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Increase Customer Acquisition for Your Service-based Business

Usually, a buyer’s journey starts with an initial thought – a question that often begins something like “I wonder if…” “I wonder if I could add an alarm system to my home?”

From there, a buyer may start to passively look around to see if that “what if” scenario they’re envisioning could become a reality. “I wonder how much these new wireless monitoring systems cost?”

Sometimes, there’s a compelling event that motivates the buyer to search for solutions immediately. For the majority of purchases, the journey begins with a thought that eventually turns into actively looking for answers.

Our hypothetical buyer above will eventually want to ask questions, set up an appointment, and get quotes. Imagine when our buyer starts looking for options during their lunch hour and your security monitoring business pops up as a contender. Now imagine that instead of our buyer jotting down your phone number to call later, he sends a quick text message to ask if someone could come by and take a look at his home.

Later that day, before he’s even called anyone else, he checks his phone and sees you’ve responded. This conversation can continue as he goes about his day. Convenience – that’s just one of the reasons consumers prefer text messaging over calling to communicate with businesses.

As the number of consumers who are comfortable with the quick, efficient, responsive nature of mobile messaging continues to swell this method of engagement will continue to grow and scenarios like the one above will become commonplace. Many of the service-based businesses we talk to have already spotted this trend toward mobile messaging and are looking at Quiq Messaging to make the pre-sales process easier for customers.

Text Messaging opens a Sales Channel

In the report, “Customer Preference for Messaging,” we found that nearly half of the people surveyed “would choose one product/service over another based on mobile messaging availability.” Consumers are looking for products and services that fit into their busy lifestyles and clicking around a website or waiting on hold to get questions answered just doesn’t work for them anymore.

Consider our home security example above, today’s buyer interested in adding a security system to their home want to text in questions like “Do I need a landline to set up your system?” or “Do I need to sign a contract to get started?” Buyers today want to get those pre-qualifying questions answered on their terms – on the channel and at the pace they prefer. Later, our buyer, interested in getting a quote can text “When can someone come by to give me a quote?”. This kind of convenience can set a company apart from other service providers.

Text Messaging raises your Brand Perception

In this wired day and age, we’re finding more and more consumers are expecting the brands they prefer to provide exceptional customer experience across all of the channels they are on (web, social, text). While many companies are still trying to optimize outdated channels like IVR systems and email, others are looking for more innovative ways to set themselves apart from the competition.

Quiq Messaging allows you to add a level of sophistication to your communication channels that will raise the perception of your brand among prospective customers. Our research shows that a majority of buyers “would pay more for a product/service if it is supported by a mobile messaging channel.” This preference and willingness to pay a premium for the convenience of text messaging puts a spotlight on the high value placed on mobile messaging across all age demographics.

In addition to raising the perception of your brand, service-based businesses have the opportunity to amplify their word of mouth efforts. Now, more than ever, consumers are influenced by the recommendations of friends and family, and even social media.

Leaving customers happy and satisfied with their experience by providing a convenient, easily accessible way to engage with your business throughout the entire buying process will help support positive word-of-mouth for your business.

Raising the Standards for Customer Acquisition

Twenty years ago, banner ads could grab someone’s attention and get response rates north of 70%. Ten years ago, receiving an email from a company was an innovative way to drive a customer back to your business. Now, only about 20% of emails even get opened, let alone read. Today, those two methods have become what most people consider noise and are often overlooked.

Businesses must now think of more innovative ways to differentiate themselves and earn business. As research shows, buyers want and expect companies to provide them with personal, timely, and convenient communication to build a meaningful two-way relationship. Quiq Messaging is how innovative companies are making that happen.

Quiq presents a unique opportunity to open a new, preferred channel to customers by allowing consumers a way to contact your service-based business via messaging. The added ease and convenience will make your business the more attractive choice within a hyper-competitive market.

Quiq allows you to be where your customers are and enables engagement 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 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 Customer Spotlight: Learn How evo Uses Quiq Messaging

Customer Spotlight: evo & Quiq Messaging

evo, a leading online retailer of outdoor gear and fashion apparel is known for exploring the collaboration between culture and sport by seamlessly joining art, music, streetwear, skateboarding, snowboarding, skiing, mountain biking and wakeboarding. Their aim is to bring all things relevant to the urban, action sports lifestyle into one creative space.

Why Messaging?

Focused on going beyond the typical sales experience, evo knew it had to provide a cutting-edge support experience.  Based in Seattle, Washington, evo is a retailer that offers top-notch gear and clothing for outdoor sports enthusiasts.

