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Quiq Celebrates #womenthatcode for Women’s Month – Q&A with Gretchen Dickie

Posted on The Quiq Team

Adjusting to growth can be challenging and change can be hard for some people, but Gretchen Dickie, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer makes it look easy. From major career moves to the frequent and fast-paced changes in technology, Gretchen has been able to identify and seize opportunities that have helped her move forward as a one of many #womenthatcode.

As part of our International Women’s Day series, we invite you to get to know a bit more about the women at Quiq who are helping to move technology forward. We’re proud of the talent we have at Quiq and are excited to share the stories of the women that are helping to make this company a leading software for text messaging for business.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, and when you discovered a love of tech

The elegant logic of science and math has always fascinated me and led me to BS degrees in Medical Technology and Microbiology. It also led to a cross-country move from Wisconsin to a job as a Clinical Laboratory Scientist in a small hospital in the mountains of Montana. After being lucky enough to take some time away from my career to spend the early years of my son’s & daughter’s lives at home with them, I decided to return to school to pursue a new career path.

Technology professions were barely on anyone’s radar the first time I was in college but now offered seemingly endless possibilities. An MS in Computer Science exposed me to a new world of software design, theory, programming and problem-solving, and bonus – I got to take more math classes! After finishing my Master’s I joined RightNow Technologies (later acquired by Oracle), and held positions of Support Specialist, Business Systems Analyst, and Quality Assurance Engineer.

I’m now Sr. QA Engineer with Quiq, where I’m continuing to pursue my passion for contributing to the creation of software that can actually make people’s lives a little less frustrating.

Q: What do you love about technology and what developments are you most excited about?

What do I love about technology?  Each day brings new challenges & opportunities that allow me to continue learning – no matter what your age is, there’s something new to learn every day.  I enjoy everything that goes into releasing software – witnessing the innovation and ideas the team comes up with every day, contributing to design decisions, implementation, testing, and seeing the outcome of all the hard work in the product we release to our customers.  Things move fast here and are always changing – tech careers are never boring!

#womenthatcode

Q: What are the skills or career paths that may be exciting prospects for women now and in the future?

My path to a technology career was a long journey with lots of turns, but it’s proof that the possibilities are endless if you decide to take that path – and the exciting thing is, even after you get to your destination, there may be surprises.  After getting a CS degree I fully expected to pursue a career as a software engineer, but along the way, I discovered that I loved other aspects of this profession more than coding.

There are so many options available in this industry that no one should limit themselves to a narrow view of what technology professions look like.

Credit Union Journal (Press Release): Quiq Adds Eight Major Credit Unions, Accelerating Financial Sector Momentum

Posted on Lauren Winder

Quiq Adds Eight Major Credit Unions, Accelerating Financial Sector Momentum

Offering Messaging Attracts Millennial Customers,
Improves Customer Satisfaction, and Decreases Costs

BOZEMAN, Mont., March 06, 2018 — Quiq, a leading provider of messaging for customer service software, today announced that the company has added eight credit unions to its customer base, which signals strong momentum in the financial sector for the fast-growing firm. Combined, the eight credit union clients now give more than 720,000 members a messaging option to handle customer service issues, which improves member satisfaction, increases response rates, and lowers costs.

Quiq’s credit union clients include Alabama One Credit Union in Tuscaloosa, AL; the Educational Employees Credit Union (EECU) in Fort Worth, TX; Ent Credit Union in Colorado Springs, CO; GenFed Financial Credit Union in Akron, OH; Red Rocks Credit Union in Highlands Ranch, CO; Land of Lincoln Credit Union in Decatur, IL; Pima Federal Credit Union in Tucson, AZ, and Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union in Lakewood, NY. Shaa Moore, System Administrator at Southern Chautauqua Federal Credit Union, credits the addition of Quiq’s customer service messaging solution with an uptick in membership:

“We’re attracting the younger generation with a modern communication channel,” Moore observed. “Members think it’s ‘cool’ and tell their friends about it. Our member response time has gone from 10 minutes or more by phone to 1 minute via inbound text messaging. Now, our members are more likely to contact us because we’ve made it easy. We’ve also used outbound messaging to remind members of past-due payments. On one day alone, we received 32 payments. Past-due collections calls typically generate a 1 to 5 percent response. Thanks to outbound text messaging with Quiq, our collections recoveries have increased over 75 percent. This was unexpected and amazing.”

“We decided to add a messaging option because that’s how our members communicate with their friends and families, and we felt that many would want to use the same channel to talk to their credit union,” said Jason Halperin, Chief Lending Officer at Alabama One Credit Union, who is currently implementing Quiq. “Our goal is to increase digital engagement with our members across the board, while appealing to millennials, who clearly prefer to use messaging. Use of SMS is associated with higher response rates, which we hope will reduce delinquencies and aid in collections, and we’re also hoping to see an increase in loan pull-through rates and velocity.”

Quiq’s messaging solution presents messaging conversations to agents and if an agent is handling multiple conversations simultaneously, Quiq automatically prioritizes the conversations based on the pace and responsiveness of the member, so the agent can ensure timely responses and high member satisfaction.  Quiq’s Messaging also offers more sophisticated features including inbound and outbound messaging, routing, queuing, transferring, and collaboration on a single, omni-channel platform that can handle SMS/text messaging, web chat, and Facebook Messenger. This eliminates the need to log into multiple platforms to manage member conversations, which enhances agent productivity. Finally, Quiq delivers comprehensive reporting and analytics from all the messaging channels to support continuous improvement of the member experience.

“Members increasingly expect to be able to message financial institutions like they do companies in other industries,” said Mike Myer, CEO and founder of Quiq. “We’re excited to work with our credit union clients to help them improve response rates through digital engagement. With Quiq, credit unions work more efficiently on a single platform that encompasses multiple digital communication channels, while giving customers the messaging options they expect.”

To learn more, please visit quiq.com or contact the company via text at (646) 887-8398.

About Quiq

Our mission is to improve the way customers communicate with companies. Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage customer service via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, and Kik, for help with their pre-sales questions and post-sales support. Find out more at https://quiq.com/.

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Quiq Celebrates International Women’s Day – Q&A with CMO, Dani Wanderer

Posted on The Quiq Team

Quiq Supports International Women’s Day

Quiq is proud to support International Women’s Day by highlighting three of our own Quiqsters who are helping to move technology forward. Our first profile is our very own CMO, Dani Wanderer. Dani has been working for tech companies for over 25 years. She’s helping move technology forward by supporting and mentoring incredible women to pursue their dreams, fight for what they want, and provide opportunities to help them succeed.  Aside from being a mom of two and avid hiker, Dani is the only Bozeman-based board member for Make-A-Wish, and working to make lives better for critically ill children.

