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5 Examples of Omnichannel Strategies That Will Boost Your Holiday Sales

This year, holiday shopping will be more digital than ever before. As consumers continue their shift to online channels and major retailers cancel in-person Black Friday sales, brands must quickly adapt through new omnichannel tactics that capitalize on surges in online traffic. Here are five strategies for doing just that.

5 Examples of Top Retailers with Brilliant Omni-Channel Strategies For Holidays

1. The Gift Recommendation Engine – Guided Selling

Digging through endless product listings, looking for the perfect gift, is a tedious and challenging process for holiday shoppers.

However, AI-powered assistants, used by leading brands like Nike Jordan and Lane Bryant, make it easy and frictionless for shoppers to find the precise gift for their recipient.

Deployed on your web site, in apps, or social channels like Facebook Messenger or SMS, these intelligent automated agents can quickly interact with users and recommend some great options:

Earlier this year, one of our customers, an Iconic jewelry brand did just that leading up to  another gift-heavy holiday: Valentine’s Day. In previous seasonal campaigns using Facebook Messenger, the retailer’s social managers and sales associates were swamped with the need to respond to customers’ inquiries.

To address this, the retailer deployed an AI-powered conversational shopping feature on Messenger that made personalized gift recommendations at scale. They quickly found that consumers were 4X more likely to make a purchase when they receive such guided sales assistance, compared to those who are unassisted.

By clicking on a social ad, shoppers were seamlessly guided to Facebook Messenger and offered a brief interactive quiz with gift recommendations based on who the gift recipient was, the gender and the price range, selected from a group of products chosen by the retailer for those profiles. The AI-powered assistants also handled free text queries, and customers could shop for products online at the retailer’s site or find the nearest physical store.

Tiffany's Guided Selling Experience

We’ve all had that experience when shopping for a friend, where you discover a product or item that you’d prefer to be on the receiving end of rather than giving. To address this, the iconic retailer also provided shoppers the option to send their friends and family links and images of on Messenger gifts that they want for themselves, accompanied by a small note: “Hint hint…This is at the top of my wish list.”

Drop a Hint Feature - Conversational AI

The results: Half of the quiz takers received a gift recommendation, leading to a 28x return-on-ad-spend (ROAS).

And, because AI-powered assistants love to work all the time, they also helped relieve customer service by efficiently handlings FAQs.

2. Gift FAQ & Customer Service Engine

Gifts purchased over the holidays are wrapped not only in ribbons and pretty paper but are enveloped in countless questions about sizes, style options, and prices. The season of joy is also the season of customer service, a stressful time for brands to handle the massive volume of inquiries.

In fact, 54% of customer service requests are taking place outside regular business hours. A vast number of those requests are happening on messaging platforms since those are channels that consumers already use.

That’s where conversational AI comes in this holiday season. Intelligent chatbots work diligently and accurately day and night, providing a front line for all queries from customers and passing on some queries to human agents only when they get too complex. This allows your team to focus on driving sales and new purchases instead of an endless queue of customer service inquiries.

Gift FAQ & Customer Service Engine

3. Digital Holiday Coupons

One of the best traits of intelligent chatbots is that they never get tired of pointing out the great holiday offers you have. This means that brands can reinvent promotions.

Regional grocery chain H-E-B did just that with their conversational AI. The grocery reinvented discount coupons by delivering them to more than 13 million customers weekly, personalized to the declared shopping needs of the recipients.

Automated notifications let customers browse the deals through button clicks or free text requests, even when they were standing in the store. The open rate for the notifications: 77%. Percentage of opened deals that were saved by users: 70%.

Digital Holiday Coupons

4. Convert Holiday Enthusiasm into Sales

Facebook is a platform designed for engagement and, during the holiday season, that engagement kicks into high gear with shoppers expressing their excitement through post-likes and comments.

This holiday season, Facebook is also offering a nice new gift for marketers. Facebook Messenger is expanding its capabilities to allow marketers to privately message shoppers who have left positive comments on their brands’ posts.

All of those shoppers commenting “this looks awesome!”, “I’ve got to get this for my sister!” can easily be turned from mere commentators into new customers. Combined with conversational AI, this opens up a whole new channel to convert positive comments into sales at scale. See this experience below:

Contact our conversational experts to learn more about this experience.

Contact our conversational experts to learn more about this experience.

5. Turn the Holiday Rush into Real Consumer Insights

The rush of consumers during the holidays is like a large polling sample that can provide tons of answers — if brands can only figure out the questions.

A rush of customers looking for this season’s hot gift item, for instance, could answer a number of questions that help uncover and define your target customer persona.

But the trick is efficiently capturing holiday shoppers’ information, at scale, and quickly turning it into insights.

Take California wine and spirits brand E. & J. Gallo Winery. To engage shoppers of their new Rosé product line, they developed “Rosé Your Way” AI-powered experience, which was introduced to consumers via targeted ads on Facebook Messenger, Facebook Newsfeeds, and Instagram.

Gallo Turning the Holiday Rush into Real Consumer Insights

The digital assistants guided consumers through a series of questions to recommend the ideal Gallo Rosé, followed by personalized content that included the best recipes to go with the recommended wine, and finished with a customer satisfaction survey.

The results: 90% of the 25,000 engaged consumers completed the Rosé recommender. Gallo was able to determine the most popular Rosé flavor preferences, drinking styles, and occasions. When follow-up push notifications were sent based on those preferences, 60% of the messages were opened.

Unwrapping It All

With some planning – and the use of intelligent, automated, always-on conversational helpers – brands can soar through the holiday season by building a dedicated fan base attracted to personalized recommendations, customized deals, and prompt customer service attention.

And, when the rush is over, the brand can quickly assess what worked, what didn’t, and what was missing.

Ready to boost your sales and drive higher performance this holiday? See which strategy is the best fit for your organization. Learn more.

6 Ways to Drive More eCommerce Sales This Holiday Season

This year, holiday shopping will shift to eCommerce like never before. Once again, eCommerce sales are projected to grow this holiday season as consumers continue to transition to cyber-week sales.

To capitalize on this season’s unprecedented spike in online traffic and digital purchase behavior, top eCommerce brands are turning to automated shopping assistants that act as key revenue drivers and provide the sort of highly personalized assistance shoppers would traditionally receive from an in-store experience.

Deploying highly intelligent, automated shopping assistants during peak seasons has proven to increase sales conversion rates as high as 4X.

Here are 6 of the most common ways that leading eCommerce brands leverage automated assistants to drive more revenue during the holidays.

1. Proactive Product Suggestions

Highly-intelligent, automated assistants are capable of identifying shoppers with high purchase intent and proactively engaging them with upsell opportunities that increase Average Order Value (AOV). For example, when online shoppers add new products to their cart, automated onsite assistants can initiate a conversation and suggest additional products that are frequently purchased along with the items recently added to the cart.

1. Proactive Product Suggestions powered by Snaps

Through such highly-personalized engagements, in a conversational format, eCommerce brands can lift AOV while providing convenient suggestions that support their customers’ journeys.

2. Guided Gift Recommendations

For shoppers unsure of the right gift or product to buy this season, automated shopping assistants can provide personalized suggestions that guide shoppers to the perfect holiday present. Automated onsite shopping assistants can deliver unique gift suggestions through a series of quick questions that touch on the shopper’s price range as well as the gift recipient’s gender, age, and preferences.

2. Guided Gift Recommendations powered by Snaps

Automated gift recommendations have been proven to drive 4x higher sales conversion rates across shoppers who engage in guided sales assistance when compared to unassisted shoppers.

3. Simplify Repeat Purchases

eCommerce brands can also leverage onsite assistants to make the repeat purchase process as seamless and straightforward as possible. By developing persistent profiles based on each shopper’s personalized data and repeat site visits, intelligent shopping assistants can proactively initiate new conversations with returning customers looking to make a repeat purchase.

