by Murph Krajewski | Nov 21, 2018 | Business Texting, Call Centers, Partnership
During this season of reflection and being thankful, customers are raising a glass to finally being able to text a contact center to get the answers they need. Talk about #blessed…
In 2018, more and more call centers are integrating two-way texting capabilities with their call center platforms to create the Omni-channel communication solution that not only improves the customer experience and optimizes their call center agents’ time, but also fattens up the bottom line.
Now that a conversation can seamlessly move between voice, chat, text or online messaging, contact centers are carving out more conversions and revenue where consumers can reach out and be contacted through their preferred channel.
For texting, that’s led to 80% of people using texting for business, according to eWeek.
Setting the Table for Innovation
Textel, a robust business texting service, quickly realized that businesses must go through a digital transformation in order to compete in today’s marketplace. This led them to create a functional, feature-rich texting solution that bolts onto an existing contact center communication platform.
Our integration sits at the application layer between the text carrier and the contact center platform to deliver a best-in-class solution for any business texting needs.
In fact, as more and more business texting results and research pour in, it seems texting and customer service pair together as lovely as mashed potatoes and gravy. Velocify even reported that texting during the sales process can lead to conversion gains of more than 100%. It’s a stat that businesses can’t afford to ignore, yet only half of contact centers have started utilizing text in their communication.
Serve Their Preferred Communication Channel on a Platter
NICE inContact, a premier cloud experience platform, partnered with Textel early to deliver better customer service by adding the function of text-enabling existing business phone numbers to their solution. Immediately upon implementing, brand-side clients who utilized this solution discovered that their customers were already texting them – they just hadn’t been getting through.
But more than just being in the right place at the right time, organizations are very thankful for the increased brand loyalty, significant cost savings and multiple contact center agent efficiencies that the resulting solution uncovered.
For instance, Forrester Consulting research showed that a $6-$20 call can now be switched to a text session that costs pennies on the dollar. Plus, Velocify goes on to say that when the right texting processes are in place for a call center, agents who send three or more purposeful text messages after contact has been made with a prospect are seeing increased conversion rates by 328%. #gobblegobble
Businesses Shouldn’t Be Waiting for the Leftovers
For contact centers, texting is the competitive advantage needed to win customers over easily and quickly. To that end, a messaging strategy with the right tools that fit into your existing platform is critical for success in the new year. Because if you don’t do it, your competitors will.
And since Twilio has shown that only 48% of businesses are actually equipped to handle messaging, it’s no surprise that brands who do (like Vera Bradley in our recent case study) are seeing incredible results right out of the gates, including decreasing call volume by 7%, turning one customer/one call into three customers at a time via text and experiencing a 0% abandon rate when using business texting.
They’re just the latest example of a business who wasted no time in integrating texting with their call center solution and are now feasting on the immediate benefits that followed.
A Harris Poll offers this incentive to get in the game ahead of your competitors: 64% of all consumers have a positive perception of a company that offers texting as a service channel.
So, what’s stopping you from pulling a seat up to the table? Call or text our team at 844-483-9835 and give your customers something to be thankful for!
by Murph Krajewski | Nov 16, 2018 | Business Texting, Call Centers, Partnership
Vera Bradley is touting impressive business results after adding Textel’s integration with NICE inContact’s CXone Business Line Texting Solution. See full press release and additional information here.
The exclusive women’s designer brand sells innovative handbags, fragrances, luggage and accessories across multiple distribution points in the U.S.A. In this B2C channel, eliminating any form of friction from the buying process proves paramount to capturing lost sales and driving additional revenue.
To capitalize on call center agent efficiency and reach more customers faster, Vera Bradley leveraged Textel’s two-way texting to better engage with customers via SMS and MMS on their existing contact center phone number. As a NICE inContact DevONE partner, Textel’s integration is available on the CXexchange marketplace and offers a quicker way to communicate with customers across an application that is very familiar for call center agents.
“It was paramount to have a cohesive application within the InContact platform,” said a representative from Vera Bradley. “Textel’s product works seamlessly through Central. Our Agents don’t even realize it’s a different product within the application.”
Vera Bradley recognized a very common issue with businesses that rely on being an easy point of contact for their customers: these customers may already be texting their toll-free number. To leverage this opportunity without confusing the market with a new number, Vera Bradley turned to Textel.
“Our biggest challenge was being able to enable our current toll-free number for our customers. We didn’t want to add a new number exclusively for texting. We were also unsure how many of our customers were trying to reach us through text messages. We thought it was happening, but there was no way to quantify it. Chat for us continues to grow 30-40% each year and we knew that Text was a natural path to explore.”