Q: Tell us a bit about yourself, and when you discovered a love of tech

I didn’t start off with a love of tech. I started off with a passion for languages and studied French, German, Spanish, and Latin in high school. At the time, I wanted a foreign language to be part of my job but knew that just majoring in a language in college was not going to result in a high-paying job. I decided to add a business to my degree and pursue international business, and as I entered college, I selected German over the other languages I had studied. This was primarily due to the fact that the Berlin Wall was coming down during that time and I thought there would be a great opportunity to live abroad and work in a German business after graduation.

“Sometimes the path you plan to take has some roadblocks and other paths open up.”

Sometimes the path you plan to take has some roadblocks and other paths open up. I had planned to attend Thunderbird for my masters and thus had selected Arizona State University for my undergraduate school. My mom and I visited the ASU campus and after seeing the campus and meeting the counselor, that it was clearly not the place for me. Being a planner and hater of change, not to mention a teenager, I was devastated. My mom, bless her, decided to drive me down to Tucson to see the University of Arizona. Despite being a very reluctant and negative participant on this detour, the first person I met there actually asked me what I was interested in doing and where I saw myself after graduation. Those questions revealed a whole new opportunity that was just perfect for me. U of A had just launched what they called a 3/2 program, which was a 5-year program where participants would receive a liberal arts degree in 3 years and a masters in 2 years. I was one of the first people to take on that challenge – keep in mind it can take some undergraduates 5 years to get one degree and I was going to have to buckle down to get 2 degrees in 5 years. The upside benefits were that I could still get a degree in a language and also end up with a masters degree in finance, but also, as an out-of-state, working student, I could minimize the years of tuition and student loans.

So, how did I discover my love for tech? It came when I was recruited out of the U of A for a job with Hewlett Packard. Growing up in Omaha, Nebraska did not afford me much exposure to tech, not to mention I grew up with more “blue-collar” than white. Hewlett Packard was under the leadership of John Young and then Lew Platt, so the HP Way was very alive and well. That is where I discovered and fell in love with tech.

Q: What do you love about technology and what developments are you most excited about?

What do I love about tech companies?
– the speed at which they move
– the constant change and continual innovation across every single team, not just product/engineering
– addressing new and different challenges every day
– the energy of the culture and people

Q: What are the skills or career paths that may be exciting prospects for women now and in the future?

I believe that we should continue to encourage women in business, supporting their path to senior leadership, and becoming a CEO is still a huge opportunity. There are still only 27 female CEOs in the Fortune 500–that is 5%!!! Encouraging women to go into business and work their way up through the ranks and grow their skills must still be a priority.

How Messaging Fits Into The Call Center

Posted on Michael Hartsog

Are your customers antagonized by a complex IVR menu maze? Do they get frustrated and press zero to talk to a live person, shout “agent, agent, agent”, or hang up before they resolve their issue? You’re not alone. Although IVR has been viewed as a pillar of customer self-service for a long time, most people have a strong aversion to using them.

IVR systems have received a lot of scrutiny as consumers, especially Millennials, have become increasingly more self-reliant and mobile. Advocates and critics have predicted the rise and fall of IVR for decades. Maybe it’s time we start to think of a different outcome – one that isn’t a total win or lose game for IVR.

In this post, we’ll discuss how IVR must evolve in order to stay relevant in today’s mobile world. We’ve identified three things that must be brought into the IVR experience.

Omni-Channel

Consumers live across many devices. Laptops, smartphones, and tablets are the screens that manage our lives day in and day out. Whether it’s staying in touch with our family or friends or staying on top of current news, we are digitally connected and dependent. From tracking our diets to tracking packages, there is an expectation of immediacy and availability of information and support that spans channels.

These expectations don’t stop once a customer picks up the phone to call a company. In fact, this is where those expectations can turn into impatience and frustration.  In fact, 93% of customers using a call center channel want one call resolution (OCR).

However, many customers hang up before they even speak to anyone.  Call abandonment rates can average anywhere from 10% – 15% depending on the industry. For those calls that do engage an agent, OCR is at a 72% industry average, which means 28% of customers have to call back one or many times to reach a resolution.

These stats tell us that anywhere from 38% – 43% of customers picking up the phone for customer service are not getting the level of service they want and expect. We believe IVRs will have to present customers with channel options, other than just voice so customers can find more convenient paths to issue resolution.

This is exactly the reason a lot of Quiq clients have looked at messaging as a way to honor the needs of the digitally connected customer. These clients are enabling asynchronous messaging over SMS, social, and the web. Quiq Messaging integrates directly into an existing IVR and enables existing landlines to send and receive text messages.

Personal

IVR’s are notoriously robotic, confusing, and impersonal. Future IVR’s may find ways to change that with advances in voice recognition and by making menu options more visual. The use of visual communications is on a rise throughout all media consumed because it helps relay information faster and with a more clear and more consistent delivery.

For instance, Quiq clients have found that customers are engaging heavily through mobile devices. The majority feel right at home attaching documents, emojis, gifs, videos, and photos to bring more context to their specific situation. Agents who use Quiq Messaging are often encouraged to use visual content such as emojis to make conversations with customers feel more like the conversations they have with friends and family.

Quiq clients are also adopting messaging as a way to make conversations feel more human by adapting to the customer’s speed and pace of interaction. Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer automatically prioritizes conversations for agents based on the customer’s engagement pace to give each customer a more tailored experience.

Mobile

Calls get missed or dropped. Customers get busy and have to abandon conversations. Future IVRs will have to be more accommodating to the lives of busy customers who don’t want to shout “representative” or “agent” repeatedly into the phone while in noisy environments or sit through confusing menus only to be put on hold.

Instead of having customers wait on hold, Quiq clients are able to provide customers the option, within the IVR, to have the next available agent text them. By deflecting calls to messaging, our clients are able to give customers a more preferred option to engage. By deflecting calls to messaging, our clients are able to give customers a more preferred option to engage, while reducing workload ~25 to ~40%.

Research shows that 71% of consumers find text messaging to be an extremely or very effective Consumer-to-Business (C2B) communication channel (Customer Preference for Messaging). Customers appreciate having the option to address their issues over the channel that is most convenient for them.

With asynchronous communications such as text messaging, conversations can take place over a time period that fits the customer’s pace, so even if your customer has to walk away from a conversation or gets disconnected, conversations pick up right where they left off.