3. Simplify Repeat Purchases powered by Snaps

By leveraging personalization data to identify and engage repeat customers, eCommerce brands can significantly reduce friction and provide a premium shopping experience for their VIP and returning customers with high purchase intent.

4. Reengage Cart Abandons

As holiday shoppers contemplate a variety of different offers and products, it’s inevitable for some online purchase processes and shopping carts to be abandoned. By leveraging conversational re-engagements, however, high-intent shoppers can be reminded of products waiting in their carts and be offered special discounts that nudge them into returning and completing their purchase.

4. Reengage Cart Abandons powered by Snaps

By leveraging conversational automation to re-engage abandoned carts, eCommerce brands have been able to effectively recover up to 20% of incomplete purchases with reminders, promotions, and other automated messages.

5. Automate Responses to FAQs

Leading up to the holidays, shoppers have no shortage of questions and concerns related to online shopping, with “will my order arrive on time?” being one of the most frequent. By providing shoppers with automated, 24/7 support that can instantly answer some of their most frequently asked questions, brands can reduce online shopping friction and common barriers to purchase.

5. Automate Responses to FAQs powered by Snaps

Additionally, by leveraging conversational automation to resolve frequently asked questions in a way that is entirely self-service, customer service agents that would traditionally be required to answer these questions can focus on sales-oriented initiatives during the peak holiday season instead.

6. Convert Sales Receipts into Ongoing Channel for Commerce & Care

Lastly, after a purchase is completed, brands can leverage automated shopping assistants to send digital receipts to customers through conversational channels. By doing so, eCommerce brands can convert traditional receipts into a new avenue for ongoing care and commerce.

6. Convert Sales Receipts into Ongoing Channel for Commerce & Care

This post-purchase conversational connection gives shoppers access to an automated channel for order management or to even purchase additional, related products.

Reinventing Online Shopping for the Holiday’s Most Digital Season Ever

The 2020 holiday season will be eCommerce’s most significant moment to date. More than half of US shoppers have indicated that they will not return to shop with a brand following a poor customer experience, so it is vital for CX and eCommerce leaders to deliver the best possible experience during the season’s rush of new online shoppers.

Interested in deploying an enterprise onsite shopping assistant for your brand? Contact us today to learn how you can deploy a bespoke solution for your website and other conversational channels in a matter of weeks.

4 Reasons Why Instant Messaging for Business is Still Crucial

Instant messaging has become a ubiquitous part of daily life for the vast majority of us. We send over 40 million messages every minute, and nearly three billion people use messaging apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.

Naturally, enterprises with contact centers have responded by giving instant messaging for business a central role in their customer-communication strategy.

Today, we will flesh this dynamic out in more detail. This post highlights some of the most significant impacts of business instant messaging’s rapid growth, touching upon the most popular messaging options and discussing some ways it’s changing day-to-day work.

Let’s get going!

Why is Business Instant Messaging Important?

We’ve already noted that people send lots of messages, which is reason enough to pay attention to them. But, in this section, let’s briefly walk through some more granular reasons why customers want to contact your brand via instant messaging for business.

First, instant messaging is rapidly becoming the preferred method for handling most types of communication. If your customers are anything like the rest of us, they’re probably busy enough to enjoy the convenience of resolving issues asynchronously. Nor is this only the case for younger generations. The popular stereotype is that people with gray hair simply don’t like texting, but surveys have found that nine out of ten adults over 50 send text messages with their phones–which means they’ll likely be comfortable sending business instant messages, too.

Instant messaging also helps you build a better experience, which is always a competitive advantage. Instant messaging for business tends to be perceived as less formal than an email or (god forbid) actually talking to a person on the phone, and it also allows you to proactively reach out with updates, to answer questions, etc. Most of these services also support rich messaging, so customers have a much better experience.

Finally, with instant messaging, it becomes far easier to integrate rich messages and generative AI, but we’ll wait to cover that in much more detail later.

What Instant Messaging Platforms are Available?

One last thing we’ll do before discussing how instant messaging is modifying the relationship between businesses and their customers is go through some of the instant messaging platforms businesses use. Here are some of the main contenders:

  • WhatsApp for Business is a messaging, voice, and video-calling app operated by Meta that enjoys an audience of more than 2 billion global users. Since so many people are already texting on WhatsApp, it’s become a popular channel for companies interested in using it for business instant messages.
  • Facebook Messenger is another offering from Meta. Customer-obsessed businesses like yours should pay attention to it for many reasons, but, as with WhatsApp, its huge audience is near the top. Even better, businesses that deploy quality automation solutions on Facebook Messenger can answer 80% of inbound customer inquiries and achieve CSATs as high as 95%.
  • Instagram Messenger is worth exploring because it’s a safe bet that a decent chunk of your audience is already interacting with businesses on the popular Instagram platform. A further point in its favor is that it offers a convenient API that will allow you to set up automation to increase your business’s efficiency.
  • Apple Messages for Business dramatically increases your customers’ ability to reach you because it offers a “message” icon in Maps, Siri, Safari, Spotlight, or your company’s website, in addition to offering other touchpoints like QR codes. And, as before, the sheer popularity of Apple and its product ecosystem is another reason forward-looking businesses can’t afford to sleep on its instant messaging capabilities.
  • WeChat is a platform that is extraordinarily popular in China and enjoys more than a billion users. As with the other platforms, there is a WeChat Business offering that allows you to communicate with customers, market your services, and take payments, but to set up a WeChat Business account you have to verify your business license. If you have a large customer base in China, this might be the best option for you.

Of course, there are many other instant messaging for business products we haven’t discussed here, but this should give you an idea of the variety of options available and what’s possible when you invest in them.

The 4 Benefits of Instant Messaging for Business

Now, let’s get into the meat of how instant messaging is changing the business landscape!

1. Instant Messaging is Convenient for Customers

The most obvious place to start is with the major convenience instant messaging for business offers clients.

Customers today seek flexibility in how they engage in personal and professional communication. Businesses need to provide various communication options, including instant messaging, as this offers the asynchronous communication that more and more customers prefer.

Take the example of a customer who initiates a return process during their workday, but can only complete steps, like taking a photo of a damaged item once they’re home. Instant messaging allows for this in a way that phone calls or in-person visits don’t, enabling ongoing conversations that customers can pause and resume as their schedule permits.

2. Instant Messaging Helps Customer Service Teams

So, we’ve established that instant messaging is something customers want. Now let’s discuss why it’s a boon for customer service teams as well.

For one thing, there’s the increase in efficiency, as instant messaging for business enables contact center agents to manage multiple customer inquiries simultaneously. This becomes even more dramatic when automation is used, about which more shortly.

Additionally, instant messaging-based conversations between consumers and businesses simplifies the process of following up with shoppers and keeping accurate data on past communications. When sales or support agents need to have follow-up conversations, they can do so in light of this information, thereby tailoring and personalizing subsequent customer interactions.

When business instant messaging is used to its full potential, it can positively impact your customers’ perception of your brand, which can help close a deal, renew a service, or give potential buyers the push they need to make a purchase.

Put another way: it’s a win for everyone.

3. You Can Leverage The Power of Instant Rich Messaging

Another advantage of this instant-messaging approach is that it enables your contact center to make robust use of rich messaging, which rose to prominence in the early 2000s and is now ubiquitous.

Rich messaging was a substantial advancement over the traditional SMS. Besides allowing you to send much more complex information–such as emojis, high-quality audio messages and video calls, group chats, and GIFs–it also facilitates encryption, superior analytics, and integration with other products.

It’s important not to downplay these advantages. You might initially be reluctant to use emojis in conversations with customers, as this can seem vaguely unprofessional. But the truth is we leave in a less formal age, and speaking the “native language of the internet” by using “lol” and the occasional “ ” will help foster a connection.