Their intuition proved correct as they immediately saw results. Upon text-enabling their existing toll-free number, Vera Bradley activated the Omni-channel communication solution their customers had been looking for all along.
At the initial rollout, call volume decreased by 7% allowing Vera Bradley’s contact center agents to work faster and more efficiently. Additionally, instead of one customer/one call, agents manage three customers at a time via text. And as more agents began interacting with more purchasing decisions, Vera Bradley experienced a 0% abandon rate when communicating over text.
“Our call volume has gone down this year, and we have increased efficiency from our Agents. Our productivity measures show increased efficiency and cost-savings. We can handle more contacts quicker, at a lower cost.”
Susan Campbell, Director of Customer Service at Vera Bradley, understood immediately how important customer communication can be to the bottom line:
“CXone with integrated Textel has helped us better communicate with our customers. The solution works seamlessly and our agents continue to work within a single, easy to use desktop environment. We know customer service expectations are at an all-time high and each customer service situation needs to be handled as efficiently as possible. We are thrilled that so many of our customers prefer to text with us.”
With customer service expectations always at the forefront, Textel and NICE inContact’s partnership lets brand-side customers seamlessly integrate texting into their existing workflow, uncovering the back-end efficiencies and driving the customer engagement that get real results for their business.
Learn more about a text-enabled contact center solution and add another level of customer communication to your business.
by Murph Krajewski | Oct 23, 2018 | Call Centers
Tell me this hasn’t happened to you:
guest walks into a salon
“Hello and welcome to Stylz R Us, how can I help?”
“Yes, I’d like a haircut and…”
phone rings
“Sorry, hold that thought please!”
answers phone
“Hello and welcome to Stylz R Us. …pause…
Actually, Susanne is off today. …pause…
Please hold and I’ll get her schedule pulled up.”
places caller on hold and turns to guest at the front desk
“Sorry, about that. You needed a hair color?”
“I need a hair-cut.”
phone rings
“Of course, can you just hold for one more second?”
…Aaaaaand scene!
No one is having a good time in that scenario.
When the customer experience is on the line (literally), salons know that communication is key. So, how do you increase communication while decreasing time and cost?
Business Texting Improves Front Desk Efficiencies
Textel’s business texting for salons provides an easy solution to flip the script on this guest experience. Instead of juggling customer communication from all angles, Textel text-enables your existing business phone line so questions and appointments can be handled on front desk computers, without keeping anyone waiting.
According to an AT&T Market Survey from 2016, 78% of consumers would like to communicate with a business via text. If text isn’t available, they must brace themselves for a phone call that will likely place them on hold and typically take a considerably longer commitment of their time.
And where does that constant ringing leave your front desk’s focus?
Business Texting Cuts Out Front Desk Distractions
University of California, Irvine’s own Gloria Mark studied the distracting effect of phone calls and concluded that a typical worker gets 11 minutes between interruptions and the average brain can take up to 25 minutes to return to their original task afterwards.
A Textel-led study measured client activity and found that on average, communication that takes place over a phone call takes 4 times longer than a text exchange. Calls can take anywhere from 2-7 minutes while a single text takes 5-30 seconds.
By reducing the call volume to your salon, your front desk employees can focus on creating a welcoming environment for every customer and will ultimately enhance the guest experience.
Business Texting Secures More Business from the Front Desk
More than that, by confirming appointments or rescheduling them on the fly via text, your front desk can be actively reducing no-shows and securing future business for your salon. Both are critical components to running a profitable store.
Textel saw these benefits in action with a prominent salon out of St. Louis, Ginger Bay Salon & Spa. A top 200 Salon & Spa by Salon Today Magazine, Ginger Bay needed a solution to the thousands of calls they receive a week for booking appointments and rescheduling appointments.
Per Michelle Steimann, Director of Facilities at Ginger Bay, “The high call volume was producing a strain and led to longer than desirable wait times. The long wait times then translated to higher abandoned call rates and sometimes a lost opportunity with a guest.”
After Ginger Bay reached out, Textel had their business phone number text-ready before the end of the day. Interestingly, Ginger Bay began receiving texts before they had even made it public that their business line was now text-enabled.
The results were powerful: “Not only has Textel helped cut down the call volume and abandoned call rates, but it has also helped us with engagement.”
Plus, Ginger Bay’s front desk is more efficient than ever! “Textel has also maximized our employee’s time since they can easily text a guest back while checking out a guest standing at the counter.”
