Just send them a text: leveraging SMS for business

 Just send them a text: leveraging SMS for business

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Once
the exclusive domain of private communications to friends and family, SMS has
become the most effective platform for businesses to interact with their
customers and staff.

At 98
per cent, SMS has one of the highest open rates associated with a platform with most
people opening a text within just 90 seconds of receiving it. This ensures
messages, offers or promotions are not only seen by more people, but at a
faster rate than they would be on other platforms.

In accessory for improving customer response times, effective SMS communications facilitate higher customer engagement and conversion by having an average response rate of 30 per cent. SMS marketing has a higher ROI than every other platform with 50 per cent of these responders typically making a purchase. This redemption rate for promotional coupons is Ten times higher than any other channel.

For
maximum cut through and engagement, smaller businesses can utilise SMS for a
range of marketing and customer communications including promotional messages,
appointment reminders, booking confirmations, click and collect, event
management and satisfaction surveys. SMS is also ideal for standardised and
auditable communications to employees, including availability checks, RU Safe
and lone worker notifications.

However,
the challenge for small businesses has always been how do you deploy SMS at
scale to ensure that you're not welded to your phone all day instead of running your
business.

Easy-to-use
technology platforms is now able to used to implement and automate SMS communications.

Communications platforms like Whispir's are incredibly versatile and can be utilised by a diverse range of businesses to resolve a range of challenges using SMS. They offer fast development capability, cost-effective infrastructure and repair delivery, repeatability and reliable process automation – all key benefits when looking at ways to more effectively operate in this new COVID-normal.

This
capability has extended beyond basic messaging and scheduled delivery, with
businesses now able to utilize workflows to automate messaging paths based on
keywords or phrases used in the body of the incoming text message responses.
This two-way conversational building block dynamically captures recipient
content to trigger and route further automated communications.

And
the great news for small businesses is that the platforms have low-code/no-code
capability. This means it will integrate with what IT system you use and
can be quickly implemented and used without resorting to outside IT expertise.
They use drag and drop style templates so that you can build them yourself.

For example, your businesses could use this capability to ascertain customer interest in a virtual event. Based on whether the recipient's answer was “yes” or “not right now”, they can respond to the recipient with additional information on the event. This information may then be routed to the business email to record responses for follow-up and reporting purposes.

Automated SMS responses are completely customisable and not limited to Yes, No or numbered list responses. Businesses are also not limited with the number of SMS responses prompts they are able to establish and can set time limitations for when SMS responses are captured. For example, if you're messaging your staff about a vacant shift tomorrow, you can select to only capture responses that are received today. Businesses may also use the same platforms to preset different automated responses in instances when the recipient hasn't responded to the initial.

Conversational
messaging significantly improves customer experience, providing seamless contextual
engagement based on earlier recipient interactions. As SMS messages can
incorporate URL links, businesses can use messaging pathways, conditional logic
and triggers to maneuver customers and employees online to purpose-built web pages
that do not require an app.

By
automating more of the communication journey, organisations can build loyalty
with their customers, resolve enquiries faster, save time and improve user
experience.

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