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What Is Conversational Commerce?

Posted on Max Fortis

By now, you may have heard the term conversational commerce. Aside from some catchy alliteration that, honestly, just makes it fun to say, you may not know much about why everyone’s talking about it. Let’s clear things up a bit.

Example of conversational commerce on a smartphone

Conversational commerce refers to the transactions that take place through digital conversations consumers have with brands on messaging apps like web chat, Apple Messages for Business, text messaging, and even Facebook Messenger– often powered by a conversational commerce platform.

The interactions that take place are powered primarily by chatbots that process consumer messages and offer relevant responses. Conversational commerce takes on many forms and can take place across a multitude of channels.

Here are a few conversational commerce examples in real life:

  • Consumers shopping and completing transactions within a messaging conversation
  • Brands helping consumers shop by find a store location or online promotions and deals
  • Customer experience agents Interacting with a customer to reschedule an appointment or a delivery

These are just a few ways messaging has greased the commerce wheel, making it easier and faster for business to get done. In this article we’ll take a close look at conversational commerce and what companies need to do to fully leverage its benefits.

How Does Conversation Commerce Work?

Consider the smartphone — you know, the thing that is essentially glued to everyone’s hands now-a-days — and reflect on how much searching, browsing, buying, and texting takes place on any given device on any given day. Even before it was egged on by mandates, Online purchase being made on a smartphone using Apple Paywhen our normal was just normal, consumers leaned on the ease, convenience, and speed that shopping from their smartphone offered.

As the world still works through “new normal” restrictions on physical locations, we’ve seen a surge in use as more consumers have looked to online shopping, delivery, and curbside pickup to get through their days. According to comScore consumers spend 85% of their smartphone time using only 5 apps, which tend to be either social media, messenger or other media apps. It makes sense that businesses would marry the power of messaging with consumers preferences.

He predicted these real-time conversations would facilitate more convenient online sales. Mr. Messina has yet to comment on where he picked up that incredibly accurate crystal ball of his, but looks like he was pretty spot on. Now, let’s talk about how your company can benefit from an investment in conversational commerce.

Why Invest In Conversational Commerce

Consumer expectations of speed and convenience have birthed new innovations that are opening up a seamless communication between brands and customers. Gone are the days where customers were satisfied with dialing an 800 number or having to write an email to get help.

Whether it’s a chatbot on Messenger, someone managing direct messages on X, or taking orders via text message, consumers will choose brands that go that extra mile to make their experience personalized and efficient. Needless to say, businesses are investing to make that happen.

Consider these statistics by Gartner:

  • At least 60% of companies will use artificial intelligence to support digital commerce.
  • 30% of digital commerce revenue growth will be attributable to artificial intelligence technologies, such as those that power conversational commerce.
  • 5% of all digital commerce transactions will come from a bot, such as those that power conversational commerce.

All of the major trends in commerce over the past couple of decades have been in moving to where customers are. Rather than forcing customers to come to you, you go to where they are. The next generation of that is conversational commerce.

Investing in conversational commerce also unlocks tangible business benefits that can elevate your customer experience and bottom line:

Improved Customer Experience

With AI and data-driven insights, conversational commerce allows brands to deliver more personalized interactions. These tools can understand customer preferences and intent, allowing for real-time, contextually relevant responses that feel tailored to the individual. Whether it’s personalized product recommendations via a chat widget, a voice assistant helping narrow down options, or live customer support through messaging apps, these conversational commerce examples help deepen engagement and drive loyalty. The interactions feel more natural and human—making the customer feel seen, heard, and supported throughout the buying journey.

24/7 Availability

AI-powered systems and chatbots enable brands to offer round-the-clock support, meeting rising expectations for always-on service. This is especially valuable for global brands, allowing them to deliver consistent, timely assistance across time zones—without the overhead of a 24-hour support team.

Cost Reduction

Conversational commerce solutions are designed not only to improve customer satisfaction but also to reduce operational costs. By automating routine tasks and frequently asked questions, businesses can scale without heavily increasing headcount. Human agents are freed up to handle higher-impact conversations, improving overall efficiency and productivity.

