Did you know that customer service is what retains your current customer base? It is critical for your business to have well-trained customer support reps whether that’s via phone, email, or SMS.
According to a Hubspot study, 90% of customers want an immediate response (30 mins or less) to their urgent question from the customer support team. With that immediate response time in mind, why not expand your customer support team to respond to customers via SMS? This is a foolproof solution when it comes to customer service.
With that data in mind, now let’s discuss two powerful strategies that can further how your business can best utilize SMS for customer support.
Send Order Updates
Customers hate guessing when their order is going to arrive on their doorstep. So why not send order updates throughout the delivery lifecycle? This will provide a smooth ordering experience for your customer and save your customer support team from getting the same question over and over again, “Where is my order?”
For example, you can send texts when their order has been placed, when it has left the warehouse, when it is out for delivery (with an expected time of delivery), and when the order has been delivered with an image included as to where the order was left. This will keep the customer in the loop through the whole delivery lifecycle.
Also, if you have ordered anything from Amazon recently they have been sending their customers the following text messages: shipping notifications, pre-order alerts, back order notifications, and general product updates. These messages are also critical to send to your customer base because they provide a positive customer influence. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for your brand to implement as well.
Set Up Triggers to Answer Your Customer’s Frequently Asked Questions
As mentioned in the intro, customers want their questions to be answered quickly. A great way to get that in motion so you don’t have a customer support person on call for small yet important questions, why not set up the appropriate triggers to answer your customer’s most frequently asked questions?
If you don’t know what your customers are constantly asking your customer support team then it is important to gather that data. And if you know what they are constantly asking then it will be easier to set up your triggers.
Let’s put this into perspective a bit to wrap our minds around this strategy. If you are selling beauty products, then your customers may have questions about shipping, tracking orders, redeeming gift cards, billing, returns, exchanges, questions regarding the product (is it vegan or cruelty-free?), canceling an order, and how to use the product. By identifying the keywords in these questions such as order or billing then it can trigger supporting questions about this topic. As time goes on, you can always refine the questions of the flow of each trigger.
With the appropriate triggers in place, your customers will get their questions answered instantly with a few words, and save your customer support team countless hours from managing incoming customer support requests about the same topics.
In the current business climate, customer support via SMS is the future of customer service communication and will replace other mediums of customer service at a much quicker pace thanks to COVID-19.
The main thing that customers want is to have a seamless user-friendly communication portal where their needs are met in a time-efficient manner. And of course, when it comes to the e-commerce and retail space, the customer is king and it will be in the best interest of your business to serve their needs with SMS customer support.