When consumers had questions, they used to only be able to call or email the company to get an answer. Now, using Quiq Messaging, evo’s customers get swift responses via Facebook Messenger, live chat and text messaging-channels that are often preferred or more convenient for their active, on-the-go consumers.Six people in the snow sitting down

Easy For Customers to Engage

Some customers contact evo for help during the purchasing process with very specific product comparison questions. Others have questions about shipping and a possible return. While still others need technical help with a product they just purchased. Regardless of the question, evo’s customer care center is ready to answer. And customers are happy with the choices of channels over which to contact evo.

When a customer is on evo’s website, if an agent is available, the live chat image will automatically appear on the bottom-right of the desktop, making it easy for a customer to start a chat conversation. And, text messaging is offered on its mobile website. Customers are excited to be able to engage with evo via text messaging. It’s fast and it’s convenient.

“Certain people like to communicate via specific channels and with Quiq Messaging we are able to serve more people in the manner in which they want to engage. That’s a big win for us and our customers.”

Justin Courtney, Customer Care Manager, evo

Efficient For Agents

Top agents can easily handle live chat and text messaging conversations, on top of the phone calls and emails they are already answering.  Since Quiq supports live chat, text messaging, and Facebook Messenger, evo agents only have to log into one application. Quiq is so easy-to-use that all agents are able to support all channels.  During peak winter months, evo has the ability to dedicate agents to manage real-time interactions based on increased volumes to ensure response times are kept in-check.Inside the business

After introducing live chat, it immediately accounted for 11% of support inquires. Phone volumes dropped by 8% and emails inquires decreased by 3%. That trend has continued to follow the same track with Quiq’s live chat and text messaging solution, which now represents 22% of the overall support volume.

What the Future Holds

Looking ahead, evo plans to integrate Quiq Messaging with their NetSuite implementation to consolidate all customer contact data, which will both improve the customer experience and yield additional opportunities through improved reporting. They are also planning to build out the visibility and promotion of its new messaging capabilities on their mobile website.

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, Live Chat, and Kik for help with their pre-sales and post-sales questions. Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com.

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Engaging Students Via Messaging: 3 Reasons to Start Now

It is no secret that is messaging is the preferred method of communication for nearly everyone.  97% of smartphone owners regularly use text messaging, making it the most widely-used feature according to Pew Research. Multiple studies have proven that when organizations offer their customers messaging, higher engagement and loyalty prevail.

Does this also hold true for students and educational institutions? Can messaging work for higher education as well as it does for companies? The answer is yes.

Why Use Messaging to Engage With Students?

Here are three reasons why you should use messaging to communicate with your prospective and current students:

1. Students Want to Communicate With Text

The #1 reason you should use messaging to have a conversation with your prospective and current students is they want you to. Your students want to interact with you via messaging because they simply don’t ever like to talk on the phone and email is for “old people”.  They spend more time on their mobile devices than any other demographic and messaging is their preferred communication method. To that point, an independent study (Royall & Company) found that nearly three-quarters of prospective students want to text with admissions counselors.

2. Track and Analyze Engagement

The second reason is to track and monitor prospect students’ interest. Students that engage with educational institutions via messaging tend to show higher interest and a stronger likelihood of enrolling. Identifying these candidates early allows your college or university to nurture these prospects through the enrollment process, building a more sustained, long-term relationship.

3. Create A More Personal Connection

Finally, the key to student retention lies with making a connection. Messaging is a perfect communication medium for students and engaging with them via messaging is personal and easy, paving the way for a successful relationship. Prospective and current students have a direct connection your school right at their fingertips, allowing them to communicate whenever and wherever they want.

The bottom line is that adopting messaging to allow students and institutions to communicate is a critical component to engaging and attracting prospective students, as well as for retaining current students. Colleges and universities using messaging are already seeing great results. They understand that messaging can help prospective students navigate their path to and through college.

Customer Service Messaging: Ovum Puts Quiq On The Radar

Ovum Quiq MessagingQuiq Messaging is recognized by Ovum in the customer service messaging and consumer messaging app space.

“Unlike other messaging platforms, Quiq’s technology takes a sharp focus on managing messaging at scale.”

– Mila D’Antonio, Principal Analyst Ovum

Ovum’s On the Radar is a series of research notes about vendors bringing innovative ideas, products, or business models to their markets. On the Radar vendors bear watching for their potential impact on markets.

Why put Quiq on your radar?