4. Instant Messaging and Generative AI

To finish up, we turn to the silicon elephant in the room, generative AI. If you’ve been reading us for a while, you know we’ve had a lot to say about the remarkable power of large language models and how they’re already changing the nature of contact center work.

Well, since these models are largely text-based, instant messaging for business provides an obvious place to use them. When you pair with a high-quality automation platform, you can deploy generative AI to personalize your messages, translate between languages, and even fully answer a wide variety of basic queries–with minimal fuss.

Don’t Sleep on Instant Messaging for Business

As we’ve demonstrated, business instant messaging is a powerful way to reach your customers where they are, fit seamlessly into their lives, and offer a top-notch experience – all while lowering the burden placed on your agents.

As a next step, you might want to learn more about how Quiq enables support through traditional SMS and rich messaging. This should give you everything you need to design a customer experience strategy around instant messaging!

5 Ways Mobile Shopping Is Transforming Customer Service

These days, the vast majority of consumers have their mobile phones on-hand for every activity — particularly when it comes to online shopping. In fact, it has been projected that purchases on mobile devices will make up the majority of ecommerce sales by the end of 2021.

As a result, mobile shoppers are always looking for easy, convenient, and mobile ways to interact with eCommerce brands through social media and third-party messaging services. This increased channel volume  if not managed properly often overwhelms customer support teams, leaving customers frustrated with digital experiences that fall short of expectations and brands struggling to protect their brand image.

On the other hand, consumers’ shift to digital also presents a valuable opportunity for retailers to deliver targeted customer service solutions and enhanced buying experiences that lead to increased conversions and customer satisfaction. Some brands, like TodayTix, have seized the opportunity to provide their customers a more seamless experience.

Here are five ways that customer support has been transformed by mobile shopping and how brands are adapting to ensure that they’re providing the best possible experiences.

1. A Rise in Mobile Shopping Leads to a Rise in Messaging

When it comes to seeking customer service, mobile shoppers leverage a unique set of channels that have required brands to adopt and adapt to. One of the most popular customer support channels for mobile shoppers is contacting brands through third-party messaging services. Today, nine out of ten consumers want to use messaging to communicate with brands and retailers are quickly turning to WhatsApp, Messenger, Google Business Messages, Apple Messages for Business, and more to provide the text-based experiences that shoppers prefer.

Third-party messaging is only second to the most popular channel for mobile customer support — SMS business messaging. SMS provides mobile shoppers with a direct line of communication to a retailer’s support team to exchange information or transactional details.

SMS offers an additional layer of convenience for consumers. With SMS, consumers do not have to be connected to Wi-Fi to have a convenient online shopping experience.

2. Rich Messaging Provides Precise Feedback and Solutions

Mobile shoppers today expect a high level of personalization in both their shopping and support experiences. In order to deliver on this expectation at scale, eCommerce brands leverage rich messaging to provide personalized experiences for each individual shopper. Rich messaging further boosts engagement through dynamic content like quick reply buttons that anticipate the most popular responses, interactive maps, and more.

For example, the Facebook Messenger mobile platform allows business representatives to add images to replies and allow consumers to see a product in question. During these interactions, team members can help consumers complete a purchase, schedule an appointment, or share a link with a preview of a product or service page. Rich media ultimately sends consumers to an ideal destination, faster, for a better shopping experience.

3. Mobile Shoppers Expect Immediate Service on Their Terms

Today’s mobile shopper seeks customer support that is available to answer their questions quickly, at any time of day. Currently, 54% of shoppers reach out to brands during non-business hours over messaging channels like Facebook Messenger and brands are expected to respond in a timely manner.

This cycle of always-on, 24-hour customer service means that support teams can no longer refer to traditional business hours to dictate when their business is open or closed. Customer support must always be “open” or else customers will go elsewhere for their next purchase.

This demand for always available customer support and service doesn’t mean you have to staff your support center 24/7. Many Quiq clients rely on technology to help meet SLA’s. For instance, some clients will only show the live chat icon on their website when there are live agents available to respond. Other brands choose to use automation and conversational AI to help customers with simple, frequently asked questions that can be easily resolved through a bot.

If a shopper needs an answer quickly, they can text an eCommerce business, rather than having to tap through webpages, compose an email, or enter a call queue. Mobile shoppers enjoy the convenience of starting a conversation faster, feel they’re receiving personalized attention, and can reply at the rate they prefer.

4. Demand for More Local Customer Service

While mobile shoppers appreciate support experiences that are both instantaneous and always-on, they also have a strong preference for customer service that can assist them at the local level. Mobile shoppers, for example, often seek information on product availability at their closest store based on their phone’s GPS location.

When mobile shoppers contact customer support, it’s important for both automated and human service agents to be equipped with local store data in order to respond to local-specific inquiries. Channels such as Apple Messages for Business and Google’s Business Messages helps consumers find and engage with your business on a local level. Consumers discover businesses through Google, Siri, or Map results daily with searches like “Tuxedo rental near me”. These channels now offer a convenient way for consumers to initiate a conversation with a location near them via messaging.

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5. Increased Mobile Interactions Lead to Further Customer Insight

Through additional interactions and touch points from mobile devices, brands are enabled to build more detailed and personalized customer profiles to reference. Through customer inputs like mobile numbers and location data, eCommerce brands can create a foundation for more tailored, future engagements. Analyzing a mobile shopper’s purchase history, for example, can inform timely offers in the future to reinforce customer loyalty.

The Most Versatile Platform for Mobile Shopping Customer Service

With its numerous impacts on customer service, there is little doubt that the accelerated pace of mobile shopping will continue to transform the support sector. Adapting to these changes, however, provide significant opportunities for businesses to forge stronger relationships with their customers and build stronger businesses.

Is your brand looking to modernize your customer service experience? Contact us today to learn how to provide diverse and personalized customer service for mobile shoppers.

Business Messages from Google: What it Means for eCommerce and How to Get Started

Google announced the expansion of Business Messages to their Search and Maps products in June of 2020. With this change consumers are provided the option to message brands directly and ask for the information they are looking for when searching for a business on Google. Quiq has learned a lot about how consumers engage with Business Messages. Read on or reach out to learn more.

The Impact of Google’s Business Messages on Customer Experience

First, this opportunity provides a new channel for consumers to connect with brands through their preferred conversational format. According to a recent Twilio study, nine out of ten consumers said they prefer to use messaging when communicating with brands. By automating Business Messages on Google, brands have the opportunity to reroute a significant volume of inbound inquiries through a channel consumers prefer — self-service messaging.

Additionally, brands that automate Business Messages through Google Search and Maps provide their customers a superior customer support experience that is capable of delivering immediate answers and feedback, 24/7. By being available for customers with immediate, around-the-clock support, retailers are able to drive customer loyalty while simultaneously rerouting support issues from call centers to a new, self-service channel.

Retail and eCommerce Use Cases for Messaging Consumers Through Google

Combining intelligent AI and Google Business Messages provides clear value to eCommerce retailers through three primary use cases:

1. Resolving Customer Support Inquiries for Local Business Locations

First, brands are now empowered to deliver automated customer support to shoppers looking for information from a specific, local business location.

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For example, when a customer based in San Antonio searches for their favorite local grocery with the keywords “GroceryBrand San Antonio” they will be provided an option to start a Business Messages conversation with that specific store. With an intelligent automation solution, brands are then empowered to provide customers with specific answers and information related to individual locations. Questions like “what time does your store close?”, “Do you have this particular product in stock?”, or “What is this location’s COVID policy?” can now be answered in a way that is instantaneous, always-on, and without support from a call center.

2. Implementing a First Line of Defense for General Support Inquiries

Brands are also now empowered to position automated support through Google’s Business Messages as their first line of defense for all customer inquiries ⁠— not just questions related to an individual business location. For example, a shopper that has an inquiry about a product that they purchased online is now able to search for the brand that they purchased it from, start a Business Messages dialogue with that brand, and get the answers they need in an entirely self-service manner.

