Like any marketing strategy, businesses are always searching for the best way to interact with their customers — and SMS text messages still proves to be the most effective. Yet, surprisingly, only 35% of brands have a formal text messaging strategy in place.
Despite the rise of other B2C communication methods, roughly 61% of consumers still opt for text messaging over social media or phone calls for customer service-related matters, like asking questions. As a result, it’s clear that companies without this messaging solution are limiting their ability to build a stronger rapport and grow their business.
While channels like WhatsApp and social media have evolved, texting is growing in value for businesses as both a marketing and business communication tool. SMS allows companies to build stronger relationships with consumers thanks to a higher degree of personalization and immediacy powered by personalized data and smart messaging automation platforms.
Today, text messaging is delivering entirely new best practices for customer communications, helping companies build better messaging strategies, improve trust and drive engagement.
Intuitive & Adaptable SMS Solutions
As technology like AI and the cloud have advanced, messaging communication platforms have become more intuitive and intelligent. They listen to what businesses and their customers need and suggest better and timelier communication strategies for the right engagement. As such, these programs guide companies to achieve stronger connections with their clients.
For example, many SMS platforms now provide pre-programmed messaging templates tailored to specific industries that can improve customer engagement. These messages range from new client inbound inquiries to efficient document collections and payment reminders, reducing the company resources typically needed to respond to multiple inquiries or complete these tasks.
SMS messaging solutions have also evolved to make personalization much easier to achieve. By easily integrating with popular CRM platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, which handle valuable customer data, the programs work in tandem to deliver real-time personalized responses that speak to the customer’s needs.
Because traditional digital marketing campaigns come with a hefty price tag, it can seem as if SMS campaigns could cost just as much. But in reality, these solutions deliver the strongest response rates and efficient ROI without breaking the bank. SMS messaging platforms have become widely accessible to companies of all sizes, giving them a cost-effective way of connecting with new and existing customers. This creates a dual advantage of having a tool that can maximize your marketing and customer service strategy.
Messaging That Builds A Trusted Customer Relationship
Every opportunity to interact with customers is a chance to improve the most critical aspect — trust. So, when a customer opts in to receive text messages, it shouldn’t be taken lightly.
First, consumers trust that they won’t receive regular spam and messages that don’t apply to their needs, which U.S. regulations have also recently ensured. That’s why proactive customer engagement and messaging controls that limit the likelihood of spam are needed to create a trusting relationship.
Secondly, 74% of consumers say that quickly responding to and resolving their concerns is important to earning trust. SMS messaging has already been proven to provide a faster response rate than phone calls or email. Combined with automation, SMS platforms allow companies to automatically respond to inquiries and identify keywords in messaging to generate quick and accurate replies. They also help them identify and escalate messages that suggest customer dissatisfaction and potential churn.
Automation That Drives Higher Engagement
We associate SMS messaging with the most personal form of communication — messaging our friends and family, which is usually direct, conversational and personalized. SMS platforms and their automated technology allow businesses to boost customer engagement by fostering a strategy that offers the same sense of closeness.
Consumers are more inclined to engage with conversational messages geared to their interests rather than a sales pitch. Automated messaging that implements personalized customer data can power these connections, fostering the feeling of personal engagement when communicating with clients. For example, using their name and referencing products or services they’ve shown interest in.
Businesses should never miss an opportunity to be readily available to new and existing customers. AI technology has now evolved to deploy personalized conversations, campaigns and quick responses through its ability to integrate with CRM programs, allowing companies to deliver valued customer experiences with every interaction. These solutions, combined with an SMS strategy that prioritizes trust and personalization, will undoubtedly increase customer engagement and brand value and create better business results.
Nitin Seth is the Founder and CEO at Conversive, a digital messaging solution that offers AI features and CRM integrations.