Create A More Natural Brand-Consumer Relationship With Conversational Commerce

Conversational commerce, much like regular conversations, are meant to build relationships. Conversational commerce is an opportunity to move beyond email blasts, promotional posts on social media, and other communication methods that provide just one-way communication. SMS and other messaging apps enable you to keep your customers informed with updates, and allows them to respond on the same message thread. A real-time exchange of information? Now that’s a conversation.

Creating engaging experiences on these channels are better and easier if your agents have a single view of your customers. Quiq makes it easy for companies to manage conversations with an intuitive agent desktop and native integrations with Salesforce.com, Zendesk, Shopify, and Oracle Service Cloud.

Quiq is architected with an “API First” strategy which means we seek to work in harmony with your existing systems. With Quiq’s integration frameworks you can customize our UI to include data from your internal operations systems or synchronize conversation data into your reporting, customer and other backend systems.

Get Started with Conversational Commerce

Getting started with conversational commerce isn’t complicated. Start with one new channel that customers visit every day such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Better still, start with text messaging, a universally accepted way to engage with consumers.

If you’re ready to put a conversational commerce platform to work so that your business can thrive, schedule some time to speak with one of our conversation experts today.

How To Use Messaging And Bots To Increase Customer Referrals

Posted on Max Fortis

Referrals have always had their place in marketing. It’s just that now, your customers have more reach and influence than ever before. Not only can they tell their closest friends about your product or service, but they can post Google reviews, share a social post, or use any number of methods to amplify their voice.

Nielson showed us that consumers believe recommendations from their friends and family over all forms of advertising. An impressive 92% of consumers who responded to their study agreed. We all have seen the power of word-of-mouth marketing grow.

Reaching out to your customers manually, at just the right time, to encourage or request a referral is possible. It’s just that it’s time-consuming and expensive. That’s why so many companies have turned to business messaging to increase customer referrals.

In this post, we’ll explore some of the nitty-gritty details of how to use business messaging to increase customer referrals. We’ll also give you a great example of how one of our leading clients puts messaging and bots to work in their organization to boost their customer referrals.

Why Referred Customers Are So Valuable

Aside from being a really effective form of marketing and making your business look awesome, referrals contribute directly to your bottom line. Here are 3 reasons why you need to make sure you have a healthy mix of referred customers in your pipeline:

1. Referred customers have a lower acquisition cost

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the price you pay to obtain a new customer. That number includes your total Sales and Marketing. With other methods, you pay for each click and impression that lead up to converting that customer. 

Your CAC is significantly decreased when you recruit your current customers to do the sales and marketing for you. How much it decreases depends on the success of your referral program, if you offer incentives, and if you are manually doing outreach to your customers.

2. Referred customers are more loyal

In an era where consumers have so many readily available choices at their fingertips, it’s not a surprise that brand loyalty has dwindled. It’s more important than ever to reduce your customer churn.

The Journal of Marketing reports that referred customers are 18% more loyal than non-referred customers. When your customers refer you to their family, friends, or extended network, you receive the benefit of the trust and credibility they’ve built up among their community. It’s also likely that referred customers will have a stronger sense of commitment and attachment to your company because someone they know, like, and trust has matched them to your brand.

Customers that refer you also have a higher likelihood of having a long-term relationship with your company. This is why the intention to refer a company is frequently used as an indicator of loyalty to that brand.

3. Referred customers are more profitable

So far, we’ve determined that referred customers are less costly to acquire and have a higher likelihood to be more loyal. But that’s not all. There are also other ways they are generally more profitable for a business. Referred customers are also more likely to refer others to your business. Rinse and repeat #1 and #2.

In addition to that, your referring customer will likely have a deeper relationship with your product or service. That may mean a higher frequency of using your service or a history of exploring more features. These customers are a lot more advanced than a novice customer. 

Consistent positive experiences with different products means that these customers are likely to spend more over their entire life time as your customer. Think of it like this. If you’re a clothing brand and your customer loves the new pants they bought from you, it’ll be a lot easier to sell them the shirt and the jacket.

Why You Should Automate Your Customer Referral Program

business messaging to increase customer referrals can be automated with chatbotsWith these incredible benefits, you’d think every company would have a referral marketing campaign. The honest truth is that asking your customers at the right time to leave a review isn’t always as easy as it seems. And you will have to ask. 

