faster than a voice call which means agents can quickly handle more interactions in less time. Texting also distills down a sender’s main points due to the friction of writing out their thoughts. With voice calls, customers tend to add a lot of unnecessary filler into the conversation which drags the interaction out and may lead the agent to focus on the wrong thing.
Texting Increases Agent Capacity
Voice calls monopolize agents’ time. It’s because the interaction requires full engagement as both customer and agent listen and respond to each other. While acceptable pre-pandemic, the previously mentioned increase in call volumes due to COVID-19 means contact centers must either:
Frantically increase headcount (while sweating over onboarding requirements) or
Risk losing customers with long wait times, a massive callback list, and burnt out agents
Texting changes all that. Because texting doesn’t command an agent’s complete attention to hear every word, the agent can answer additional customer texts. Texting can be asynchronous, meaning, there’s a slight delay between when the customer reads the text and responds. This can be advantageous for an agent who wants to manage multiple text threads and can respond to Customer B while waiting for Customer A to reply.
Texting Gets Better Read and Response Rates
It’s said an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Some contact centers have taken this mantra to heart and are proactively reaching out to customers to notify them of changes due to COVID-19. Others are trying to get the word out as their businesses re-open with promotions to re-engage their customers. The problem is that budgets are tightening and businesses are facing major financial struggles due to the pandemic. Contact centers must invest in technology that has the highest chance of success.
Phone calls typically only create a meager 5% response rate.
Email is worse at just 3%.
Texting Solves Issues Faster
Texting removes barriers to communication which makes it easier for agents to resolve issues. Features such as MMS allow customers and agents to send and receive images, video, emojis, and documents can often say more than a 6-minute phone call.
Texting Can Create a Better Experience for Everyone
Texting creates a better customer experience in general simply due to the better responsiveness of agents who can handle more texts faster. It’s a better experience for contact center teams as well since they get happier customers and can resolve issues quickly.
Best of all, in many cases it doesn’t require a large effort to train agents on how to incorporate texting. Many major CCaaS vendors like NICE inContact and Genesys integrate seamlessly with texting platforms like Textel that allows agents to utilize the same tools they rely on for chat to manage texts.
Texting – An Essential Tool for 2020 and Beyond
The pandemic will end but pinpointing when is impossible. Contact centers that will survive and thrive are those that are able to take an unbiased look at how they’ve done things and adopt new technology, like texting, to change the way they do business for the better.
Tis the season to drive holiday sales through high-performing communication channels.
Trust us – it’s not just the egg nog making everyone merry. Call center texting is beginning to snowball as enterprise businesses focus on reaching their customers via text across their existing business lines.
After RetailMeNot reported that shoppers are ready to spend at least $60 more on gifts this holiday season than last year, retailers have been working to find creative ways to get in front of their consumers. Specifically, they’re looking for ways to stand out from their competitors and reach more consumers first, and more effectively.
RetailMeNot uncovered that 95% of those retailers believe that deals and discounts are the most effective way to drive purchases during this time of year. And it should come as no surprise that 72% of their marketing investment is happening across mobile.
Why? Because, it’s where their customers live!
It’s a fact that has caught the attention of more and more call centers as they try to produce an omnichannel communication platform that targets customers in the way they want to be contacted.
Yet, (if you remember from our recent article: An Easy Business Texting Strategy to Improve Revenue in 2019) only 48% of enterprises have text-enabled their business phone line. <cut to Macaulay Culkin slapping his hands against his face in sheer terror!>
So, in an effort to make the holidays just a bit brighter for the call centers who still aren’t using text to enhance the customer experience, we offer these 5 gifts (or benefits) to using business texting to help ring in a successful new year.
5 Ways Business Texting for Call Centers Drives Holiday Sales
Get Your Customers’ Attention
First and foremost, you must reach your holiday shoppers on a channel they’re currently using. The good news is that text messages are opened 98% of the time and the recipient often takes action immediately after reading. Besides being optimized for response, this channel helps you communicate with the most consumers in the fastest way.
Invite Them Onsite for a Holiday Promotion
Customers are looking for an excuse to swing your way – give them a great one. Share your holiday promotion with customers and invite them to your business to be a part of something special. And just so they know exactly what awaits, send them a fun picture to further entice them to stop in.
Share an Exclusive Marketing Offer
If in-store business isn’t your forte, send them a text with a link to the special product that you know will catch their attention. With most sales happening across a mobile device, your job is to make it easy for customers by sharing an exclusive offer that keeps them from walking out into the cold and only requires them to set down their hot coffee and click to purchase.
Send Appointment Reminders to Reduce No-Shows
Guarantee sales by scheduling important automated text reminders that reduce no-shows by up to 50% according to Appointment-Plus. This easily enhances the customer experience by letting them know you’re excited about their arrival – plus, it saves lost revenue by giving them a chance to reschedule if holiday shopping has bogged them down and made them unavailable for the current time.
Create a Sense of Urgency to Propel Holiday Sales
The beauty of business texting for call centers is that you can alert customers to the sales they don’t want to miss without interrupting their day. These notifications do more than increase customer satisfaction, they prove helpful and thoughtful. Plus, when it’s followed up with a discount offer, customers will be further incentivized to add your product under the tree this holiday season.
Want to learn more about how call center texting can improve your bottom line this holiday season and all year long? Try Textel’s business texting platform today!