IVR still remains one of the leading entry points for consumers to engage with companies. However, it’s also the costliest way for companies to interact with their customers and the most inconvenient way for customers to engage. Quiq Messaging allows you to deliver a personal, mobile, omnichannel experience – easily integrating within your current IVR. If you’re ready to bring your IVR into the future, request a demo today.

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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3 Ways Messaging Can Improve Pull-through Rates

Posted on Max Fortis

Time is money. Truer words have never been spoken, especially when it comes to loan closings and improving pull-through rates, a key metric for success of any lending institution. Unfortunately, when most people think of loan applications, words like “long,” “drawn-out” and “inefficient “ are words that may readily spring to mind.

A lot of lenders are looking at technology as a way to change this perception of the process and taking a closer look at messaging. With so many people using messaging as a daily communication tool, it’s easy to see why 66% of consumers prefer texting as a way to engage with companies. Messaging is helping lenders deliver faster, more convenient service to borrowers through messaging while reaping the benefits of this preferred, more cost-effective,  method of communication.  Let’s take a look at why messaging has become so crucial within the lending industry.

Improve Pull-through Rates with Messaging

It has been a seller’s market since the housing recovery began.  A shortage of inventory has left a lot of buyers competing aggressively for homes. This inventory strapped, competitive market has lengthened the home-buying timeline to account for buyers losing bids to other, highly motivated, buyers. Still, lenders have seen around 40% of the loan applications they receive go to closing.

40% may seem like a respectable number, but examining the hard costs involved in each transaction may make you reconsider. It costs on average about $8,000 of hard costs to move people from loan application to closing and pre-approval processing can account for up to $2,000 of those hard costs. When you think of the 6 out of 10 people who never close, the amount of money that walks out the door with them quickly adds up. It’s easy to see why improving pull-through rates can substantially impact the bottom line.

Let’s look at three ways messaging can help improve pull-through rates.

1. Gain buyer loyalty

Industry research indicates that homebuyers may expect to wait two weeks for a loan pre-approval, at least 30 – 60 days just to find a home and an average of 40-50 days to close a loan after their offer is accepted. One often overlooked risk that some lenders have found of this lengthy sales cycle is that it opens the door for other lenders to lure borrowers away, putting the 40% closing rate further at risk.

Staying engaged with borrowers throughout this long, complicated process can help alleviate the need to shop around for other lending options. Assisting lenders in becoming the trusted advisors that home buyers need and want throughout the buying process can solidify the borrower’s trust in the lender and cement the relationship.

First time home buyers and millennials may need extra care, and attention and messaging is key to reaching these buyers. Millennials tend not to be as brand loyal as other generations so if they feel they’re not getting the information they want as quickly as they want it, they won’t hesitate to find another lender who’s willing to provide it.

2. Expedite the transmission of information

A lot of first time home buyers are surprised at how long the process can take and what is involved. According to the National Association of Realtors Millennials and Gen-Y (Buyers 36 and younger) make up the most significant share of home buyers, and 66% of these buyers are also first-time home buyers so their communication preferences can’t go ignored.

Delays in Income verifications, credit pulls, and other documentation can substantially delay a closing. Messaging greases the communication wheel with buyers to help move the process along. Unlike phone calls that go unanswered or emails that can get caught in spam filters or fall too far in an inbox to get urgent attention, borrowers receive messages directly to their phones and read them within three minutes of receipt.

The new generation of borrowers prefer text messages over calls and emails and will be more likely to open a text message vs. answering a phone number that’s not familiar to them. Messaging has a 98% open rate and 30% response rate which means borrowers can easily see and address important notifications and requests. Sending requests for documentation, or asking questions via messaging ensures a more frictionless closing process.

3. Gain More Referrals and Repeat Business

The average homeowner will move or refinance every 5 – 7 years. Delivering an outstanding loan experience can generate more advocacy and retention for future business. Messaging helps lenders deliver that first excellent experience by improving communication, managing expectations and enabling a faster means for two-way communication between lender and borrower.

Messaging can also help lenders stay top of mind with these buyers. Quiq clients frequently use outbound messaging as a way to keep in touch with clients and lenders have plenty of opportunities to provide customers with quick reminders and messages to keep the relationship going:

  • a message on their birthday or anniversary
  • market updates as they near the time they may be considering downsizing
  • or a quick reminder that their home equity can assist in paying for their kid’s college education.

Communication is crucial to setting and managing expectations, especially among new home buyers and Millennials who may seek more guidance during the process. Communication that is fast and convenient is critically important to these buyers, which is why text messaging has become such a highly preferred method of communication with lenders.

An investment in technology is no longer a process improvement but a competitive necessity for lending institutions. Quiq Messaging is helping lenders connect with borrowers in a convenient, preferred way through mobile, web, and social messaging. If your institution is ready to improve your pull-through rates, request a demo.

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

Direct Digital: Augmenting Customer Service With Multi-Channel Messaging

Posted on The Quiq Team

Giving customers choices and standing out from the competition—that’s what Direct Digital wanted. Their customer service department always strives to deliver excellent service. However, using the traditional communication channels, such as phone and email, just wasn’t enough.

“From a manager’s perspective I really like how I can help my agents respond to customers when needed by using the collaboration functionality in Quiq. It’s super easy to use and we can ensure customers get their questions answered correctly and quickly.”

Lauren Adcock, Senior Manager of Customer Service

They decided to offer customers the opportunity to reach them using messaging – text/SMS, Facebook Messenger, web chat, and IVR to text. Wanting to make it even easier and more convenient for customers to contact Direct Digital, and offering a more comfortable way to ‘talk’ to agents, they chose Quiq.

Now, with Quiq Messaging, Direct Digital is supporting three of their major brands, Instaflex, Nugenix, and Peptiva with multi-channel messaging—text, web chat, and Facebook Messenger. When customers have product inquires, questions about returns, or shipping questions, they can reach Direct Digital’s experienced contact center by using one of these messaging channels. When customers have questions about a product purchase, they can choose how they want to engage, making it super easy to get answers quickly. Customers go away happy and healthy, getting their questions answered in just a few minutes.

Easy for Agents and Managers

Since Quiq is so intuitive, all of Direct Digital’s in-house contact center agents are trained to manage these messaging conversations, along with email and phone calls. They can shift between whichever channel they need to, allowing for equal distribution of inquiries, regardless of brand. The contact center does not skip a beat when in-house agents are out. As the business has grown, Direct Digital’s outsourced agents pick up the overflow messages to ensure customers are responded to quickly, especially during weekends.

When managing over 1,000 message conversations monthly, the majority of them via text, Direct Digital appreciates the ability to use pre-built responses to easily train new agents and allow agents to quickly respond to customers with commonly asked questions. Managers like the opportunity to assist agents when responding to customers using the collaboration functionality offered by Quiq, which ensures customers aren’t put on hold.