According to a marketing survey conducted by Texas Tech, 83% of satisfied customers are willing to refer products and services. But, only 29% actually do. Implementing and managing customer referrals can be difficult to present at the right time if you have to do it manually.

A lot of companies out there know how painful it is to effectively execute a referral program where agents are making outbound calls to request a referral from their customers. Brinks Home Security has been able to automate their referral program using messaging and bots.

In a previous post, we examined how Brinks used messaging and bots to increase their customer retention. Now, let’s take a look at how the company was able to take their customer referral process to the next level with messaging and bots.

The Quiq bot that Brinks created combines their survey platform with their email service provider. The Quiq bot brings those two customer data streams together to invite new referrals to the Brinks family. 

Brink Bots customer referral bot for customer engagement

Once a current customer submits a survey indicating that they are a happy customer, the Quiq bot will ask for email addresses of anyone they think would enjoy Brinks service as well. The Quiq bot will pass those email addresses to Brinks Email Service Provider. 

Prospects are then informed that they were referred and invited to take a look at Brinks products and services. If the prospect signs up, then the Quiq bot will match the newly signed customer with the customer who referred them and send both customers free product options.

All of this is done with no human intervention. The process is streamlined and infinitely repeatable with none of the intense labor and expense of outbound calling.

Don’t Wait To Use Business Messaging To Increase Customer Referrals

It’s great when your customers eagerly act as advocates for your business on their own accord. That may happen now and again, but if you want to grow your business, retain the customers you already have, and reach your revenue goals, you’ll have to be more proactive with your referral program.

Implementing messaging and bots to automate your customer referral program will save time, money, and make the process easier for your company. More importantly, an automated process like the one Brinks uses makes it easier for your customers.

If you’d like to learn more about using bots in your current workflows visit our bot webpage or take a look at one of our bot webinar replays.

Quiq Earns 3 Capterra “Best” Badges

Posted on Lauren Winder

Provider of digital engagement solutions, Quiq is excited to announce we have earned three new badges from Capterra, one of the top software review sites in the world. Quiq was recognized within the Cloud Communication Platform category with “Best Ease of Use” and “Best Value” badges. The company was also recognized in the Conversational AI Platform category with the “Best Ease of Use” badge.

The Best badges aid in software research to help buyers make more informed decisions. Best badges are based on reviews spanning the Gartner Digital Markets network. The badges synthesize reviews to recognize the most highly-rated products in a given software category.

Why Quiq Has Been Recognized As The Best

Quiq’s recognition by Capterra in these categories originate from the company’s mission to help brands present their customers with consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across business messaging, web chat, and with bots, the most popular channels that consumers care about. In order to help our clients deliver a great customer experience and realize significant productivity improvements, we focus on implementation and proven best practices.

Here’s what you can expect from working with Quiq:

  • A focus on your objectives to ensure success right from the start
  • A smooth implementation of Quiq as either a stand-alone product or as an integration into your existing systems.
  • An intuitive design that’s requires almost no training
  • Unlimited users so that everyone in your organization can use messaging
  • A seamless integration of automation such as routing rules and chatbots across all of Quiq’s digital channels
  • Robust reporting so that you can measure and manage the things that matter most
  • A responsive team that is eager to help you over hurdles and guide you with best practices

How To Use Reviews In Your Software Purchase

Finding the right software can be tough. With so many choices and differences in features, it helps to get recommendations from other buyers. Reviews help throughout the purchase process. Read our customer reviews on Capterra to understand why top brands chose to work with Quiq and why they continue to be delighted with their decision.

Quiq’s team of conversation experts are ready to help you make an informed decision and choose the best software for your contact center. Schedule some time to discuss your current and future business needs today.

About Capterra’s Best Badges

The Best badge recipients are determined by the subjective opinions of individual end-user customers based on their own experiences, the number and timing of published reviews on Gartner’s digital sites (Capterra.com, SoftwareAdvice.com, and GetApp.com) and review ratings for a given product in the category, and are not intended in any way to represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates.