  • Asynchronous Messaging – Quiq offers a messaging solution that mimics the way consumers interact via messaging in their daily lives.
  • Fast Deployment– The platform’s ability to integrate into various external and internal applications enables fast deployment.
  • Flexible Pricing – Its bundle pricing model provides flexibility allowing companies to scale as customers or volumes grow.

Contact us to find out why Quiq should be on your radar!

Here is a bit more detail from the report regarding Quiq’s functionality. Feel free to watch a short product video to put pictures to all these words!

Quiq’s Messaging Capabilities:

Quiq Messaging supports SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, and Kik. It can be purchased as a standalone customer channel, or companies can deploy one of Quiq’s pre-built CRM integrations, which include Oracle, Zendesk, and Salesforce.com.

Additional features for Agents include:

  • Multi-conversation UI – enables agents to manage multiple conversations simultaneously
  • Text snippets – offers reusable text blurbs retrieved with simple keyboard shortcuts for on-the-fly responses
  • Collaboration – allows managers to watch the conversation and lend advice to the agent in the background
  • Emoji sharing – creates personal interactions between agents and customers
  • Adaptive response time coaching – measures the customer’s level of engagement and coaches the agent, suggesting which conversation needs the next response
  • Image and video – enables video and image sharing when necessary

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How Quiq Caters to Managers

Notable features for Managers include:

  • Rerouted conversations – automatically reroutes ongoing conversations when agents go off-shift
  • Real-time monitoring – shows aggregate metrics such as current load, number of customers waiting, wait times, and individual agent performance, including the number of conversations handled, average response time, and times unresponsive
  • ACD-like conversation handling – keeps incoming demand at manageable rates with auto-responses delivered to customers when queues overflow
  • Unresponsive agent timers – automatically puts a conversation back in the queue to be handled by another agent if an agent fails to respond within goal thresholds
  • Conversation observation – provides visualization of the entire conversation thread, provides whisper advice, and, if necessary, takes over the conversation without interruption the conversation
  • Historical statistics – can send conversation statistics in realtime to other systems for cross-channel reporting and BI analysis

 

  • Learn more about the Messaging space and Quiq here.

Quiq Video: Messaging For Customer Service

Quiq Video: Messaging Platform for Customer Service

At Quiq, our focus is on improving the way customers communicate with companies. We believe mobile message-driven communications will replace a significant portion of traditional phone and email interactions. With this shift from higher cost phone calls to low cost messaging, companies will see significant cost savings. Our solution makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with their friends and family.  Because messaging is so convenient and easy for consumers, the customer satisfaction scores are higher than for any other channel. Lower costs, higher customer satisfaction – who can say no to that?

Expand Your Service Capabilities with Quiq

With Quiq Messaging, customers can engage customer service for help with their pre-sales questions and post-sales support. We support SMS/text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Web Chat, and Kik. Quiq Messaging can be purchased as a stand-alone customer channel or companies can take advantage of one of our pre-built CRM integrations, including Oracle, Zendesk, and Salesforce.

Customer Service Messaging Infographic

This customer service messaging infographic was developed from the results of a Quiq partnered 2017 U.S. research study with Market Strategies International to understand consumer’s interest, preference, and demand for using Messaging to engage with Customer Service organizations.

See the full report…

Part 1: Four Reasons to Add Messaging to The Contact Center

The Messaging Mandate

This is Part 1 in a 3 Part Series focused on The Messaging Mandate. This article highlights why your company should consider adding Messaging to your customer service organization. Part 2 will discuss the criteria against which to rank consumer to business messaging providers.  Finally, Part 3 will outline what to consider to successfully implement messaging.  We hope you enjoy the series.

Messaging is not new…in fact, it has been around for quite some time.  We have been using messaging to send messages, photos, and emojis to our friends and family for over 20 years–to the tune of over 6 billion text messages daily in the U.S. alone (Forrester).  According to Pew Research, 97% of Americans use text messaging on a daily basis, making text the most widely and frequently used app on smartphones.  So if text messaging is not new, what is new? The answer: Consumers messaging customer service.

The vast majority of messaging occurs between individuals, friends, and family members. Messaging a company is just taking off. Business text messaging is simply the ability for consumers to contact businesses and exchange information over mobile devices. Messages can be sent as text (Short Message Service/SMS), pictures, video, or audio (Multimedia Messaging Service/MMS) over a variety of messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Kik, etc.

Done correctly, messaging is a powerful tool to help consumers connect with businesses – especially when it come to customer service.