The Future is Bright

This is just the start for Direct Digital. They plan to expand the use of messaging to other sections of their brand websites. You will soon see messaging available on its various ecommerce sites and check-out pages to allow customers to ask questions during these critical interaction points. As its contact center continues to grow, Direct Digital will look to use routing rules in order to get the right messages to the right agents throughout the day.

About Direct Digital LLC

Direct Digital LLC develops and markets wellness and nutritional supplements in North America and internationally. The company distributes its products direct-to-consumers and through major retailers.

Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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BizReport: Top 5 Tips to Improve Social Customer Service

Posted on Lauren Winder

Think Quiq!

Get the Blog in Email

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at goquiq.com.

evo Adds a Texting Option for Customer Service

Posted on Mike Zinne

Retailer Expanded Service Options

When outdoor gear and apparel retailer evo started to use messaging for customer service, it caught the eye of Internet Retailers. Read how this retailer expanded service options and improved agent productivity while keeping on increasing revenue. Read Article

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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2018 Winter Olympics | Quiq Predicts The Most Popular Texts

Posted on Lauren Winder

As the world waits impatiently to see top athletes compete in Pyeongchang, South Korea, the Quiq team is sitting in warm offices dreaming of gold medals and making Olympic predictions. From February 7th through the 25th, some of the world’s greatest athletes will brave frigid temperatures to compete in events such as ski jumping and the luge.

With top talent from all over the world, the competition in every sport will be fierce. There are a couple of things we’re sure of:

1) There will be plenty of moments to talk about over the next few weeks, and

2) People home and abroad will be burning up their mobile soft keys to text friends and family about those “thrill of victory and agony of defeat” moments with pics, videos, emojis, and GIFs – sharing their excitement, no matter where they are.

This year it will be easy for spectators who have traveled to Pyeongchang to send text messages as the top three mobile carriers, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are all allowing customers to use their plans in Korea without charge. This means there will be a surge of text messages from those who are “boots on the ground” at the Winter Games and are able to capture unbroadcasted moments of the Olympics to share with their social networks back home.

While we can’t predict who will take home medals for each event, we thought we’d take a break from making predictions about the next rose ceremony on “The Bachelor” and take a shot at predicting the most popular text messages that will be exchanged during the Winter Games.

2018 Winter Olympics Popular Texting Topic Predictions

Quiq presents the most popular texting topics for the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics:

10. “What time is it there”

(Time differences) – South Korea is 14 hours ahead of everyone on the East Coast and  17 hours ahead of the West Coast.

9. “Did you see those gloves”

(The opening ceremony uniforms) – Team USA will be sporting uniforms designed by Ralph Lauren.

8. “What’s a Soohorang?”

(The Mascot) – This year a friendly white tiger named Soohorang will serve as the mascot.

7. “Where can I get that jacket?”

(The gear athletes are sporting) – Along with hi-tech gear designed by Ralph Lauren, athletes will sport outfits for medal ceremonies designed by Nike.

6. “How cold is it?”

(Temperatures) – Pyeongchang 2018 is expected to be the coldest Winter Olympics site since Norway 1994.

5.“Wow, can you believe they picked that song?”

(The music choices for figure skating) – This will be the first year athletes competing in singles and double figure skating events will be allowed to skate to music with lyrics.

4. “Whoa, did you see that?”

(Big Air) – Snowboarding and freestyle skiing are new events this year that will sure to get viewers’ attention.

And finally, the top three text messaging topics:

For the Bronze

“What time is it on?”
(Schedules) – With so many great events, viewers will want to remember to check schedules for event dates and times.

Silver goes to

“Amazing”
(All performances) – From the pomp and circumstance of opening ceremonies to the bittersweet closing ceremonies and every feat of athleticism in between, we expect there to be a lot of texts summing it all up with this one word.

Taking home the Gold

“How many do we have?”
(Medal counts) – With 102 events in 15 sports, it’ll be the first Winter Olympics to surpass 100 medal events so there’s plenty of metal to keep track of.

What are your predictions for the most popular text message topics that will be sent during the 2018 Winter Olympics? Leave a comment below and share.

No matter where you are in the world, enjoy the games. Good luck to all the athletes and let the games begin.

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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Office Depot: Outpacing the Competition with Quiq

Posted on Mike Zinne

Office Depot embarked on its journey to deliver an enhanced shopping experience for its customers and decided to engage Quiq. They wanted to make sure their customers were able to ask questions when and however they wanted.

“Very few omni-channel business providers have adopted text messaging and thanks to Quiq, we are able to offer this innovative channel to our customers. Whether a customer is in the office or on-the-go, they are at the center of our business.”

Casey Ahlbum, Senior Manager, Customer Relations, B2B & Digital Support

Making It Easy For Both Customers And Agents

Now when a customer wants to know the status of an order, or if a specific product is in stock, or a specific store location, he/she can simply text Office Depot. In less than a minute, customers are receiving a comprehensive reply to their initial text message, and the entire conversation is generally completed in ten minutes or less. Consumers are reacting positively to the speed at which Office Depot’s customer service representatives are responding to inquiries and the convenience text messaging affords them.

This initiative took only 30 days to implement, including the integration to Oracle Service Cloud and the training of customer service representatives. In addition, representatives in the contact center now only need to log into one system to view all channels, including messaging. This allows reps to be more efficient when responding to over 500 conversations with customers a day, which peaks at 2,000 conversations when running key promotions

Sharing The Text Messaging Channel Internally

Office Depot showcased the Quiq messaging channel to its associates by capturing internal feedback in real-time, via text during a recent Town Hall meeting. They wanted to show the rest of the organization this innovative technology. Associates sent videos and messages quickly and easily via text instead of with a traditional survey.

Office Depot’s Business Solutions Division (BSD) started implementing Quiq’s messaging channel with its sales team to obtain quicker replies to inquiries when meeting with customers, instead of sending in an email or making a phone call.

Next Up

Office Depot plans to incorporate social media, specifically Facebook Messenger, into the messaging channel, allowing representatives to quickly respond to incoming customer inquiries via Quiq Messaging. In addition, messaging will be expanded to support the company’s B2B customers.

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family. With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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Jackson Hole Mountain Resort: Expanding Its Customer Service Channels

Posted on Mike Zinne

Priding itself on a superior customer experience, Jackson Hole wanted to expand customer service channels to make sure its customers could reach them however they liked. Already providing customers the option to contact the resort via phone and email, it needed a more cost-effective live chat platform to complement these channels with text messaging. Allowing customers to choose whichever channel they prefer would align perfectly with the resort’s desire to deliver a premium experience.