Gartner’s GetApp Names Quiq A Category Leader In Live Chat

Posted on Lauren Winder

2020 Category Leader for Live Chat

Quiq is pleased to announce that it was named a 2020 Category Leader for Live Chat by GetApp. Category Leaders are designed to help businesses evaluate which software products may be right for them.

Category Leaders are published on GetApp, a highly respected recommendation engine that companies rely on to make the right software choice. Category Leaders rank based on ratings submitted by verified users in five key areas:

  1. Ease of use
  2. Value for money
  3. Functionality
  4. Customer support and
  5. Likelihood to recommend

Quiq was named a category leader for Live Chat Software. Quiq scored an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 based on 34 reviews.

“From the Admin side: excellent customer service, ease of implementation, and timeliness of requested actions. From the User side: extremely intuitive for agents, high customer satisfaction, and efficiency. Overall, Quiq is a forward-thinking platform that really understands customers’ needs both internally and externally.”
– Kim E. Apparel & Fashion 

GetApp is a software review site that enables businesses to discover, compare, and choose the right business applications, ranging from live chat software to cloud-based messaging software. Software buyers can access customer reviews and product features to find the right software for their business.

Quiq is proud to receive this recognition which was based, in part, on the positive customer reviews received. If you’re exploring live chat options for your business, schedule some time to speak with one of our conversation experts.

 

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The Difference between Google RCS Business Messaging and Google’s Business Messages

Posted on Max Fortis

If you’re still wondering “What’s the difference between Google RCS and Business Messages?”, you’re not alone. You’ve probably heard a lot about the benefits such as the ability to send and receive longer messages, attach files, and send hi-res images. While there are similarities between the two, let’s dig into the differences.

The biggest difference between Google RCS Business Messaging and Google’s Business Messages is that “RCS” is actually a protocol adopted by the major telecommunication carriers and device manufacturers. It sets the standard of what rich messaging is. On the other hand, Google’s Business Messages is a mobile conversation channel that uses the RCS standard.

There are a few more nuances to examine. To understand the differences further, we’ll have to get into the details on each. Let’s dive in.

What is RCS Business Messaging

The standard for sending text messages began with SMS (Short Message Services) in the 90’s with 160 character limits sent over mobile networks. MMS or Multimedia Messaging Service introduced images and videos to messages, but SMS is still the most prevalent method. Rich Communication Services (RCS) is the next evolution of messaging.

Google RCS Business Messaging uses the RCS standard. RCS Business Messaging is Google’s managed platform that allows businesses to send rich messages between their business and a consumer’s phone. Brands can communicate with consumers through Messages, Google’s native messaging app, while using the range of rich media and Rich Conversations capabilities available with RCS.

Brands and consumers get a better messaging experience because of it. Take a look at just a few of the features consumers and brand enjoy:

Consumers:

  • Trusted branding like logos and sender verification so that they can be sure they are talking to a representative from the respective brand
  • Suggested replies, which are a set of short responses that consumers can use to reply to questions, help expedite conversations and guide consumers through choices

Brands:

  • The ability to send outbound messages for promotional campaigns, proactive notifications, or to pass transaction details like shipping alerts
  • Brands can integrate business systems such as a CRM or marketing automation to share notifications of real-time business actions with consumers on Google RCS Business Messaging

With Google’s RCS Business Messaging, brands engage with consumers through Messages, Google’s native messaging app, using rich media and the rich conversations capabilities available with RCS. This is really important to remember. Currently only Android users that are using Android Messages for their messaging application will experience RCS Business Messages.

Currently only Android users that are using Android Messages for their messaging application will experience RCS Business Messages.

Currently, access to the RCS Business Messaging program is only available through Google partners like Quiq. Our team would be happy to walk you through the registration process.

What is Google’s Business Messages

Business Messages is a mobile conversational channel that combines entry points on Google Maps, Search, and brand websites to create rich, asynchronous messaging experiences that delight customers and drive business results such as lower call volume, higher customer satisfaction, and increased conversion rates.

Consumers reach out to companies that use Google’s Business Messages for help via text instead of calling a phone number. Because of this, Business Messages is a great way to drive call deflection. Business Messages can tie into search results in multiple locations as shown in the screenshots:.