1. Customers Expect It

Consumers are demanding the ability to communicate via messaging with brands and businesses.  Consumers don’t want to just receive messages from businesses, they want the ability to message them back.  No longer is messaging simply a one-way channel for companies to market to consumers. Customers now expect to be able to initiate a two-way, one-to-one conversations with the companies and brands they use.

In fact, the majority of U.S. consumers would prefer texting over the current methods of reaching customer support (eWeek).  As Forbes writer, Micah Solomon, stated: “ If your customers won’t even call Mom on the phone anymore (they’re texting her instead), why are you forcing them to call your business on the phone any time they need customer service or support?”  Consumers prefer messaging as a channel of communication and when given a choice, they use it.

2. It’s a Competitive Advantage

“The customer experience is the next competitive battleground.”
– Jerry Gregoire, Chief Information Officer at Dell.

According to Gartner, 89% of companies plan to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience and the main driver of the customer experience lands smack dab in the middle of the customer service and support organization. In fact, Harris found that 88% of customers prefer doing business with a company that offers quality customer service over a company that has the latest and most innovative products.  A good product is expected of every company. Innovative and quality customer service is the competitive advantage.

With the continued focus on delivering great experiences via customer service, it is critical that companies constantly innovate and adapt their service approach to exceed customer expectations. The interest, preference, usage, and demand for consumer-to-business messaging is already evident and companies that don’t already offer messaging are quickly falling behind.

Messaging is not only what consumers want, but it is also what businesses should want.  Adding messaging as a customer service channel delivers significant cost savings due to offloading phone calls, while improving customer satisfaction (CSAT).

3. Significant Cost Savings

Activating messaging for customer service not only provides a better experience for the customer, it is also much more efficient for agents compared to phone calls and emails. Messaging is cost-efficient and time-efficient for customer support teams for many reasons:

  1. Agent supported phone calls cost several dollars per conversation, while agent supported texts cost pennies per conversation. (Forrester & ContactBabel)
  2. Implementing a messaging channel allows companies the ability to deflect calls to a lower cost channel. It is common to see a 20% or higher offload of phone calls to messaging.
  3. Messaging allows each agent to handle multiple conversations simultaneously, improving productivity over one-to-one voice calls.  Additionally, agents can typically handle 6-8 messaging conversations at once due to the asynchronous nature of messaging, dramatically improving agent productivity.
  4. Agent familiarity and comfort- Messaging allows agents to use an interface they are already familiar with because they message their friends and families too. This makes it easy for agents to quickly come up to speed to support a new channel.

Customers want it. Agents understand it. It makes agents even more productive and saves you money. If your business isn’t taking advantage of the opportunity to activate Messaging to interact with customers, what could possibly be holding you back?

4. Higher Customer Satisfaction

We are now living in a world where businesses need to move past being customer-centric or customer-focused into being customer-obsessed (Forrester). Customer-obsessed companies focus on customer satisfaction and retention, understanding that these measurements are key metrics for any company trying to compete.

It is notable then that texting is the highest rated contact method for customer satisfaction compared to all other communication channels (Text – 90%; Phone – 77%; Facebook – 66%). (eWeek).

Why is text so highly rated? Because it blends the real-time answers of a phone call with the portability of a mobile device. The customer benefits from the convenience and control they get from messaging.  Their interaction with a company can happen at their pace, on their terms, instead of on the company’s terms. With messaging, consumers are able to get customer support at the speed of life.

With mobile devices, customers can interact with an agent from wherever they are, even in places where there may not be an internet connection.  Unlike web chat, customers no longer need to be tied to their computer.  Wherever they go, the conversation can continue.

While voice offers the advantage of “real time” interaction, it usually occurs after the customer has navigated an IVR system or been placed on hold.  Studies show that customers are increasingly frustrated by being placed on hold. Texting is as “real-time” as a voice call, but without the hold times.  The immediacy of communication brings about a feeling of connection and importance, allowing brands to be more human and relatable.

Conclusion

Consumer’s preference for messaging in both their personal and business lives continues to grow, with no end in sight.  They appreciate that texting is a fast and efficient customer support option, and expect businesses to respond accordingly.  Customers want real-time responses to their support issues. By adding messaging to your Contact Center, managers and agents have the tools necessary to provide a better customer experience, while saving money.

About Us

Quiq connects customers and companies via Messaging (Facebook Messenger, SMS, and Kik), resulting in more efficient customer service and happier customers.  Learn more about Quiq today at quiq.com, or email sales@goquiq.com for a free product demo.