Business Messaging: Hindsight is 20/20

How many times have you said to yourself, “Hindsight is 20/20”?

While the origins of the phrase, “Hindsight is 20/20,” is unknown, its relevance comes out in nearly all aspects of our lives.  One recent example in my life is the Pro Bull Riding event I went to on my birthday up in Big Sky, MT. I have been to dozens of rodeos in my days here in Montana, but this event was off the charts amazing.  After the event was over, I was definitely feeling like, “If I’d have known the Big Sky PBR was that amazing, I would have started coming years ago.” I won’t miss another.

Here at Quiq, we regularly hear these words coming from the voice of our customers.  “If I’d have known that we were going to see these kinds of results, we would have done this a long time ago.”  But it isn’t just the results that they see, it’s the fact that not all Business Messaging is created equally – in other words, being able to send and receive texts is table stakes – what isn’t equal are all the other messaging capabilities Quiq brings to bare.  Most of our customers were using some form of SMS capability before they came to Quiq – some simply using individual cell phones, others using their Contact Center or CRM provider’s rudimentary version of texting, and others trying to build their own.

What is it that Quiq clients discover? There now exists an enterprise-grade business messaging platform that isn’t just a “nice-to-have,” but is an integral part of their business that drives significant value.  Mike Parish, Sr Manager, CX Design & Application Development for Brinks Home Security states, “With Quiq, we (the digital team) have the exact same processes that the call center has today.  However, because of the ease of the asynchronous communication, our CSAT is naturally 14 points higher, on average, than our voice channel in the call center.”  Brinks is also able to reduce the number of agents on the phone, repurposing them to higher value interactions.

“With Quiq, we (the digital team) have the exact same processes that the call center has today.  However, because of the ease of the asynchronous communication, our CSAT is naturally 14 points higher, on average, than our voice channel in the call center.”
~Mike Parish, Senior Manager

Another customer, TodayTix, the premier digital gateway to shows, arts, and cultural experiences in NYC, started with a channel mix of 80% Voice and 20% email. They have a goal of reducing overall call volumes down to just 10% and saw Quiq as their digital communications partner to help them get there. In less than two years, they are seeing that nearly 85% of all communications are now coming through channels other than voice. Incredible!

Conversational Commerce

Let me throw some staggering stats at you. In 2018, it was estimated that 40% of all holiday purchases were made over a smartphone. Early reports are showing this trend has increased by as much as 27% and Statista predicts that number could be as high as 70% by 2020. Most of our customers report that well over 60% of their online traffic comes from mobile. According to Statistic Brain, the number of monthly texts sent has increased more than 7700% over the last decade.

If human “conversations” aren’t happening over voice channels any more, why should we expect anything different with eCommerce and Consumer Services. Messaging for businesses has become a customer experience imperative. Imagine a customer being able to message your business, engage in a buying cycle, and complete the transaction all in one interaction, asynchronously! Wait, huh??

The Power of Asynchronous

Last week I woke up at my normal 6:30 AM. It was going to be a super busy day, so I sent a text to a house painter we are looking to hire. Had I only had the voice channel to work with coupled with the schedule I had that day, I would not have been able to call Ian (my painter) until after 3:00 PM that afternoon. Instead, when Ian was able, he returned my text at 9:09 AM. I then responded at 11:13 AM and he replied at 1:45 PM. Our business was concluded. With asynchronous communication, we communicate at the speed of our own lives – and now, with conversational commerce, brands have the ability to collect payment all inside of the messaging channel – TRANSACTION COMPLETE! Cha-ching.

Rich Messaging

Another, “Hindsight is 20/20” we are hearing a lot these days is how compelling rich messaging is. Customers like Overstock.com have taken messaging to a whole new level utilizing rich messaging to personalize their shipping notifications and post-delivery surveys. Utilizing Quiq’s two-way outbound notifications for product delivery, Overstock continues a personal conversation using a seamless combination of bots and humans to insure complete customer satisfaction, all with “web” quality experiences using rich messaging.

Oh, and unlike emails, these interactions have a 98% open rate (their words not ours), AND have reduced their inbound phone call volumes by 14%!!!

Bots for Dummies

Anyone who knows me well understands that, while I sell software for a living, I am basically “entry level” when it comes to technology. The other day I was watching the demo for our new Designer Bot Builder and was shocked at 1) how powerful it is, and 2) how easy it is to build your own Bot in the Quiq platform. Our customers, like Nintendo and Stio, who participated in our Beta program are already seeing tremendous results (see our Bot Webinar). I promise you, if you knew how easy it is to build a powerful Bot that interacts with your customers and agents, as an agent, you’d be building one.

So now you know…

“But, where do I start?” We get that question a lot. The lame answer is that it depends on the business. In the Credit Union industry, we see mortgage and lending as a great starting point, later moving into the contact center. In the Retail/eComm space, we see everything from organizations like Overstock.com starting with delivery notifications to others who put Apple Business Chat, Bots and SMS on mobile experiences for pre-sales support. We see business and consumer services organizations, like HVAC and Plumbing, start with appointment reminders. Many other organizations start in their contact center. Without fail, we always find that organizations have areas of the business where customer communication is changing and messaging is the answer.

Customers’ lives are connected and on-the-move. The phone channel is becoming more and more inconvenient. Quiq brings an array of asynchronous channels into a scalable, enterprise platform designed to serve the customer at the moment of truth. In a world where bots and humans are both considered “first-class citizens,” the expectation for customer satisfaction is morphing. Synchronous phone conversations are giving way to digital interactions that are real time, yet spread out within our busy schedules. Businesses on the forefront of customer experience have figured out how to meet their customers where they are, and both are discovering that communicating has never been more enjoyable.