  • Answer Card results – These results are one of Google’s featured snippets that are typically displayed in a box at the top of Google’s results page above the organic results, but below ads. The screenshot below shows the answer card results for the consumers search for “Neiman Marcus customer service”.
  • Site Link results – These are the links that are shown below some of Google’s search results and are meant to help users navigate your site. The middle screenshot below displays results with sitelinks helping consumers find other areas of the Neiman Marcus site they may find interesting..
  • Place Card results – These location based results provide more comprehensive information about a place in search results such as its complete address, phone number, user rating and reviews. The third screenshot shots Place Card results for Men’s Warehouse.

With this channel your business registers as an “Agent”. This is a separate registration than the RCS Business Messages registration.  When a consumer messages your business, you are not given access to their phone number, you are given a unique identifier for the user and their display name used on their Android device. Because of this Business Messages has the following advantages:

  • Because consumers are not messaging you from their phone number, there are no carriers and messaging app restrictions. Virtually all Android users can use this technology.
  • Messages are encrypted.
  • ALL messages, images and rich messages, are branded and verified, creating a high trust channel

It’s also important to remember that these messages won’t live in the Messages app like RCS Business Messages. These messages persist  in Google Maps for Place Card results and within the Android device’s notifications area for Answer Card and Sitelinks results.

A Side By Side Comparison Of Google RCS And Google’s Business Messages

Both RCS Business Messages and Google’s Business Messages  provide consumers and brands with an elevated experience. Whether your focus is driving “unforgettable” conversations or simply providing quick transactions, these branded, media-rich messaging experiences can help you get there.

Still a little confused? Here’s a chart comparing the two side by side. As you can see, both have their advantages and limitations. The good news is that companies don’t have to choose between one or the other.  One of our conversation experts can help you decide which program works best for you or if you should apply for both depending on your unique business needs.

As a Google program partner, Quiq can help you get started with either or both programs. We handle the registration process for you. Once we get started, you’ll work with the Quiq Customer Success team to optimize messaging for your organization.

Quiq’s messaging platform supports Google, Facebook, live chat and more. Our platform brings all of your digital channels together into one intuitive agent desktop. Quiq has worked with companies from large enterprises to mid-sized companies to implement messaging across all of our supported channels and automating workflows for your entire organization.

Ready to leverage the power of Google to help your business grow? Schedule a call with one of our conversation experts today.

What is Google’s Business Messages

Posted on Max Fortis

google my business messaging

When consumers have questions, they turn to Google for answers. When consumers want quick and convenient conversations, they turn to messaging. So, what if I told you there was a way to combine the power of Google’s search with the convenience of messaging to make it super easy for your customers to find and engage with you?

Learn More About the End of Google Business Messages

Well there is. Google’s Business Messages provides brands a comprehensive messaging solution across Android devices through Google search and Maps.

DEFINITION: Google’s Business Messages is a mobile conversational channel that combines entry points on Google Maps, Search, and brand websites to create rich, asynchronous messaging experiences.

Let’s take a closer look at Google’s Business Messages and all of the great features that make this channel a must have for every company.

How Your Customers Will Use Google Business Messages

Google Search and Google Maps are two features that your current and potential customers use on their phones all the time. Consider these following stats:

  • 35% of product searches start on Google. (eMarketer), and
  • 34% of “near me” searches done via desktop and tablets result in store visits. (HubSpot)

With Google’s Business Messages, customers can click the “Message” button presented within the search results to start a conversation with your company.

If you’re curious about what the experience will be like for your customers, you can try out Business Messages for yourself. If you have an Android device, you’ll want to make sure you have RCS enabled on your phone. Once you do, do a Google search for “Quiq Bozeman”. You’ll find the “Message” button in the overview section. Click and start a conversation with us.

The conversation will start with a greeting from our Quiq HQ Bot. Feel free to ask a question or send an emoji. You should expect one of our conversation experts to be with you quiq-ly.

Features of Google’s Business Messages

Business Messages isn’t just for brands that want to be discovered. Here’s an example of a well known brand using Business Messages to deliver a better experience for their customer.

Luxury department store Neiman Marcus is a juggernaut in retail and customer experience circles. The retailer worked with Quiq to implement Business Messages and elevate their customer’s shopping experience.