3. Driving Leads and Sales Through Conversational Commerce

In addition to driving efficiencies in customer service, automated conversations through Google’s Business Messages also empower brands to support sales and drive incremental revenue through consultative shopping assistance.

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For example, when shopping for a new vacuum cleaner online, customers can search for their favorite brand name on Google, open a messaging dialogue through Business Messages, and ask a question like “What vacuum should I buy for my hardwood floor?” By combining Google’s Business Messages with automation, brands can then provide a series of consultative questions and answers to understand the shoppers’ preferences and direct them to their ideal product for purchase.

What to Look for When Evaluating Partners to Help Get Started With Google’s Business Messages

While retailers may be eager to deploy a new messaging channel through Google, it is important for them to be prepared with the right tools and tactics to automate the sudden influx of customer inquiries that it will yield.

But what are the important things to look for while evaluating automation solutions? When our enterprise partners describe what has enabled them to be successful, we often hear that messaging partners must be able to:

  • Deploy highly-personalized AI-powered conversations

    Modern consumers demand personalization in their online shopping experiences and interactions with AI-powered digital assistants are no different. A recent Gartner report found that brands that deploy personalized messaging can expect a 16% greater impact on commercial outcomes than retailers who deploy basic automation that is incapable of personalizing their experiences.

  • Deliver actionable insights that empower every team

    When engaging in thousands of automated conversations with customers, eCommerce retailers generate a significant amount of customer data that has limitless potential and value for their various teams. Without the assistance of an experienced automation partner, however, this valuable data and insight simply goes to waste. By partnering with an enterprise-tier partner, like Quiq, retailers can ensure that they are properly gathering consumer insights through conversational automation and are able to synthesize that information into practical insights for different teams across the entire organization.

  • Provide hands-on support through a team of award-winning automation experts

    Conversational automation is a complex undertaking for any enterprise business and hands-on support is vital for ensuring its success. An effective automation solution is the result of a collaboration between internal teams and a proven, experienced team of conversational experts that can consult on strategy, integration, conversational design, and ongoing optimization.

Ultimately, while Google’s Business Messages provides online retailers a significant opportunity to connect with their customers more, it has to be deployed in the right way to leverage its full capability and avoid common pitfalls and complications. If you are interested in learning more about getting started with deploying automated messaging through Google, please schedule a free consultation with one of our conversational experts today.

Instagram’s New Messenger API – What It Is And How Your Business Can Use It

During their annual F8 Refresh conference, Facebook announced the Messenger API for Instagram has exited beta and is now available to all businesses looking to forge deeper relationships with their customers through scalable, 1:1 conversations.

The new API enables consumer brands to scale automated conversations within Instagram Direct Messages and presents a strategic opportunity to deliver premium customer experiences on one of today’s most popular social networks.

Common Uses

  • Send and receive text, media, stories, etc.
  • Retrieve conversation history from the IG business inbox.
  • Respond to public comments with private messages.

The API is open to all businesses. Prior to this release, brands handled customer conversations in one of two ways: either by  interacting with consumers on Instagram directly or using Facebook’s unified business inbox. Not surprisingly, these options were limited by how they can be used and what a business can do with them.

The Messenger API can be integrated into any third-party application used to manage customer communications including social media management platforms like Hootsuite or Sprinklr, CRM applications like Salesforce or Oracle, and messaging platforms like Quiq.

According to Techcrunch the Messenger API will be available in a phased approach. Phase 1 will allow business accounts with 10,000 to 100,000 followers to connect to the API first. In July (Phase 2) Facebook will connect accounts with 100,000 – 1 million followers. Future updates will include all other accounts by the end of the year.

Before getting started with the new Messenger API, a brand must have access to the following:

  • An Instagram Business Account or Instagram Creator Account
  • A Facebook page connected to that account
  • A Facebook developer account that can perform tasks on that page
  • A registered Facebook app with basic settings configured

Generally, brands that work with Quiq have an Instagram account and Facebook page set up. Our team of knowledgeable conversation experts will handle the developer page and Facebook app setup for you.

How Businesses Use Instagram’s New Messenger API

Facebook reports that 500 million accounts visit Instagram’s stories daily and 130 million Instagram accounts tap on a shopping post to learn more about products every month. Given the widespread adoption of Instagram and more specifically, the engagement with shopping and product-specific posts, brands must develop a messaging strategy that includes Instagram in order to compete.

Here are four ways to get started with the new Messenger API:

1. Engagement: How To Start Conversations on Instagram

Perhaps one of the most important new features of Messenger’s API support for Instagram is the ability for  customers and brands to initiate automated conversations through various entry points on the platform.

Customers can start conversations with businesses through the brand’s Instagram profile page.

Instagram Stories have also been enhanced to provide an additional opportunity for brands to initiate automated 1:1 conversations with customers.

Customers browsing Instagram Shops can also start conversations with brands when they have product or shopping-related inquiries.

Consumer brands can now initiate 1:1 conversations with shoppers who leave questions and comments on brands’ posts.

By integrating Messenger’s API Support for Instagram with highly-intelligent conversational automation, businesses can initiate conversations at each of these entry points and deliver highly-personalized messaging experiences — entirely at scale.

2. Consideration: Addressing Product Questions and Concerns

After driving shoppers to 1:1 conversations on Instagram, brands can leverage conversational automation to provide answers and responses to customers’ frequently asked questions.

By addressing customer inquiries directly within Instagram, brands can further ensure a comprehensive online shopping experience without ever leaving the platform

3. Purchase: Helping Shoppers Find the Right Products 

Consumer businesses can also use automated conversations within Instagram to help drive shoppers to purchase.

By leveraging Messenger’s API support for Instagram, brands can provide shoppers with guided shopping experiences that deliver highly-personalized product suggestions based on their conversational inputs.

4. Care: Seamless Order Management and Support

Lastly, after making a purchase, customers can leverage conversations within Instagram to get post-purchase order updates and more.

Through this experience, shoppers can receive immediate responses to their current order status and more.

Try Instagram’s New Messaging API Yourself

Before you dive into deploying Instagram Messaging, you may want to experience it for yourself. Original Coast Clothing (OC) is a fictional clothing brand created for the purposes of showcasing Instagram’s features.

Try it now by searching for Original Coast Clothing on Instagram. You can initiate a conversation by tapping the “message” button. This demo should serve as inspiration for brands looking to deliver a great customer experience using both automation and live agents.

Getting Started with the New Messenger API for Instagram

As the new API exits beta and becomes widely available to consumer brands, many businesses are eager to get started using it to provide highly-personalized and scalable customer experiences on Instagram.

Learn how to deliver scalable customer experiences on one of today’s most popular channels: Instagram.

Introducing Quiq Translate

Key Takeaways

  • Quiq Translate automatically translates incoming messages from customers into the agent’s preferred language and outgoing agent replies into the customer’s language, while preserving the original text.
  • The system works across many messaging channels (SMS, web chat, social messaging, etc.) and supports over 100 languages out of the box.
  • The platform detects a customer’s language automatically and then uses agent-configured supported languages to decide when to translate. Agents can also manually set or override language choices. 
  • Both original and translated messages are stored in conversation transcripts, and agents/managers can view both versions to ensure nothing is “lost in translation.”

We’re excited to announce the launch of Quiq Translate, a new feature that translates multi-language exchanges between customers and agents. With Quiq’s language translation services Quiq Messaging is enhanced to support the automatic translation of incoming and outgoing messages in a conversation.

Quiq’s digital conversation platform drives operational excellence in digital customer support and service with features that teams can use to manage and measure cross-channel messaging in a single intuitive workspace. With Quiq Translate, companies can translate over 100 languages making messaging even more accessible and convenient.

