As a business owner, you’ve probably been in this scenario plenty of times. You spend days, months, or even years building up a personal connection with a customer. Between repeat visits to your store and various points of contact for order updates, you’ve developed a strong relationship and a loyal repeat customer. This is a common scenario for many small business owners and those who rely heavily on word-of-mouth recommendations and personal connections.
If you’ve ever been in this situation, introducing a new business process or solution to your customers can be tricky. On one hand, you don’t want to scare them off or deliver a different level of service than your customers are used to. But on the other, you want to keep up with the latest trends and ensure your company is moving forward and remaining competitive in the marketplace. While change is always scary, taking a risk can be worth it – if you’ve done your research and made the right investment.
One of the biggest concerns for many traditional business owners is introducing an innovative communication channel like texting to their most loyal customer audiences. Years of face-to-face interactions and phone calls shouldn’t go to waste. In fact, they should only serve to strengthen a consumer relationship and make introducing new innovations that much easier and more exciting for both sides.
If you’re thinking about making the leap to direct-to-consumer texting but are not sure how your most loyal customers will take it, there are two approaches to look at: the data and the actual texting experience itself.
Hard numbers: customers prefer texting with vendors over phone calls
Over the past few years, texting has moved beyond a simple social engagement tool to become one of the most widely used communication channels available. A majority of Americans prefer to communicate via text than a phone call, and this preference starting to include business interactions as well.
Texting customers is good for business, too. 90% of texts are read within the first three minutes of receiving them, and customers that receive a text from businesses have a 40% higher conversion rate. While Millennials are some of the most text-heavy consumers, 71% of consumers between the ages of 30 and 44 said they would text a business more often if they could.
Personalizing the text engagement experience
While emails have become incredibly mass-produced and phone calls are turning into never-ending back-and-forths of voicemails, text messages have become the perfect place for casual, personalized communication between businesses and customers. You can use texting like you would in-person conversation and leverage casual language, personal identifiers, and even more modern elements like GIFs or emojis.
For businesses who want to try business texting but just want to dip their toes in, why not ask your most loyal customers to be your guinea pigs. Explain that you are rolling out a new customer experience strategy that is focused on streamlining the customer engagement process and ask them to be one of your first contacts. You’ll be able to ease into business texting while giving your most loyal customers a VIP treatment, which they’re bound to enjoy.
Get started today
Business texting creates an innovative, customer-first engagement experience that your consumers actually want. If you’re ready to get started with business texting, contact a specialist at Kenect for your personal demo now.