When Neiman’s organic search result is shown, “Message with a live agent” is presented at the bottom along with the company’s typical response time. When clicked, customers are then taken to their messaging app to continue the conversation. But that’s not the end of the story, in fact, it’s where the benefits begin.

Within the messaging conversation, consumers are able to shop, ask questions, and complete secure payment transactions. Customers are also able to easily get updates such as order tracking, refunds, and handle service inquiries.

Google’s Business Messages enhances customer care, with rich features like:

  • product photos and carousels that expand the conversation to drive purchasing, scheduling, and upselling,
  • suggested replies that enable consumers to respond with just a tap of a button,
  • typing indicators, delivery confirmations and read receipts that keep conversations moving along,
  • the ability to send and receive emojis, hi-res images, and videos ensures that the conversation is personalized.

Since messaging is the channel preferred by consumers, businesses will see more of their customers turn to messaging instead of calling their contact center for pre-sales service and post-sales support. Business Messages integrates directly with a company’s digital customer service platform, like Quiq, so handling these conversations happen in one, easy-to-manage agent desktop.

Don’t Wait To Get Started With Business Messaging

Quiq is part of Google’s partner program for Business Messages which enables us to onboard brands, influence the roadmap and standards, and be among the first to offer our customers an upgraded messaging experience through Google Search and Maps.

We’re ready to help you get started with Google’s Business Messaging and can help you get registered, implement, and deploy Business Messaging for your business. Ready to explore Google’s Business Messages and Quiq? Schedule some time to talk to one of our conversation experts today.

How Stio Geared Up For Growth

Posted on Mike Zinne

Since opening its doors in 2012, Stio has embraced a direct-to-consumer model selling high-quality, active apparel for outdoor enthusiasts online and in-store. Clearly, the market has embraced them right back, experiencing rapid growth, especially in eCommerce which makes up 75% of the company’s revenue.

The mountain lifestyle brand, headquartered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming realized that it had to scale its digital customer experience to keep up with that growth. The company looked for technology that was just as adaptable and functional as their gear, turning to Quiq’s messaging, web chat, and bot platform for support.

The Good Problem of Growth

Stio's use of web chat messaging bots for retailers has helped the company deflect phone callsWhen Kim Essensa, Stio’s Customer Experience Manager, joined the company in June of 2018, Stio had been experiencing annual growth rates of 52 percent. In the second quarter of 2018, Stio’s growth accelerated to an impressive 70% year over year.

That kind of growth comes with a few growing pains, especially in a contact center of 7. Based on previous experience in both her personal and professional life, Kim felt that live chat could help alleviate some of the load. The company already had a simple version of live chat available on their website but hadn’t turned it on. Her instincts were right. Turning on web chat helped the contact center feel an immediate relief.

Kim knew that text messaging was the next natural progression for engagement with consumers. While she had experience with other vendors like Live Chat, Olark, and Boldchat, she knew that having SMS and text messaging were key to take the company to the next level. Kim had used Quiq at her previous employer and evaluated it for Stio, knowing that it was going to have to make an impact on their efficiency, while working with their current systems.

“A few other programs were vetted. The relationship I had with Quiq before and knowing how responsive everyone is there, especially with tech issues, is what made Quiq stand out for me. When something is not working, you just need it fixed.”

~Kim Essensa, Stio

Quiq fit with the vision of where Stio wanted their contact center to be and the company went live with Quiq’s web chat on October 1. Implementation was short and successful, and employees only had to receive a small amount of training to get started,

“The platform is so intuitive and easy to use that the amount of training it takes to give it to my staff was super minimal,” says Kim. Having Quiq in place with a trained and ready staff was crucial since Q4 was looming on the horizon and like other retailers, the holiday season would make up a good portion of the company’s annual revenue.

Improving Efficiency 

Before the holidays, Stio onboarded an after hours contact center to handle chat when the in-house team was offline. The after-hours answering service has been able to take some of the pressure off of Stio’s team during business hours as well, easily managing chat on Quiq’s messaging platform with very little training or day to day management from Kim and her team.

The increase in productivity helped employees and customers over the holiday season. Kim puts it this way, “Last year we were leaving the office with 300 emails in the inbox. This year we’re leaving with like 30.” After the holidays, Stio turned on text messaging and saw call volumes drop by 9%. 