Why Translation Matters To Your Business

For many companies, providing service and support In their customers’ preferred language can seem daunting. How do you communicate in multiple languages and provide excellent customer service without hiring a native customer support agent for every language out there? Let’s start with another question – why should you?

There are a lot of great reasons our clients use Quiq Translate, not the least of which is making support more accessible to the people they serve. Let’s discuss a few of the more common driving factors that make multilingual customer support key for businesses to provide positive customer experiences. The kind of experiences that build trust and loyalty.

  • Your company’s growth

Customers become more linguistically diverse as businesses gain international buyers, or expand to new markets. As your company expands, you’ll need to remain sensitive to your customers’ needs. A global company with operations or offices in many different countries, has to communicate in multiple languages to provide excellent customer service. But the need to offer support in a customers’ native language isn’t just for big multinational companies. Even if you’re doing business in the US, the changing market requires multilingual customer service and support.

  • Changing demographics 

Every year, the U.S. Census asks survey recipients if they speak a language other than English at home. If the respondent answers “yes”, they are then asked “How well does this person speak English?”. Any answer other than “Very well” defines the respondent as Limited English Proficient (LEP).

Of the total US population, LEP individuals now account for about 9%. The consumer buying power of Limited-English proficient populations will continue to show considerable growth. Hispanic and Asian-American populations alone represent 70% of LEP consumers in the United States, and providing excellent language services means not missing out on the opportunity to connect with and serve new markets.

  • Security

Interacting with customers means highly sensitive data can be shared during the support interaction. When engaging with Limited-English speaking customers, companies may give agents the freedom to use free online translation tools, this can leave the door open to data leaks and not give the organization full view of the engagement.

<>If you think you need to hire agents with language specific skills, customer service interpreters, or professional translators, think again. It’s possible to enable fast, cost effective translation services with Quiq Translate to deliver superb customer service.

Translating Your Digital Conversations With Quiq

Agents specify which languages they can handle. The language of the conversation is detected based upon the customer’s message. If the agent doesn’t speak the customer’s language, incoming messages are automatically translated. The agent can still see the translated message and the original untranslated message.

Outgoing messages from the agent are automatically translated, so customers receive responses in their preferred language. Both the original and translated messages are stored as part of the saved message transcript.

Better Agent and Customer Experiences

Working as a customer service representative can be challenging, especially when managing multiple customer queries and claims. One of the most compelling reasons our clients choose to shift to digital channels is that asynchron

ous engagement makes it easy for agents to handle multiple conversations at one time.

A boost in productivity is just one advantage that messaging has over other methods like phone calls and emails. Add to that the absence of noisy environments that make it difficult to carry on a phone conversation, the ability for the customer to pick back up on a conversation when it’s convenient for them, and automation features like chatbots that make routing, queuing, and self service faster and more accurate and you see why messaging makes for good communication.

But language barriers can get in the way of good communication. Providing your teams with the right tools will enable them to better handle customer requests and keep them motivated. The benefits for support teams are both quantitative

, with less calls and substantial time saved, as they are qualitative: the dialogue with customers is also improved.

More Languages, One Workflow

Quiq Translate is a native feature of Quiq Messaging and available on all messaging channels. Messages are automatically translated in over 100 languages across the most popular digital messaging channels, including SMS/text, Apple Messages for Business, Google Business Messages, webchat, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

Quiq Messaging Administrators have the ability to enable or disable the Quiq Translate feature with a quick toggle in the Admin UI. Once enabled, agents can set their preferred language, which is the language messages will be translated to. Quiq automatically detects the customers’ language or agents can manually select the customer’s preferred language, or the customer can select and set their preferred language from a list.

Once preferred languages are selected, Quiq Translate does the rest. For example, an agent has their preferred languages set to English. If they accept a conversation and the messages are in Spanish, Quiq Translate will automatically translate Spanish messages to English for the agent and any English responses will be translated to Spanish when the customer receives it.

The agent can view all messages as they were originally sent. The ability to toggle between the original message as it was written by the customer and the translated messages ensures that nothing, quite literally gets lost in translation.The conversation history can be viewed by agents, and managers within the systems they already use. Our platform integrates with the CS tools you already use such as Salesforce, Zendesk, Oracle Service Cloud, and Shopify, so you can get started quickly. Or simply use our APIs to build custom integrations for what you need.

The City Of Knoxville, Quiq Translate In Action

The City of Knoxville, which has been piloting the technology, said that Spanish speakers are one of the fastest growing groups in the Knoxville area. The City is eager that its services reach this population, many of whom prefer mobile devices and text and messaging as their preferred method of communication.

“We’re trying to reach people where they are and speak to them in the language they’re most comfortable with,” Russ Jensen, director of the 311 Center for Service Innovation, said. “We want them to feel safe asking for help.”

The City has been working closely with Quiq for nearly a year. In April 2020, they launched a Covid-19 chatbot to help residents get important information related to Covid-19, such as a symptom checker, or to access services such as food banks.

Knoxville’s 211 service now has a chatbot available in English and Spanish with more languages on the way. Carter Hall, with the City of Knoxville, says that Rundia, an East African language is next.

Ready For Multilingual Customer Service and Support?

The world is getting smaller and more connected, and businesses are growing on a global scale. Language can no longer be a barrier to this. You can easily deliver exceptional customer service regardless of your customers’ preferred language with the help of Quiq’s Messaging Platform and Quiq Translation.

Schedule some time to speak with one of our conversation experts to learn how you can serve more consumers in their preferred language using Quiq Translate.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is Quiq Translate?

Quiq Translate is a built-in feature that automatically translates customer and agent messages in real time, allowing seamless multilingual conversations without the need for external translation tools.

How does automatic translation work in Quiq?

When a customer sends a message, Quiq detects their language and translates it into the agent’s preferred language. The agent’s reply is then automatically translated back into the customer’s language before being delivered.

Which languages does Quiq Translate support?

Quiq Translate supports over 100 languages across messaging channels like SMS, web chat, WhatsApp, and social platforms. This ensures consistent communication regardless of the customer’s preferred channel or language.

Can agents control or override translations?

Yes. Agents can view both the original and translated text, and they can manually set or adjust the customer’s language preferences at any time during the conversation.

Is the original text preserved for records or audits?

Absolutely. Both the original and translated versions of every message are stored in the conversation transcript, ensuring full transparency and context for quality assurance and compliance reviews.

Why is built-in translation valuable for customer service teams?

It removes language barriers instantly, shortens resolution times, and allows support teams to help global customers without relying on external translators or language-specific agents.

What Your Customers Think About Using Customer Service Chatbots

Chatbots have become very popular because they save time and resources by automating customer support services. Bots are often used to address common customer inquiries, allowing human agents to focus on solving more complex problems.

We’ve seen our share of bots go to work within organizations. There’s a long list of companies that have been able to lift productivity, boost customer retention, increase customer referrals, and facilitate a better overall experience for their customer.

With all these benefits, there’s still an important question that might be nagging you. What do your customer’s think about using bots in their interactions with you? Read on and find out.

What do consumers think about chatbots?

Before we dive in, let’s consider the knowns.

  1. Consumers hate to wait

In a survey of “more than 2,500 consumers, nearly 60% of respondents believe that one minute is too long to be on hold,” PRWeb reports. “In addition, 32.3% of consumers believe that customer service departments should be answering immediately—with no hold time.”

  1. Customer experience is more important than ever

Not only do 80% of customers believe that the experience a company provides is as important as its products and services, according to Salesforce research. more than two-thirds (67%) say their standard of what defines a good experience has been raised. With 76% of consumers and business buyers saying that it’s easier than ever to take their business elsewhere, the pressure is on for organizations to get the customer experience right.

Chatbots aren’t the silver bullet to correcting any and all service issues, but they can complement the support experience. Chatbots often act as the front line, giving customers a quick friendly greeting and providing answers to common questions — fast. And because we know that #1 holds, whether we’re talking about waiting in line for coffee, or waiting in a queue for support, it’s important that companies respond to customers quickly.

