Boosting Smart Customer Service via Text Messaging (SMS)
Know what’s the most used feature of your cell phone? You guessed it. Texting. It’s the preferred way of connecting with others for many. In fact, more than 22 billion texts are sent every day worldwide.
The most common texting format is short messaging services (SMS). When backed by secure messaging—a server-based approach to protecting data, SMS lets you send and receive encrypted text messages. That protects protect data from hackers and other intruders.
SMS secure messaging provides compliance with HIPAA, GLBA, and SOX—making it a powerful corporate communication tool. But SMS is also a potent marketing tool—one that can help boost customer service and business growth.
Benefits of SMS Secured Messaging
SMS is fast and easy to use. It’s stored on servers in plain text. And it’s versatile. You can use it in a variety of ways to deliver secure messages to a single person or a group.
Call centers, for example, can take a medical call and deliver the message safely and securely to a doctor, patient, or medical center. Call centers can do the same for financial services firms and corporate entities.
What’s more, SMS excels at helping you engage customers. That’s because SMS messages actually get opened and read. Few marketing tools can make that claim.
SMS is also highly customizable. Put another way, if you want a guaranteed way to reach customers with your messages, this is it.
Filling the Unique Needs of Customers
SMS lets you fulfill the unique needs of customers. That’s the key to using it to boost smart customer service via text. Here are some ways you can do that:
- Keep customers informed about sales, products, and special offers
- Remind customers of upcoming appointments
- Provide people with timely messages when promoting events
- Direct customers to your website, social media page, or opt-in page
- Gather customer data by using polls, surveys, and random questions
- Send segmented offers to people just about the product/service they want
In short, SMS secured messaging is among the most reliable and direct ways to reach customers. Used correctly, it’s among the most effective mobile marketing tools around.
SMS Isn’t a New Tool
SMS isn’t new. It’s been around for a while. But many managers don’t realize how useful SMS is for communicating with target audiences.
In fact, 90% of SMS secured messages get read within three minutes of being received. That’s a huge advantage. So, if you’re not taking advantage of this form of mobile marketing, you’re missing a chance to increase growth.
Here are five ways to boost growth with SMS secured messaging:
- Increase personalization and targeting — SMS lets you send personalized, targeted messages to your personas. The more personalized the message, the better your chances of triggering an action. If you use a mass text messaging service, this marketing strategy can pay off big time.
- Boost awareness/visibility in a variety of ways — Doing this can not only boost revenues and sales, it can also bolster your brand and your brand’s reputation in your industry. Promoting a customer rewards program is a good example of this tactic in use.
- Take advantage of short codes — Short codes are four to six-digit telephone numbers used commercially to send and receive bulk text messages. You can use them to offer coupons, promote your business, or anything else that works for your industry.
- Send alerts and reminders to customers — You can use SMS to alert customers to what’s happening and make it easy for them to respond. That includes:
- Reminding customers about appointments
- Alerting customers to new products and services
- Inviting guests to special events
- Telling customers about changes in services
- Sending traffic alerts to customers on busy days
- Providing driving directions to convenient locations
- Use graphics/videos to connect with customers — People love getting pictures and videos. Use this tool which takes advantage of MMS, a texting format that allows you to send images and videos to grab customers attention, to build your brand and increase visibility and awareness.
- Generate repeat business — Savvy companies use SMS to send coupons to customers right after they’ve made purchases to help generate repeat business. You can also use SMS to prompt customers to sign up for your mailing list to get special offers and discounts.
SMS secured messaging is affordable, convenient, efficient, and effective. It saves time, delivers fast service, and triggers high customer satisfaction rates.
More importantly, SMS has a 90% open rate within three minutes, so you know your customers will see your messages and read them. That can help you boost customer service and your bottom line.
If you’re not using SMS to boost customer service and business growth, your competitors probably are.