Turning to Quiq, Jackson Hole rolled out a new text messaging and chat platform for its customers. Now when a customer is on the online store or brand site they are presented with the appropriate communication channel automatically. Customers can easily reach the resort by sending a text message from a mobile device or engaging in a live chat conversation if they are using a desktop computer.

“I am really pleased with how customers are using messaging to reach our staff for quick questions. This helps free up the reservationists to respond to customer questions that need to be answered via phone such as placing an order.”

Kim Essensa, Guest Services Manager

Answer Customers’ Questions Quickly

When customers have questions about tram hours or recent snow amounts, they simply just send a text message or start a live chat to get their questions answered quickly. Or customers can send a message to Jackson Hole’s guest services to put their minds at ease about when the lifts are up and running. It’s easy and fast, and exactly what customers have grown to expect in this world of instant information.

Because the Quiq messaging platform is so intuitive, reservationists can easily bounce between all channels. Training is a breeze with the staff picking it up within minutes. And by using the pre-built responses, managers can ensure customers receive a consistent and accurate response no matter which reservationist responds. Jackson Hole is seeing that the majority of its inbound inquiries are now in the form of text messages. And even more, phone calls have decreased and overnight email volume has dropped by 75%.

About

Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is a skier and snowboarder paradise with 4,136 continuous vertical feet, 2500 acres of the best beginner, intermediate, and expert skiing and snowboarding, and a genuine “Last of the Old West” feel.

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family. With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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Leading the Digital Engagement Transformation

Posted on Lauren Winder

Com·pla·cen·cy (kəmˈplāsənsē/): noun. The comforting but dangerous mindset that what got you here will get you there.

Complacency is not taking action when you know you should or when you can. Complacent is how a lot of companies can be described when it comes to the way they communicate with their customers.  If you’re one of the growing number of innovative leaders who are changing the way companies communicate with their customers, from the status quo of emails and phone calls, then we applaud your efforts.

Continuing to do things because “that’s how we’ve always done it” is the battle cry of companies that fail to meet the needs of a changing marketplace. Emails have become overrun with spam and phone calls don’t fit the lifestyle of today’s busy, mobile customer. The use of messaging, including web chat, are the trademarks of businesses that are vigilant about customer communication preferences.

Leading that change though can be tough. That’s why there’s an entire profession dedicated to Change Management. In this post we discuss ways in which you can get your entire organization, from executive leadership to front line employees, to adopt Business Messaging, the new method of communication with your customers.

Connecting Customer Experience to Value

While most leadership within an organization have a general sense for the benefits of delivering a great customer experience, it can be hard to commit to changes to the current modas operandi without properly quantifying the value the change has to the organization.leading digital engagement transformation requires connecting customer experience to value

Delivering a great customer experience is more than just the feel good, right thing to do, it has direct implications on revenue, especially the kind of loyalty-driven revenue companies see from satisfied customers who keep coming back again and again. Research reports by McKinsey state that companies who offer exceptional customer experience can exceed their competitor’s gross margins by 26 percent, while making employees happier and simplifying operations throughout the organization.

Exceptional customer service means meeting customer expectations and meeting customer needs in a way that is seen as easy for the customer. Today’s consumer has the ability to find an abundance of service providers, products, and reviews with a swipe of a finger and they expect your responsiveness and attention to be just as simple. In fact, 75% of customers demand service within five minutes of online contact.

Messaging and web chat are quickly becoming the go-to weapons in the customer experience arsenal for many companies who want to satisfy the “right this instant” expectation of consumers. Just as web chat is the optimal way to engage website visitors who are browsing from a desktop, messaging allows mobile customers to engage with a company through text and social.

When trying to convince leaders who have one eye on profits and the other on what’s right for the customer, be sure to clearly state benefits:

Change leaders can rally support within the organization by sharing the positive impact messaging and chat can have throughout the entire profit and loss statement:

  • Increased revenue by allowing customers another channel by which they can overcome hesitations to purchase
  • Decreased cost to sales and service through more cost effective and efficient engagement channels
  • Overall increased profitability

The Aberdeen Group reports that companies who use messaging see improvements in annual company revenue by as much as 25% over companies that do not use messaging. The research also shows that cross-sell and upsell revenue can increase by as much as 53%.

These are just a few of the benefits. This is the type of information that goes beyond “it’s the right thing to do for the customer” and delivers tangible benefits management can measure, monitor and make informed strategy decisions on.

Take it from the top

One key characteristic demonstrated by companies that are high performers in customer experience is the support of senior management.  Getting buy-in from executive leadership shows the entire company that customer experience transformation is a priority. If you’re an individual within a C-suite role, this is your opportunity to lead the charge within your organization and become a role model of customer-focused leadership in the digital age.

As stated in the multi-part article “The Messaging Mandate”, successful adoption of messaging or any communication channel across the company must align channel goals to business objectives. Clearly presenting how the channel can play a role in company objectives and ultimately deliver positive ROI is essential in gaining top level sponsorship.

Research shows that, “successful projects for optimizing the customer experience typically achieve revenue growth of 5 to 10 percent and cost reductions of 15 to 25 percent within just two or three years”. Quiq clients who have deployed messaging or chat as a means to optimize the customer experience have seen immediate cost savings as a result of higher productivity from agents who are now able to handle multiple messages at a time, as opposed to a single call.

Messaging and chat won’t feel like a change

While messaging and web chat can have profound positive impact throughout your company, implementation doesn’t have to disrupt current operations. The vast majority of customers and employees already use messaging and web chat in their personal lives. Responding to messages, attaching photos and videos and even using emojis are pretty commonplace so there’s really nothing new to learn.

Quiq Messaging makes the implementation of web chat and messaging even easier by providing employees a single place to read and respond to all messages, regardless of whether your customer chooses to contact you via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, or chat with you from their desktop. Our simple user interface can also integrate with the systems your agents already use, so agents can quickly access relevant information.

If you’re ready to implement web chat and messaging for your organization, contact Quiq today. Quiq Messaging is an easy to implement messaging software solution that enables companies to engage with customers on the channels they already feel most comfortable with.

About Quiq
Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

How to Successfully Launch Web Chat and Messaging

Posted on Max Fortis

For more than 100 years, the telephone was the only channel for reaching a company to get help with questions, submit issues, or give the rare compliment. Today, consumers can choose from a plethora of channels or methods to reach a company.  Seemingly new channels emerge every few months, keeping brands on their toes.