  1. Most consumers have already interacted with a bot

Voice of customer (VoC) platform Usabilla released a report showing that humans love AI and chatbots.The company surveyed 1,000 US consumers in August 2018 who used customer service options such as FAQs, chatbots, or automated options that allowed them to completely avoid human interaction for a customer service issue.

Nearly three out of four (70%) respondents said that they have used chatbots already, and of those who have not, 60 percent said that they would feel comfortable doing so.

All of these findings back what everyone already instinctively knows. Consumers want real-time interactions, and chatbots deliver. According to research, the majority (86%) of consumers would choose getting an answer from a chatbot over filling out a form on your website.

Why Consumers Like Using Chatbots

According to ZDNet, 54% of consumers would always choose a chatbot over a human customer service rep if it saved them 10 minutes. There are three simple reasons why consumers like using chatbots:

  • Always On

Chatbots don’t need coffee breaks, holidays off, or long weekends. Chatbots are the always-on extension of your contact center. Customers like that they can get some support no matter when they need it, even if it’s outside of your normal business hours.

  • Fast Responses

Unlike human agents, chatbots can access information with greater speed and consistency. Consider how quickly a bot can look up an order and provide a customer with a tracking number. Even transferring the customer’s conversation, either to another bot or to a human agent, happens with a lot less frustration and friction from the customer’s end than, say, being placed on hold during a phone call.

  • Convenient Access

With so much time spent on their phones, consumers appreciate how easy it is to engage with and respond to a chatbot on mobile messaging. Customers get the help they need, when they want, and wherever they prefer. Rich messaging experiences, such as those provided by Apple Messages for Business and Google’s Business Messages are examples of how bots can present options to schedule appointments, add products to a shopping cart, or look up order information. These experiences are beautifully-designed, media-rich, and offer simple touch targets for customers to engage on-the-go.

How Consumers Use Chatbots

Chatbots are on the company front lines in a wide-range of industries. Research shows that there are even some transactions that the majority of consumers expect to do without any human interaction.

Things such as scheduling appointments, receiving order status, updating personal information, and getting updates on recent transactions are common customer inquiries easily handled by bots. But, chatbots aren’t just for common, redundant tasks.

In the Forrester Webinar “How to Successfully Deploy Messaging and Bots In Your Business,” we heard from two very different companies using messaging and bots. Devlin O’Neill discussed how Lululemon is using bots to help retail customers find the right product, while Thomas Crawford from the Mortgage Center spoke about helping homeowners refinance.

As stated above, consumers are becoming more comfortable with chatbots. The reason is clear – whether it’s getting a product recommendation, promotion, or a reminder that their credit union can refinance their home, consumers want to get the information they need fast. If they feel like a solution gets them information more quickly and allows them to achieve a goal (like getting a better mortgage rate), they’re more likely to engage with it and feel satisfied with that interaction.

Redefine Support With A Chatbot In Your Organization

When the experience is done right, consumers love engaging with bots. Your customers will expect to find your bots to be quick, easy, informative, friendly, and dare we say, sometimes a little fun.

Quiq’s digital engagement platform enables you to design and deploy bots across your entire organization on all of the channels your customers want to use. Any combination of native Quiq customer service chatbots, bots developed in third-party bot platforms and human agents can participate in a conversation. Schedule some time with a conversation expert to see how bots can go to work for you and your customers.

Pella Resolves Pane Points with Messaging

Pella Corporation is a leading designer and manufacturer of window and doors.  Pella has over 7,000 team members, 17 manufacturing locations, and more than 200 showrooms across the country. Pella supports every step of the customer’s journey, from design to installation, and support after the sale. Pella’s unique advantage is that they distribute where their customers want to buy, through exclusive Pella distributors and custom builders, to big box retailers like Lowe’s.

Pella is committed to exceeding customer expectations, and that includes customer support. Pella recognized that strong sales growth directly impacted the need to scale their contact center. The company turned to Quiq’s Messaging platform to achieve efficiencies such as a 98% faster resolution time with messaging vs. email.

Pella Rolls Out Customer Support Messaging

Pella's shift to customer service messagingPella partnered with Quiq to implement messaging and went live with the platform in January of 2020 within the corporate contact center. The plan was to start with a subset of their customers and agents, build something and then learn from it.

The first Rollouts included:

  1. Messaging support for Pella’s National Account Sales Reps, who service some of Pella’s largest B2B customers like Lowe’s.
  2. The company chose four phone agents to go live with the messaging channel.
  3. The agents were provided with 2 hours of hands-on training and then allowed to spend time practicing with the system.
  4. Pella sent out a communication to their sales reps to promote the channel explaining how the new messaging channel worked and when it would be available.
  5. Regional Managers were invited to a virtual meeting to unveil the new channel and were excited about this new support channel.

The Pella team was impressed with how smoothly the launch was executed and chose to expand the launch to include an Order Status chat bot that would handle any requests for Order status. This bot supports the sales reps and B2B customers as well.

  • Pella designed the order status bot, which includes an integration with Pella’s order system
  • The bot is also able to seamlessly hand off any conversation that goes beyond order status or requires further research to a group of contact center agents.
  • With the help of the Quiq team, Pella was able to deploy the new bot quickly and effectively.

Flattening the Contact Center Growth Curve

Adoption began almost immediately. Volume quickly ramped up as many of the sales reps became early and eager advocates for messaging, sharing their experience with colleagues. Both agents and reps love the ability to share screen shots, gifs, and links within their conversations to quickly exchange information. Today, the entire National Account Support team takes conversations from sales reps. Agents typically handle up to 3 simultaneous messages at a time with the average conversation lasting 5 minutes.

Prior to the implementation of messaging, the contact center received thousands of phone calls and emails from sales reps. Since implementing SMS, at least 15% of phone calls have been deflected to the messaging channel.

Messaging helps sales reps get the information they need faster, making in-home meetings with customers more efficient. Now resolving something over text takes an average time of 8 mins on SMS vs. emails that could sit in a reps inbox, and were averaging over 7hrs, for resolution. The 98% faster response time is paying off.

In one example, a customer wanted to know if they could have windows that matched their existing trim while meeting with a Pella sales rep in their home. The rep was able to snap a picture of the trim and text the question and photo to an agent. Within 20 seconds the agent sent a picture of three trim options that would work. Because the customer immediately received the information they needed, the sales rep was able to close the sale that day.

“Agents prefer messaging over talking on the phone. Over the phone, if there are 10 seconds of silence while you’re looking up something in the system, it feels like an eternity. When you’re texting, the communication is asynchronous, so the messaging agents feel less stressed and hurried, yet they’re faster than the phone agents.”

~ Traci Scott, Pella

Pella’s Order Status Bot

With a successful implementation of SMS under their belt, the Pella team decided to automate some of their conversations with the help of a Quiq bot. The company rolled out an order status bot in May of 2019, integrating it with their order system.

The integration of Pella’s messaging bot with the company’s order system enables B2B customers and sales reps to simply type in the order number to receive an instant, real-time status of the order. Since launching the bot in May, customers have been able to quickly receive status updates without the need to speak to an agent. When a human agent needs to intervene, it is easy for the conversation to get transferred to one of the two agents who support order status inquiries.

What’s Next at Pella For Customer Messaging

Although COVID-19 changed the order of Pella’s project roadmap and drastically shortened the implementation time, messaging remains a priority for several use cases throughout the customer’s experience. The results achieved from messaging and chatbots for the National Account Sales Reps has Pella anxious to get started on the next project.

Pella sees no shortage of opportunities to help their B2B and B2C customers with messaging. Pella also sees the potential for a bot to do outbound appointment reminders.

Messaging has helped the company craft a digital customer experience that is faster and more convenient for customers and more efficient for the company. A clear win for everyone.

