6 Reasons You Should Use Business Text Messaging
The holiday season is upon us and we are all about to wake up every day with an inbox full of promotional emails. According to Business Insider, businesses emailed their customers 12 times more in 2021 than the year before. This was done intentionally due to expected delays from supply chain issues.
With prices of goods and services being at an all-time high and continued supply chain issues, how will consumer behavior and shopping trends differ in 2022?
Here are some key takeaways you want to watch out for from Deloitte’s Holiday Retail Survey.
Holiday Shopping Trends
Consumer behavior is ever-evolving, and the way a business chooses to communicate with its customers can make all the difference.
So how can you make sure your voice doesn’t get drowned out in the millions of emails that are about to be sent out?
By nurturing and organically communicating with your existing customer base via text messages.
Business text messaging is transforming customer service across all industries, here are 6 reasons your business needs a text messaging platform.
# 1 Communicate With Success
Most businesses are busy preparing holiday email campaigns while 48% of consumers actually prefer to have direct communication with businesses via text messaging.
Texting is inherently easier for customers to react to, there’s naturally a higher sense of urgency to open the message, and there are fewer decisions to make before choosing to open that message.
The success rate of your message reaching your customers is 98%, marketers call this “open-rate” which is actually much lower at 21% for emails.
Your customer won’t think “what are they trying to sell me?”, instead a text message can be a powerful relationship builder given how personalizable it can be.
#2 Communicate on Their Terms
By choosing to communicate via text message, you are immediately giving the power back to the customer and allowing them to reply back on their terms.
With supply chain issues continuing to impact businesses, it’s important to get creative on how to handle special orders and online order pick-ups.
Asking your staff to call customers for pick-ups is inconvenient on both sides.
Service-heavy businesses know this all too well when trying to play phone tag with customers to keep them updated throughout the service process.
If you want an immediate response and to ensure your customers stay happy, text messaging is the way to go.
#3 Communicate With Confidence
Text messaging not only allows you to open a new convenient communication channel with your customers, but it gives you the confidence that there will be a response.
Data shows that 95% of text messages that are read receive a response within 3 minutes.
Whether you need to make sure your customer pays for their invoice or comes to pick up their online order, your outreach attempt will be most successful via text.
# 4 It’s About the Experience, Not the Product
Providing the best customer service can be the differentiating factor in a consumer’s decision to choose your business.
It is very rare that customers continue to purchase from a business where they didn’t have a positive experience. You really can’t only rely on brand reputation alone.
In fact, 59% of American customers shared that they will stop interacting with a brand they love after having multiple bad experiences and 17% said after just one bad experience.
Text messaging allows businesses to break barriers and position themselves as community builders and get closer to their customers than ever before.
Community building and loyalty lead to customers choosing you again and again.
# 5 Extend the In-Store Experience
For a long time, retail has been the preferred shopping experience for business owners. It allows them to meet their customers, create relationships, and provide a curated experience.
With the rise of eCommerce, businesses had to build an online presence and continue to improve the digital experience. While online shopping isn’t going anywhere with 63% of consumers still preferring to shop online, the desire to walk back in those stores has seen a growth from 28% in 2020 to 35% in 2022.
So how can you extend that in-store experience once they go home?
Send a text message and follow up with them a couple of days after their purchase to check in on their experience, ask for a review or even recommend add-ons to drive traffic to your store or website.
Here we teach you how to leverage SMS automation for your business.
# 6 The Art of Conversation
Before the rise of social media, the digital experience between customers and businesses was one-way. Social media allows your business to create a personality and awareness around your brand, but what happened to the art of conversation?
Business conversational text messaging allows you to have a two-way conversation with your customers, build a relationship, and give them a memorable experience.
It’s important to note that business text messaging shouldn’t replace your email marketing strategy. Our goal is not to simply open a new communication avenue for businesses only for it to become just as cluttered as emails.
Conversational text messaging should be reserved for relationship-building and organic communication. Remember, people buy from people.
Cut Through the Noise
This holiday season, you have the opportunity to stand out next to your competitors and create an outreach strategy that makes sense for your customers and business.
Your customers are about to get hit with more marketing material than they know what to do with.
Help them cut through the noise to make the best decisions in the easiest way possible.
Campaigns
While the holidays are a joyous time, they can also be stressful. Finding a way to truly connect with your customers goes a long way. Automate a follow-up to check in with customers after their purchase.
Web chat
Customers are eyeing your website way before key events like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Get ready to answer their questions as they browse your website and even on the go if they choose to continue the conversation via text messaging.
Payments
Providing payment options might be the most important thing you do this holiday season. Buy now pay later options like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay can make all the difference between an indecisive buyer and a confident buyer.