The newest channels being adopted by companies are SMS/text messaging, Web Chat, and “interactive” Facebook Messenger. These digital engagement channels are quickly replacing the phone and email as the primary form of interaction with companies. Companies are adopting business messaging as a means to keep up with competition and meet consumer expectations.

Business Messaging Goes Mainstream

There are a growing number of platforms vying for consumer attention, there are three major digital engagement channels that dominate the market with herculean strength: 1) Web Chat, 2) SMS/text messaging, and 3) Facebook Messenger.

Here are a few of the nuances of SMS, Web Chat, and Facebook Messenger that make an implementation with best practices so important:

Web Chat

Web Chat is the optimal digital engagement channel for those engaging with a brand via a desktop computer. According to Websitebuilder.org 51% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a website that has integrated chat. Even if the consumer never uses it at least 29% of all visitors are more likely to purchase when the option of live chat is available. The site also states that sites with integrated chat can also expect to see an increase in retention by 48%.

Let’s look at the two ways Web Chat is used: Reactive and Proactive Chat.

Reactive Chat (Chat initiated by the Customer)

Consumers come to your website to see what you have to offer and then purchase it. Reactive chat is simply having a chat button omnipresent on your site for customers to engage if and when they have a question or need help initiate the session, so ensure the chat icon is prominent enough to be noticed by considering design elements such as shape, size, and color are essential.

Reactive Chat Best Practices:

  • The chat icon appears on the lower right-hand corner of every sales or service-oriented page and on all steps of the shopping cart process
  • Tailor the colors and text of the chat window to represent your brand voice
  • The chat icon should only appear when an agent or salesperson is available
  • Keep the pre-chat form limited to a minimum of fields for the consumer to complete.  With each question, abandonment can increase by 45%.

Launch web chat and messaging on your site

Proactive Chat (Chat Invitation Initiated by the Brand)

Proactive Chat means that based on some predetermined criteria, you can decide when to “pop” up a chat box with an offer to help. Proactive Chat allows you to set up rules such as initiating a chat session after a predetermined amount of time the consumer has been on your site or when a visitor lands on specific pages. A proactive approach to chat invitations will dramatically increase both digital engagement and conversion rates.

Proactive Chat best practices:

  • Invite at least 20% of customers engaged in digital sales or service processes
  • Upon issuing a proactive invitation, engagement rates increase to approximately 4X
  • Eliminate the pre-chat form or keep it the absolute minimum for CRM integration
  • Leverage java script on your site to trigger an invitation at a critical “moment of truth” in the sales or service processes.

SMS/Text Messaging

launch web chat and messagingWhile SMS or text messaging friends and family is old hat, customers do not typically expect to exchange SMS messages with you for sales or service. Consumers are not trained to engage with a brand via SMS and need to be encouraged and directed. Since messaging receives the highest sales conversion and call deflection possible, SMS engagement should be promoted on all mobile optimized pages.

Follow these best practices for SMS messaging for business:

  • Prominently place or “Text Us” in the header and footer of the mobile website
  • Place an anchored “Message Us” banner on the mobile site as a large touch target to encourage users to text instead of call
  • Include a clear call-to-action on the “Contact Us” page
  • Partner with Marketing to spread the word to consumers about your company’s new texting capabilities

Facebook Messenger

The average Facebook user in the US spends 35 minutes per day on the app. Brands are leveraging this channel for customer engagement and are starting to invite customers to use Facebook Messenger to engage directly.

There are 2 billion messages exchanged between users and businesses on Facebook Messenger already. This is just one of the reasons 67% of companies believe social customer service is the most pressing short-term priority for the contact center.

Facebook Messenger best practices:

  • Turn messaging on for your Facebook page. You can find instructions on Facebook’s Help Center.
  • Enable “Click to Message” ads to send current or potential customers into a Messenger conversation. There is no better time to engage a potential customer about a product than when they are viewing an ad and are excited about your product.
  • Invite Facebook visitors to initiate a conversation with you from your Facebook page, ads, and app across other media channels such as your website.
  • Place the “Message Us” call-to-action within copy on Facebook ads and your company page to encourage visitors to message your company directly. Remember, this is new to them and they may not know that companies can be messaged just like their family and friends.

Launch web chat and messaging

What to Expect After You Launch Web Chat and Business Messaging 

After you launch web chat and business messaging, be sure to track and measure results. Quiq uses a powerful dashboard of the most important stats to allow managers to keep a pulse of the performance metrics that matter most to your business.

Once you launch web chat and messaging for your organization, you’ll start to see efficiencies within the departments where these tools are deployed. Efficiencies such as lower support costs, higher deflection of calls to messaging, and an increase in case resolutions per agent are not uncommon for many of Quiq clients who implement web chat and messaging within their customer service organization.

When web chat and messaging are deployed for sales enablement, Quiq clients have seen an increase in leads and the ability to accelerate the sales cycle. These efficiencies can be attributed to more streamlined communications between your organization and your customers and the ability to gather customer intelligence in real-time.

If you’re ready to implement web chat and business messaging for pre-sales or post-sales customer interactions with your organization, contact Quiq today. Quiq Messaging is helping companies like evo, Gogo, Office Depot, Overstock, and TSheets improve their digital engagement with consumers via web chat and business messaging.

About Quiq
Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

Quiq Featured on FierceCEO

Posted on Lauren Winder

Customer Service Texting

It’s one of the hottest topics in customer service – customer service texting. Mobile devices are embedded into our daily lives and now, companies are looking for ways to make customer service texting a reality. The ability for companies to engage with customers through their mobile devices on a preferred and convenient channel is already here.

Mike Myer, CEO, Quiq took some time to sit with Karen Talley at FierceCEO to talk about texting for customer service. Read the article to find out why 2018 will be “the breakout year” for texting as a customer service solution and what the future holds for texting.

About Quiq
Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Learn more about Quiq today at goquiq.com.

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Never Just Measure Up: Outpace Your Competition

Posted on The Quiq Team

The age of digital disruption has changed customer expectations, requiring companies to operate at a higher level of ingenuity and sophistication. Businesses today must focus on delivering an exceptional digital customer experience in order to outpace their competition.

While consumers are still performing the same basic activities during their engagement with a company, the channels available, the devices used, and the speed at which these activities take place have drastically changed. The 4 most common ways consumers engage with brands include:

  • Gaining awareness of a product
  • Researching and learning more about the product/service
  • Using the product or service
  • Asking for support

Technology has forever changed customer expectations of how everyone – friends, family, and yes, even companies should engage with them. Customers now expect convenient, effortless, and personalized experiences with brands whether they are asking questions and want speedy answers prior to buying, or they need step-by-step guidance to resolve their issue post-purchase.