About Quiq

Quiq is ready to help your company gain efficiencies within your contact center. Schedule a call or contact us to discuss how Quiq’s messaging platform and bots can work throughout your organization to streamline workflows, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction.

How Chatbots for Customer Experience Deliver Results

Chatbots deliver results across a variety of industries. From retail to travel, chatbots are there to help improve the customer experience, acting as the always-on, always-ready assistants your customers want.

Consumers are interacting with chatbots for customer experience more often, even if they don’t know they are engaging with a chatbot. Read our infographic below to discover why 80% of businesses will utilize some form of chatbot automation by 2020.

Chatbots deliver results for customer experience and beyond

What Are AI-Powered Chatbots?

AI chatbots are automated systems designed to hold simple conversations with consumers and leads. They’re often used for live chat on websites, ready to help answer questions for shoppers who are browsing.

Chatbots are programmable, meaning that online retailers can rely on them to address questions on specific topics when no representatives are available. They can respond directly to certain keywords and questions, and their speed is ideal for consumers who may be in a hurry to receive an answer before they decide to buy a product. While bots are often less useful for complex or customer-specific queries, they can generate valuable resources and responses to more basic questions within seconds.

Today, chatbots are commonly used to help retailers save time and provide immediate answers to consumers. They can appear as pop-ups on websites, in SMS messages, and more. Thanks to their speed and convenience, they play a major part in enhancing the overall customer experience.

Who Uses AI Chatbots?

Artificial intelligence chat options can benefit a wide range of industries, from retailers to banks to dating websites. Retailers and financial institutions use chatbots as a way to communicate with leads and existing customers without requiring a live representative for every interaction.

One minute can make the difference between a successful transaction and a lost lead. Chatbots are useful for product and service providers who want to increase the likelihood that shoppers will buy. A bot can simulate human conversation, increasing trust between the consumer and retailer in a cost-effective way. This solution can integrate smoothly with any website management strategy, convincing customers to stay on the website longer.

Chatbots have become more mainstream in customer service as retailers start to rely more on mobile solutions and personalized messages. Phone calls and emails can be a hassle, and the wait times can drive away leads. Chatbots eliminate these wait times while making life easier for both agents and consumers.

Why Use Chatbots to Deliver Results?

Chatbots offer an easy, personal way to interact with shoppers. They’re less tedious than using real-life agents for basic questions, and they reduce the time it takes to handle customer demands. Quiq chatbots deliver a variety of results at once and provide many other benefits for retail and financial websites.

1. Chatbots Help Engage Customers

  • From the moment someone visits your site, logs onto your app, or connects with your social media page, a chatbot can be there to start the conversation.
  • 57% of consumers are interested in getting real-time answers from bots on a company website1.
  • Chatbots can guide customers where they need to go, based on feedback, browsing history, and other personalized variables. Bots continually learn from interactions and use the information to get better at helping agents and consumers.
  • Available 24/7 and across a variety of platforms, consumers can connect with your brand whenever they want, using the messaging channels they already know and use.

2. Chatbots Improve Customer Service

  • 95% of consumers believe customer service is going to be the major beneficiary of chatbots2.
  • Chatbots can open support tickets, answer questions, collect feedback, and point customers toward helpful resources quickly and efficiently.
  • Bots are only as good as their programming but good bot interactions escalate to human agents if they get stuck in conversations.
  • Chatbots can route customers to the right customer service agent, while providing the agent with useful customer information.
  • Chatbots are predicted to handle 85% of customer service interactions by 20203.
  • Setting up a chatbot platform is a cost-effective way to relieve human agents of simple, repetitive tasks, and increase efficiency.
  • Chatbot automation could save businesses an estimated $8 billion a year5.

3. Chatbots Increase Conversions

  • Chatbots can monitor conversations in real-time and analyze the available data to suggest products to human agents. 47% of customers would buy items suggested from a chatbot4.
  • Set rules for your chatbot to recognize keywords such as “buy” or “purchaase” to prioritize customers who may need help with a transaction.
  • Chatbots can present dates and times for customers to schedule appointments and reservations that customers can book with a tap of a button.

How Chatbots Can Be Used in Your Business

If an industry leader is looking to reduce agent workload or find ways to increase sales, customer experience chatbots could make a massive difference. AI-powered bots help retailers in all sectors stay competitive by saving time and providing valuable information that consumers can count on.

Automated systems generate responses faster than a human behind a computer or phone screen, and they can serve multiple customers at a time. It’s easy to program chatbots to answer certain types of questions and provide answers on a variety of topics. You can also use them to prioritize shoppers in need and reserve more complex issues for real-life experts. Quiq platforms allow businesses to integrate both chatbots and personalized messaging for the optimal customer experience.

Quiq: Your Messaging and Bot Solution

Customers are knocking. Are you going to answer? Quiq has the leading asynchronous platform to enable customers to connect with companies across today’s most popular business messaging channels. You know them. SMS/Text Messaging, Web Chat, Apple Business Chat, Google Rich Business Messaging, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter Direct Message, to name a few.

Let Quiq help you incorporate native and third-party bots into any part of the customer conversation to streamline your workflow and deliver results. Contact Quiq for a demo today by visiting www.quiqstaging.wpengine.com.

Customer Service Tips: Facebook Messenger for Business

We can all agree that the advent of social media forever changed how consumers engage with companies. Over a relatively short time, consumers gained access to public platforms on which to voice their thoughts and opinions. With this newfound megaphone, consumers’ opinions, once constrained to their close friends and family, can now reach the eyes and ears of the world. In the best of cases, consumers promote and propel a new company or service to success, and in the worst, consumers damage a brand’s reputation for years.

The discussion about whether or not to offer customer support over social media has been debated inside the walls of every organization. Social media as a customer support channel has become fairly standard. Major brands aren’t just adopting social customer service; they’re making it a priority. Did you know that 67% of companies believe social customer service is the most pressing short-term priority for the contact center (Forrester)? This is largely due to the fact that over two-thirds of customers who contact a company on social media, do so for customer service (J.D. Power).

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The Benefits of Using Facebook Messenger

Facebook marketers can take advantage of a wide range of opportunities when they use Messenger to facilitate communication with consumers. Social media marketing with Messenger offers several benefits.

  • Improve Customer Accessibility: Statistics indicate that about 2.7 billion people use Facebook regularly. This creates a fantastic opportunity to use messenger chatbots and agents for brand-building and customer support. As long as someone has a Facebook account, they can easily reach service representatives at any time.
  • Build Trust With Customers: Consumers like having the option to contact businesses through messaging platforms. If a support representative is willing to engage in honest conversations and listen to customer needs, those customers will be more likely to trust the brand in the future.
  • Answer Questions Quickly: While phone and email communication can be slow and tedious, instant messaging can help consumers receive the answers they need much faster. Messenger bots can provide answers to simple inquiries within seconds, which helps save both time and money over the long term.
  • Increase Purchase Intent: In some cases, the only thing stopping a consumer from making a purchase is a lack of information. If they can find that information easily, they’re often more likely to buy. Facebook IQ marketing solutions help businesses connect with shoppers on a more personal level. While it’s easy to get a consumer’s attention, keeping their attention takes a little more time and effort from customer support.

Tips for Using Facebook Messenger for Business

With Facebook’s continued investment in Messenger, which allows customers to engage with companies via private messages, the question is no longer about whether customer service should be offered on social platforms like Facebook, but how to offer this type of social support most successfully. While some companies are cautious when it comes to using Facebook Messenger for business, consumers are actively seeking help on this channel.

Consumers want to message companies how and whenever they want, and companies must figure out how to best handle this latest consumer expectation. How should a company prepare to launch Facebook Messenger as a customer support channel? Here are eight tips to consider:

1. Be Responsive

The first thing to prepare for is the customer’s expectation for a quick response.