Business Texting is a Key Differentiator for Salons
Despite AT&T reporting that 85% of consumers prefer text over phone calls, businesses are still stumbling to catch up with the demand. Their same 2016 study found that only 14% of businesses had text-enabled their phone lines.
Do your customers, your front desk and your bottom line a favor and start texting from your business line today, and see how easy it is to add texting to your communication strategy.
Call or text today!
by Murph Krajewski | Sep 28, 2018 | Call Centers
As text messaging has become the most effective way of reaching your customer base, businesses and call centers have begun adding it to their communication strategy to create an omni-channel contact system.
Business call centers have, in turn, discovered advantages and disadvantages of choosing an SMS Short Code strategy vs. a SMS Long Code strategy for their marketing and customer texting outreach/response.
We’ll uncover the main points of difference across cost, timing, two-way vs. one-way texting and using your existing number vs. a new one.
Let’s compare how (and when) businesses can utilize short code texting vs. long code texting and ensure they are reaching the right audience at the right time.
SMS Short Codes
This is the ideal platform to reach a large audience quickly. You can send SMS Short codes to thousands of contacts at once, which makes mass marketing efforts easier as well as broadcasting brand announcements across your customer-base in one fell swoop.
It often looks something like this: For a pizza parlor, customers can receive the latest deal by texting PIZZA to the business.
Disadvantages of Using SMS Short Code
DELIVERY:
As expected, however, short codes face a clear disadvantage in how their delivery is perceived as impersonal by the customer since “one-way texting” can only be used for marketing purposes. It limits “conversation” and is only useful as a response to the business promotion.
TIMING:
Also, the approval process for setting up an SMS short code number can take months. After all that waiting, you still only have one-way communication with your customer.
COST:
Additionally, dedicated short code numbers can prove very expensive for business call centers. Before messaging fees, your business costs can reach $500 – $1,500 a month for short code texting.
Overall, SMS short code has its advantages as long as you don’t need two-way texting and if you have time andbudget for promoting outbound messages.
Top Benefits of Using SMS Short Code:
- When you want to reach thousands of customers at once
- When you’re promoting a sweepstakes or contest
- When you’re sending out a survey
- When you want to target a keyword for your business
SMS Long Codes
Call centers use long code texting to reach their customer-base with their existing business phone number and keep a consistent communication channel. Customers only need to remember one phone number and they can contact your business for any matter, promotion or otherwise with free-form text.
This feels more personal and better connects your customer with your brand. They can associate (and save) the number as your business and have a more direct line of contact with your people.
Ultimately, this improves the customer experience by routing it to the appropriate call center agent who works in the appropriate department or who handled the previous conversation with that customer.
Advantages of Using SMS Long Code
DELIVERY:
Long codes model their delivery to support natural customer conversation. Replies don’t have to be keyword-centric and offer the chance for an open dialogue with the business. Using the business phone number helps humanize the call center and improve the customer experience with “two-way texting”.
TIMING:
Unlike the two months it may take to setup a dedicated short code, SMS long codes can be spun up the same day they’re ordered. Customers can immediately begin reaching your business by phone or text.
COST:
SMS long codes have been proven to make more financial sense for a company looking to reach its customers across multiple communication channels. Text enabling your existing business phone number (long code)can cost as little as $100 a month and includes messaging fees.
Overall, SMS Long Codes can replace a phone call, whereas short codes cannot. And long codes create a more personalized experience for the customer while offeringa natural communication channel they already use every day.
Top Benefits of Using SMS Long Code:
- When you need to text two-way with your customers
- When you want an affordable and fast way to integrate texting into your call center
- When you want to keep your contact numbers consistent across all channels
- When you want texting to decrease call volume and lower the cost of interaction in your call center
Textel’s call center texting solution uses your existing business number to send and receive high-volume text messages and is supported with platform-level consent controls, CALEA compliance and carrier-grade security trusted by all Tier 1 wireless operators.
Discover Textel’s Enterprise Business Texting Solutions and find out how easy it is to incorporate texting into your existing workflow.
by Murph Krajewski | Sep 12, 2018 | Call Centers, How To
At the second annual DEVone Partner Conference, Textel, a St. Louis-based software startup, was honored to receive the Rising Star Award as part of the 2018 DEVone Partner Awards ceremony.
These partner awards highlighted the innovative companies who are designing cloud-based applications that bring additional value to the NICE inContact CXone cloud customer experience platform. The event was attended by more than 350 partners and NICE inContact employees and featured product displays from various DEVone partners.