Customer Experience challenges in the digital age

It is frequently stated that Customer Service is the only long-term differentiator in today’s world. Brand reputations are built or damaged based on the quality of service they provide.

In order to deliver world class digital customer engagement you have to differentiate from the average, not set it as the bar to meet.

While many companies recognize the gravity of the customer experience and the shift of customer expectations, many only look to keep pace with their closest competitor. In order to deliver world class digital customer engagement, you have to differentiate from the average, not set it as the bar to meet. Forrester reports that only 7% of companies are exceeding customers’ expectations and worse, 25% don’t feel they even meet customer expectations.

One of the greatest difficulties in delivering superior digital customer engagement is mindset. Intuitively, the entire company, from executive leadership to front-line employees, wants to deliver a consistent, best-in-class digital experience across all channels, but have a hard time differentiating it from traditional customer service.

It is imperative to recognize the gap that exists between traditional customer service and a digital customer engagement. As stated above, customer activities are the same (shopping, comparing, purchasing, seeking support) but usage and expectations are vastly different. Consumers no longer walk into a store to browse and talk to a sales person everytime they want to purchase something. They no longer have the time or inclination to pick up the phone or email to place an order or ask a question. The traditional channels are being eaten up by the digital channels. Phone calls and emails are being eaten up by the more convenient SMS/text messaging and web chat channels.

Some companies will use the fact that the activities are the same as an excuse not to implement more innovative means to enhance their digital engagement, or do just enough to keep up with the closest competitor. Those are the companies that will not succeed in the long-run.

Quiq’s clients are using digital customer engagement like text messaging, Facebook Messenger, and Web Chat, to set themselves apart within and outside their industry. These innovators know that customers want easy, convenient, and frictionless ways to engage with everyone – especially companies that have earned their business. What should companies consider when becoming more digital service savvy?

Mobile-first. Always.

Focusing on the digital customer engagement in an age, when everyone looks to their mobile device for research or to seek support from brands, means to adopt a mobile-first design for each interaction. Consider and evaluate how an average customer will interact with each of the digital channels, and clearly define what the ideal experience is.

Here are a few considerations:

  • Make digital channels highly accessibleOutpace your competition by adopting a mobile first customer centric design in everything you do
    • Lead with the channels that are preferred and most commonly used by customers to communicate (SMS, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat).
  • Facilitate easy, seamless interactions
    • Information gathered from one channel should be used if and when the customer contacts you via a different channel. Selecting products that can integrate with your existing CRM system to leverage customer information across channels will support this goal.
  • Deliver a visually consistent presence
    • Ensure your company’s branding, voice, and vibe are consistent across all channels. Customers don’t think about “channels”, they think about what they need in that moment and the fastest way to get it. Make sure your brand is consistently represented regardless of touchpoint.

In addition to the above, it is important to realize that customers are much more visually-driven then ever before – emojis, Pinterest and Instagram are evidence that customers are far more comfortable with taking, sharing, and consuming visual content. With this in mind, consider how each channel will use visual media to engage with customers or vice versa. For example, many Quiq clients encourage customer service agents to exchange emojis, videos, and pictures with customers, which is the way they communicate with family and friends and helps bring context into conversations. They also encourage customers to share photos and videos to more quickly help with purchases or problems.

Putting the Customer Center Stage

Consumers are constantly being bombarded with information and experiences online and off. This onslaught of information makes it harder for us to remember every detail and interaction with brands. While it would be impossible to remember every interaction, your customers will likely remember the first and last interaction.

Today’s digital customer is very likely to have that first interaction on your website or trying to contact your business to ask questions about your product or service from their mobile device. Armed with this information, you can design that first-touch experience with the customer’s ideal engagement at centerstage – making it convenient and easy for them, not you.

Enabling your landlines to send and receive text messages, for example, and having web chat active on your website supports these goals. Many Quiq clients are surprised that a lot of their customers are trying to text them on their existing landlines. Think of how surprised and delighted your customer would be to receive the post sale customer support by text message, the preferred means to contact a business, instead of receiving an error message.

Likewise, a customer’s last interaction may very well end with a digital engagement, whether that’s a mention on Facebook or trying to engage with customer service from their mobile device. Wouldn’t you prefer your customers to walk away from that first or last experience, thinking “Wow, that was easy”.

It’s Never Too Late to Transform your Digital Customer Engagement

As the inspiring wisdom of the old Chinese Proverb says:
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

You don’t need a crystal ball to tell you that a new digital customer engagement age is upon us and neither do your competitors. You can stay ahead of your competition and deliver an exceptional experience that exceeds your customers expectations by investing in technology such as Quiq Messaging.

Quiq Messaging helps businesses quickly and easily interact with customers, whether they have a question pre-purchase or post-sales. Schedule a demo to see how you can easily provide a digital customer engagement that will “wow” your customers and keep them coming back for more.

About Quiq
Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

3 Ways Software Companies Accelerate Time-to-Value With SMS Messaging

Posted on Max Fortis

Helping your customer realize the value of your software, app, or game as quickly as possible is the cornerstone of successful adoption and retention. As a SaaS company, we understand how critical it is to maintain momentum with a customer while they are excited about your solution and accelerate Time-to-Value (TtV).

We are starting to see a lot of software companies accelerate TtV for their users using social media and other digital technologies, including sending outbound messages via Quiq Messaging.

Here are a few best practices we’ve learned along the way about TtV and outbound messaging, as well as how consumer software companies put messaging to use:

1. Set your new users up with ease

More and more, companies are starting to leverage Quiq’s outbound messaging to deliver successful experiences with their software, app, or game. It is a fact that outbound text messaging has a higher open and response rate than any other channel. With an average open rate of 96%, far higher than email, text messaging ensures your customers see and open the important messages that will improve their early experience with your technology. You can help your customers get setup and started with outbound notifications that remind them to complete a profile, link an account, create a password, or whatever needs to be done to begin realizing value immediately.

Quiq’s clients find that sending timely hints and tips via outbound text messages help end users get more out of their product in much less time. What’s more, if a user is having trouble during setup or implementation, they can simply reply to the original text message from the company to initiate a 1-to-1 text messaging conversation with your customer service team. Customer service agents can easily handle multiple, simultaneous text messages just like they would any other channel. This kind of proactive, 2-way messaging is helping Quiq’s clients become even “stickier” with their end users.

2. Accelerate adoption and usage with proactive notifications

Onboarding is one of those moments of truths that can make or break the long-term adoption of your software. Once you get past the initial set-up, your new customers may need a little extra help along the way. We all know that people get busy and distracted. Making sure everything is running smoothly , especially for consumer-facing SaaS companies, can easily be affected by overly busy users who don’t have time to figure out how to use your solution to its fullest capabilities.

