Using text messages to engage with consumers has a myriad of benefits for brands, including higher response rates and increased customer loyalty. But what about the benefits texting can have for consumers themselves? That’s right – leveraging SMS messages to communicate with consumers can have some unexpected benefits for consumers.
Here are a few ways your team can maximize the opportunity of SMS messages to help benefit your customers:
1 – Texting saves time. While time savings and efficiency are considered a benefit of direct-to-consumer texting for brands, the same can be said for the consumer as well. Your customers are busy people with large, full lives. The last thing they need to be doing is waiting around for a phone call or checking their email constantly for an order update. Instead of actively wasting time on hearing back from a company, texting delivers a message directly to the one place a customer is likely to be spending most of their time: their smartphone.
2 – There is a balance of power. Many times, B2C brands can come off as pushy or intense to customers because of how much engagement is required. This is especially true for businesses who offer ongoing service or protection for larger purchases. Instead of willingly entering into a long-term brand relationship with these businesses, many customers chose instead to simply ignore incoming communications because it can be off-putting. Texting delivers a new kind of balance to this consumer relationship. Consumers can easily read, respond to, and even end a conversation as soon as it begins directly through a text. They can ask questions, follow-up, and direct the conversation in the way they see fit. Texting makes direct-to-consumer conversations seem less intense and more two-sided than emails or phone calls.
3 – It gets right to the point. If there is one thing that modern consumers have come to expect from B2C brands, it’s noise. There is so much noise – and so much competition – out there that consumers have become accustomed to simply tuning it all out. This can hurt brands who actually have something important to get across to consumers. Text messaging wades through this noise and delivers critical messages directly where customers want to receive them. Additionally, because many brands have added in texting as part of their larger omnichannel engagement strategy, customers know that if a text is coming through its most likely of high importance, like an order status or pickup notification.
The best part? Texting can help turn your customers into true fans of your company. Customers appreciate these unspoken benefits and want to patronize businesses that make their lives easier as well. And once your consumers become loyal customers, they’re more likely to spread the word to their networks. This is how word of mouth marketing (and online reviews) starts. Your customers are now real fans of your company and they want to tell others about it.
By delivering incredible customer experiences through text messages, turning these customers into fans, and helping them spread the word to others, your team can optimize your engagement strategy and truly make the most of text messaging.
You can learn more by connecting with a Kenect B2C text messaging specialist here.