“It’s exciting to see so many innovative applications integrated with the NICE inContact CXone platform, empowering customers to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” said Paul Jarman, CEO of NICE inContact. “The annual DEVone Partner Conference provides a great look into how the customer journey can be enhanced with CXone, and the awards highlight the most outstanding achievements by DEVone partners.”
The Rising Star Award specifically calls out Textel’s exceptional partnership role in NICE inContact’s success. This active engagement stems from a deep collaboration across co-marketing activities, sponsorships and various other sales and marketing efforts.
While being recognized at the 2018 DEVone Partner Awards, Textel’s advanced mobile customer service features were highlighted as a leading driver of CXone’s positive customer service experience, giving them the ability to reach users effectively and efficiently via their mobile device.
Among the many benefits of this enterprise texting software, Textel creates customizable enterprise solutions that lower call volume, increase net promoter scores and generate more leads.
4 Key Benefits to a Faster, More Reliable Business Texting Experience:
- Connect Faster
Communicate with your customers the way they will most likely respond. - Drive Sales
Close more deals by reaching prospects more efficiently. - Elevate Productivity
Save time by reducing voicemails and getting information out faster. - Reduce No-Shows
Recapture lost revenue by quickly confirming and rescheduling.
Textel and NICE inContact have worked hard to design a Customer-First Call Center Texting Solution and are pleased to see measurable results from the collaboration.
“It’s a great privilege to empower contact centers with a simple platform that connects their customers in a fast, modern way,” said Textel CMO, Mike Mixon. “By texting with customers from existing contact center phone numbers, Textel answers an increasing customer communication demand and securely powers the resulting high-volume traffic through the call center software. We’re honored to receive the Rising Star Award from NICE inContact for our work together.”
Essentially, Textel’s SMS capabilities improve the experience of the customer via two-way text and proactive text notifications. Textel reaches customers at their preferred method of contact and keeps historic conversations saved to help carry the next interaction forward without making the customer start from a scratch.
This is all implemented through programmable SMS via Textel’s API and is a big step forward for call centers pursuing true omni-channel communication.
As Textel continues to cement their place as an innovator in the enterprise texting space, their focus will be on making communication with a contact center as easy as sending an emoji.
Discover more ways Textel can seamlessly implement texting into your call center communication.
by Murph Krajewski | Aug 13, 2018 | Call Centers, Partnership
A seamless, easy-to-manage texting integration is the last thing standing in the way of delivering the quality customer support your call center deserves.
Studies have shown that customers prefer to text:
- 81% of consumers are frustrated being tied to a call or computer for support service
- 64% of consumers would prefer to use texting over voice as their service channel
- 77% of consumers have a better perception of a company that offers texting
Along with email, phone and chat features, is texting part of your customer communication strategy?
Let’s look at how Textel’s business texting for call centers rounds out your communication efforts by offering an exceptional brand experience, which translates to increased profits and employee efficiencies.
Since using Textel’s integration with NICE inContact Call Center solution, end users have significantly lowered their call volumes, increased net promoter scores and even generated more leads.
Meet Your Customers Where They’re Most Comfortable
“Texting plays a large role in your customer’s day to day life,” says Textel CMO, Mike Mixon. “While email has reached a fever pitch of spam and calls from unknown numbers are never answered, texts cut through the noise and are almost always read.”
Textel’s business texting tool provides the unique benefit of texting from your existing call center phone numbers. This not only adds credibility to the text and establishes trust, it allows you to take full advantage of the contact numbers you’ve already published.
As a business texting tool for call centers, Textel supports platform-level consent controls, CALEA compliance, message archiving and more to make two-way SMSa robust solution for call centers.
Working Smart with Business Texting Features for Call Centers
Along with using your existing call center numbers to send texts, Textel has built-in many impressive features that put the customer first, including:
- Inbound Texts: Customer texts can be routed to agents based on agent skill.
- Outbound Texts: Agents can initiate conversations or send out reminders.
- Last Agent Routing: Besides viewing entire conversation history, you can route an inbound text to the last agent who supported the customer.
- Mass Outbound Texting: Toll-free numbers can rapidly deploy mass text campaigns.
- Multiple Conversations: Agents can manage multiple conversations across an easy-to-use interface.
- In-depth Reporting: Measure volume, performance and trends
- MMS: Add pictures, PDFs, gifs and even emojis to your messages
Implementing an SMS texting solution for your call center is easy. Simply choose your package and get started usingTextelto power A2P call center texting on your existing phone numbers..
Call or text 844-483-9835 to learn more about Textel’s simple to integrate, easy to activate call center texting solution.