Beyond initial adoption, software companies can stay top of mind by engaging in two-way conversations with customers via messaging. Allow end users to initiate conversations with your company to get help with any questions. Add “text us” to your mobile website and list of “contact us” sources on your desktop website. Take advantage of outbound SMS messaging to keep users engaged and active after onboarding. When a user tries to jump in and “figure it out” as they go, it can lead to frustration and premature abandonment. Proactive, outbound messages with bite-sized tips and tricks and best practices keep users engaged and helps them take full advantage of all the functionality you built for them. This type of bilateral communication helps the user continue to recognize value from your product and keeps their momentum going.

3. Get ahead of any dreaded “churn”

When you turn on your faucet, you expect water to flow. When you flip a switch, you expect light. When a consumer downloads an app, they expect it to work. The internet, smartphones, and apps have become utilities like other modern conveniences that consumers expect just to work. When they don’t, cries of outrage can be heard far and wide.

When something isn’t working as expected, whether the source of the issue is on the customer’s end or yours, you’ll want the ability to help as quickly and painlessly as possible. There is a strong possibility that the customer may never find the time or want to deal with the hassle of giving you a call, sending an email, or filling out a “contact us” form on your website. With text messaging you can provide support 24/7, giving them a way to quickly send in their question or issue when it’s convenient for them.

Recognizing the issue is the first step in helping your user get back on track to value as soon as possible. Engaging others in the company that may be better equipped to resolve an issue is the next critical step. With Quiq, messages can be routed and transferred so that you get the best resources for a quick resolution and eliminate the risk of users getting frustrated and looking at competitive solutions.

Keep the momentum going

Emails are often ignored, and updates on your website can be easily missed. Even if you have an app, users can turn notifications off. So how do you best keep your customers informed? From tips and tricks, to new feature announcements, to planned downtime, your customers can stay in the know about essential updates with proactive 2-way outbound SMS notifications.

Text messaging is pervasive and continues to prove to be the channel of choice for end users to send and receive messages. Companies that establish text messaging as a two-way communication channel can realize higher adoption rates, while reducing TtV, all by delivering messages on a pervasive, preferred, and convenient channel.

Quiq Messaging is how consumer-facing software companies are cutting through the noise to deliver critical messages to their customer’s mobile device. We help companies engage with their users where they already live – on their phone, on the web, and on social media.

About Quiq

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

Improving Customer Retention for Your Service-based Business

Posted on Mark Kowal

Our hyper-connected culture has built a consumer eco-system where raving fans help bolster a brand’s reputation and new customer acquisition through word of mouth. In addition to that, there are a plethora of reasons that make a compelling case to focus on improving customer retention as much as, if not more, than customer acquisition.

By no means are we advocating that you ignore customer acquisition. In “Ways to Increase Your Customer Acquisition for Service Based Businesses” blog post, we talk about how important these efforts are.

The case for customer retention is pretty strong and demands attention:

  1. It can be 5-25 times more costly to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one
  2. A business can boost profits by 25% to 95% by increasing customer retention by as little as 5% (HBR).
  3. Existing customers spend 33% more than new customers

The math has been around for awhile, but few companies have solved the problem of keeping existing customers happy and coming back for more.

Service-based businesses are uniquely poised to create a remarkable experience that starts with adding value for the customer and keeping them engaged for additional purchases in the future. Quiq is helping companies do this every day by employing text messaging, opening a channel that is pervasive, comfortable, not to mention, the preferred method of communication for consumer-to-business interactions.

Improve customer retention with messaging

Whether the service is home security, lawn care, commercial cleaning services, or residential moving, consumers are placing trust in you, the service provider, to deliver the expertise that will get a job done right and at a reasonable cost. Sometimes initial consultations between the consumer and the company can get cumbersome and lengthy with multiple phone calls, emails, and scheduling. Many of the service-based businesses we work with are looking at Quiq Messaging to make communications with customers faster and easier.

Everyone has their phone with them all the time, but can’t always find the time to have a phone conversation. This is where messaging comes in. Text messaging conversations are better than phone calls, since they can happen asynchronously, at the pace the customer wants to have the conversation. Even better, photos, videos, and links can also be shared via messaging, unlike a phone call, making the conversation more fruitful. We’ve also found that consumers overwhelmingly prefer text messaging as a way to communicate with businesses.

Let’s consider that home security company for a second. A customer who has purchased motion sensing lights is having trouble positioning the lights around their home. That customer can start a text with customer service agent and send pictures and videos of where the lights are located and how they are positioned, giving the agent better context of how to solve the issue, all while the customer is still on the phone.

Providing real-time interaction through media rich text messages makes it easier to do business with your company and is a value add to your busy customers. We’ve witnessed customer satisfactions scores skyrocket among companies who have implemented Quiq. These companies are laying the foundation for engaged, satisfied customers to come back.

Grow retention through engagement

Companies are most successful increasing customer retention when they focus on excellent customer service and engagement. Encouraging customers to interact with your business 24×7 from anywhere, not only improves the customer engagement, but it also provides an unprecedented opportunity to enhance customer retention and loyalty.

Quiq clients have found consumer engagement and interaction levels increase across their clients upon implementing Quiq Messaging. Communication is more accessible for customers because conversations can take place anytime and anywhere they have their smartphone – which is always and everywhere.

Your business can also use outbound messaging to keep current customers engaged with you. Sending timely notifications can help keep your company top of mind when your client is ready to buy. Perhaps the home security company would like to send quarterly reminders to customers to check the batteries in their lights and cameras or recommend other products that may complement what they already have. This type of proactive communication anticipates the needs and wants of your customers and keeps the lines of communication open.

Dig deeper wells not higher fences

There’s a story about a traveler who visits an Australian outback cattle ranch and finds that there are miles and miles of farming country with no fences. The traveler asks the rancher how they can contain their cattle without barriers. The answer was simple. The rancher replied that they dig wells instead of fences. Why would the rancher need to fence the cattle in when they are highly motivated to stay close to water, a necessary and highly desirable resource?

The moral of the story: If someone has decided to do business with you, the chances that you can convince them to do more business with you are much more likely than convincing someone brand new. Use the tools and technology that create an exceptional experience to motivate them to stay.

You can dig a deeper well and retain more customers with Quiq Messaging, which provides an easy way for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with their friends and family. With Quiq, customers can engage with service-based companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

About QuiqQuiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with our friends and family.  With Quiq, customers can now engage with companies via SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, In-App,and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.