“Agents love Quiq. It’s just intuitive and super easy to use.”

~Kim Essensa, Stio

Now, Stio’s agents handle inbound messages from SMS, web chat, and Facebook Messenger all within Quiq’s intelligent workspace. Questions are typically focused on orders, with inquiries around shipping status or price adjustments. Now, if a customer just placed an order and the final cost didn’t reflect the promo code entered, they don’t have to call in and wait on hold for help. Now, they can send a text and get a faster response, since Stio’s agents can handle multiple conversations simultaneously.

Bots

In 2019, Stio took another step toward more efficient operations. Stio was one of the first companies to embrace Quiq’s bots across their messaging channels. Kim worked with the Quiq team to scope out what the Stio bot experience should be. It was important for Kim to keep the bot language short, simple, and casual, so it would feel like consumers are engaging with a human. It was also important to give customers easy access to a human agent whenever they wanted . Within a few days, the bot was up and running on the site.

Stio saw immediate results from implementing bots. The company, which drops 1.2 million catalogs for the holidays, used to take requests from customers who wished to be removed from the physical mailer. Today, a bot does it all on behalf of the agents- from beginning to end. During the first two weeks after implementing this single bot, Kim saved 83 precious agent hours on the catalog process alone. Agents can now concentrate on helping customers find the gear they want instead of managing catalog removals.

Quiq’s Shopify Integration

Stio recently integrated Quiq Messaging with their Shopify account. This integration gives agents incredible visibility into what the consumer is doing. They can see which web page the customer is looking at and what’s in their cart in real-time. According to Essensa, this has drastically reduced the time it takes agents to collect that information from customers and makes the experience smoother and faster for customers.

Stio is focused on keeping their agents available for customers who need human attention. That’s why they’ve introduced bots. When a customer uses messaging, a bot will collect core information from customers and take action on that information, sending the conversation to the best-suited human agent.

Kim believes the integration of Quiq and Shopify will increase overall cart value and conversions because agents will be better equipped with the information they need to close the transaction with the customer.

What’s in Store For Messaging

Stio is approaching conversational commerce from a very personal level and they are using technology to help “For us, it’s that natural conversation between the customer and the agent. We really want the customer to feel at home with Stio, like they’re talking to their best friend who just recommended the best ski kit in the world. We really try to make it a personal experience.” states Kim.

Stio continues to look for ways to make their customers experience more fluid and personal. “From the epic to every day”, that’s the mantra that inspires the team at Stio to create gear known for technical performance, quality, and versatility. Leave it to them to bring that same ingenuity to their customer experience with Quiq’s messaging platform.

Let’s put technology to work for you in your company to streamline workflows, increase efficiency, and deliver a seamless customer experience. Schedule a demo to discuss messaging and how Quiq can work with your company’s unique processes and systems.

See a Demo Today

What is Digital Customer Service?

Posted on Michael Hartsog

When defining digital customer service, it may be easier to say what it is rather than what it isn’t. In order to do that, let’s define the opposite of digital customer service as “traditional customer service.” Traditional customer service takes place over the phone or after waiting in line to speak to someone face-to-face. On the other hand, digital customer service means serving your customers across digital channels. These channels would include email, SMS / text messaging, live chat, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat, and more.

Digital or online service channels have exploded. Consumers love having a wide variety of ways to reach out to a company, because it means they can pick the channel that is most comfortable or accessible to them – versus being forced to make a phone call. It means companies can deliver a great experience, with less work, and that means a lot.

The asynchronous nature of digital service means that agents can handle multiple simultaneous conversations. Customers don’t expect an immediate answer, which gives agents the ability to address more than one inquiry at a time. It also gives customers the freedom to set the pace of the conversation.

Digital Customer Service Solutions Today

Digital channels that once were new and novel are now the norm, like email and Facebook. However, digital channels continue to expand, as well as the technologies that support them. For example, Apple and Google have taken plain text messaging and made it rich. Rich messaging allows for secure payments, scheduling appointments, and the ability to share more sophisticated content. Also, chatbots can be part of nearly every digital interaction and can be deployed as a great compliment to human interactions.

The ubiquity of mobile devices to research, browse, shop, and purchase products has created the need for more web-based service channels that offer assistance without requiring customers to find time to pick up the phone and call a company. Thus, we have seen the the increase of digital customer service solutions and the ability to assist your customers on their digital channel of choice.

Your customers expect a seamless, convenient, and easy digital experience whenever they engage with you. Whether they are looking for help while shopping on your website, trying to book an appointment in your mobile app, or contacting customer service through a Twitter direct message with a question about their order.

Digital customer service can go by other names such as digital customer experience, digital customer care, or digital customer support. Regardless of what you call it, the definition is the same – serving your customers across digital channels and platforms such as SMS/text, live chat, and social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and WeChat.

Increased Demand for Digital Customer Service

There are four main reasons companies pursue a digital customer service strategy:

Customer Preferences

Forrester’s executive report, The Digital Customer Experience Improvement Playbook, succinctly sums up the current state of affairs for customer service:

“Customers demand that their digital interactions with your brand be seamless and span devices; that they be able to engage with your brand whenever and wherever they’d like; and that every encounter meet their needs in the moment.”

Companies are adopting a digital-first approach to meet customers wherever they are. Customers demand their channel of choice, whatever that channel may be, to engage with a company. That’s why so many service and support leaders across all industries, in companies of every size, are offering digital channels like SMS, WeChat, and Facebook for customer service and support.

Competition

As consumers seek companies that are easy to engage with, competition continues to offer more options. Customer service organizations are rapidly adopting digital channels and capabilities to meet customer needs and set them apart from their competition.

Cost

Gartner estimates that live channels such as phone, chat, and email can cost an average of $8.01 per contact vs. $.1o to serve on digital channels. Service and support leaders who use these channels as their primary customer contact methods are under pressure to reduce the cost to serve customers.

Scaling

The 2019 holiday season saw mobile sales via smartphones break the $3 billion mark according to TechCrunch; up from the $1.5 billion spent on Cyber Monday a year prior. Scaling resources to meet increased demand, especially from consumers that instinctively reach for their mobile device to engage with companies throughout their entire purchase, is another reason digital customer service is on the rise.

Leaders facing these challenges turned their focus to improving how, when, and where they serve their customers across digital channels with the intent of putting the customer at the center of it all.

And by doing so, they have impacted their business by:

  • Engaging with customers they normally would not have reached
  • Differentiating themselves with easy and convenient access for customers
  • Reducing costs with the shift from phone calls to digital
  • Increasing customer satisfaction with much preferred digital channels

Digital Customer Service – Who’s Doing It Right

A quick glance through the client section of our blog will give you an idea of just some of the diversity we see in industries and use cases. But let’s take a closer look to see what a few of these companies are doing and the results they’re achieving,

Increased Engagement

Overstock.com has seen a 98% open rate when communicating with people through texts. As of today, over 15% of all contacts that used to come in via the phone are now coming into the contact center via text.

Aspira, helps people book and manage outdoor recreation reservations. They receive about 300 to 400 texts a day. The ability to text for help is particularly helpful since their clientele is usually in transit to, or already on-site, at a campground or park facility.

Higher Customer Satisfaction

The Laundress has been able to offer a more personalized, “high-touch” experience for the customers of the high-end brand of soaps, detergents, and cleaning supplies. Since implementing Quiq, the retailer handles everything from questions about scents and order status to product recommendations all through text.

Reduced Costs

Outdoor gear and apparel retailer, evo, has successfully reduced their volume of phone calls by implementing Quiq Messaging and chat. Since using the Quiq platform, average call volume has dropped from 70% to 50% of total contact volume.

Optimized Resources

Tailored Brands, known for men’s suits and outstanding customer service, added text messaging to their arsenal of digital channels. Text messaging enables agents to handle 5 text conversations at a time and upwards of 8 during peak demand.

The First Step In Your Digital Customer Service Journey

Let Quiq help you navigate the possibilities and potential of digital channels like SMS / text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, Facebook, and more.

Quiq is an experienced partner who delivers consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, and social channels. Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform, easily orchestrates commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans. Let’s connect to better understand your business priorities and objectives so we help you make an impact with digital customer service.