To give you an idea of what to shoot for, let’s dive into a business Facebook Page. Have you ever seen the Very responsive to messages badge? This badge shows which Pages respond quickly and consistently to private messages. To get the badge, a page must have both a response rate of 90% and a response time of 15 minutes or less, consistently over seven days. Even if this badge isn’t a goal for your business, it does provide insight into what “responsive” means in 2017.

Also, know that customers want 24/7 support—issues don’t stop happening on nights and weekends. A study from Convince & Convert found that among those respondents who have attempted to contact a brand, product, or company through social media for customer support, 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.

That’s a tall order! But adding messaging actually makes your customer support team more efficient.  Not only that, you will see a shift from inbound phone calls to messaging, a significantly less expensive channel. Be sure to respond quickly to your customers over messaging, just as you do with your other channels.

2. Understand Customers Control the Cadence

There are many reasons a customer may engage a business via Messenger:

  • tracking a shipping date,
  • having trouble logging in,
  • checking the status of a return,
  • pre-purchase questions, or
  • trying to resolve an issue.

Helping customers on their preferred channel, in their preferred time frame, can give customer support CSAT scores a boost. But to communicate on Messenger effectively, businesses need to understand the difference in cadence with this channel.

With all other channels (phone, email, web chat) the company is able to control some or most of the interaction speed. Using Messenger for business, and messaging in general, is different. Customers control the pace of the conversation, not the company. Because customers will message a business just like they do a friend, they will expect companies to respond similarly. If the customer is active and highly engaged, messaging quickly, they will expect your agents to follow suit.  However, if they constantly shift gears and thus the pace of the interaction because life gets in the way, they will expect you to adjust as well.

Customers should have no question about how to contact Facebook Messenger support for your business—sending the first message should be all it takes to get the ball rolling. Make sure to enlist a solution that helps agents easily and efficiently manage the flow and cadence of conversations. Look for a multi-conversational interface that proactively prompts agents on how to effectively handle multiple messaging conversations simultaneously, all at the pace of each customer

3. Offer More Than Facebook Messenger Support

In addition to being a great customer service solution, Messenger can also be a powerful pre-sales resource. A potential customer perusing your Facebook page, may not want to ask a question on your wall because it is such a public forum. Messenger is an avenue for potential customers to ask questions privately while they’re considering making a purchase. Giving customers a high-touch and responsive experience can provide them just what they need to pull the trigger on a purchase.

Make sure agents are ready to answer questions, provide suggestions, and guide customers through their purchase experience without being too pushy. Customers will be turned off if they feel they’re being pressured, but appreciate thoughtful suggestions to help them along their purchase decision path. Providing an effective Facebook Messenger support system is a great way to provide users with the support they’re looking for via their preferred communication channels.

4. Choose the Right Agents

Just as Facebook Messenger is frictionless for the customer to use, because your agents are also customers, they too are already comfortable with the channel.

It takes someone thoughtful in their communications to handle the art of responding on behalf of your organization over social media. Most companies have a healthy fear of social media channels such as Facebook, and although more private, this is still something to consider when using Messenger as a support channel. Make sure agents are well-versed in social support and receive coaching before setting them loose.

That said, a messaging solution can also be a fantastic training solution, if the technology allows behind the scenes coaching and collaboration. Managers can watch a conversation unfold or be available to help an agent in the background, without the customer knowing. And, with the correct system in place, an agent can transfer the conversation to their coach, or a manager can easily jump in take over a conversation if needed.

When the right agents, with good social media judgment, are in place, you can give them the power to get it all right with technology.

Those that contact Facebook Messenger support for your business should have a seamless experience, from initial contact to conclusion. When the right agents—and good social media judgment—are in place, Messenger can be an effective way to improve customer outreach and support.

5. Take Advantage of Multimedia

As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words”, so goes customer support! Facebook Messenger is a rich, multimedia-capable channel that includes emojis, images, videos, and stickers. Customers send their friends and family photos to help explain things more easily, so give them the opportunity to interact with customer support in the same way.

Agents should feel prepared and comfortable to send and receive images and videos to help them get to the bottom of an issue.  The ability to use images and emojis, coupled with text shortcuts or snippets, can shorten the interaction time, solving the issue faster and at a higher satisfaction level. Set agents up with a stockpile of relevant media, or give them the ability to snap photos and video on the fly to handle common issues.

Also, don’t overlook the personalized touch of using emojis! Tactfully using emojis or stickers in messages is an easy way to infuse personality and emotion into support interactions.

6. Manage Expectations

Diving headfirst into a new Facebook Messenger marketing strategy can be a major risk, especially when a retailer implements new technology. Setting realistic goals is an essential part of the process to ensure customer service agents can stay up to date and collect valuable feedback. Without proper expectation management, retailers are likely to overextend their budgets and resources, which can lead to losses.

Messenger communication requires marketers to develop a plan, a proper ad campaign, and a unique voice. There are many factors to consider, such as automated solutions and Facebook Messenger’s range of features, which can all have an effect on overall performance and success.

Facebook Messenger marketers may set up automated messages for common questions that shoppers ask. They may want to create a detailed management plan for their messages and customer interactions. These can be achieved over time with the proper tactics and resources in place.

It’s important for retailers to establish realistic expectations for Facebook marketing strategies and set accommodating goals. By creating small goals and reaching for them one at a time, industry leaders can transition to new strategies without running into as many delays.

7. Establish a Protocol for Messages

The debate of which department should own social media has occurred since Facebook’s inception. By now your company likely has a process for addressing inbound support inquiries, product comments, customer posts, and outbound social engagement on your Facebook page, and whether it’s the role of customer service or marketing to jump in depending on the situation.

Many, if not most, inbound messages you receive in Messenger will be support or pre-sale inquiries. Make sure to work closely with marketing to establish a protocol that ensures timely, knowledgeable responses by the right people. Or opt to have customer support own the Messenger platform all together!

8. Launch This New Channel

After Messenger is enabled, make sure customers can find you. Of course, your customers will be able to send you a message by clicking the “Send Message” button that’s now on your page. But it’s important to also make sure your business page username (indicated with the @ symbol before it), is also set. This will help customers find your business on both Facebook and the stand-alone Messenger app.


Another option is to use Messenger Links, which use a Page’s username with the URL (m.me/username) that, when clicked, opens a direct conversation with your business in Messenger. Simply add your username to the end of the m.me/ to create your Link.

Ever wondered what those crazy blue circles were that you keep seeing in Messenger? These are Messenger Codes, which work similarly to Messenger Links, but users scan the code using a phone camera to open a new message.

Take Advantage of Facebook Messaging

In a world of Facebook posts, instant messages, and chatbots, embracing the latest technology is the best way to build retail or eCommerce success. Millions of people send messages and scroll through Facebook every day using their mobile phones. This opens up the opportunity to reach consumers at any time from almost any location.

Quiq offers messaging software and automated solutions that retailers use to enhance customer service and social media strategies. For more information about Messenger chatbots or live messaging options, contact Quiq and request a demo today.

Best Practices for Implementing Messaging for Customer Service

It has been established that messaging is the highest rated contact method for customer satisfaction compared to all other communication channels. (eWeek).  However, like other service channels, messaging comes with a unique set of considerations when implementing it into your customer service centers.  This is why it is important to do a little prep work to help ensure successful adoption.  Three things to consider for a smooth implementation:

  1. Business Metrics and Goals
  2. Staffing and Training  
  3. Customer Adoption

Business Messaging Best Practices

Since most consumers communicate via phone and text, industry leaders are finding new ways to adapt by using high-quality messaging apps and software. Business messaging for customer service is a quick and convenient way to interact with customers in today’s competitive market. These four messaging best practices can help businesses transition smoothly to text communication.

1. Business Metrics and Goals

Aligning your goals for the messaging channel with your business objectives is the first step.  Make sure that there is alignment with all stakeholders.  Everyone should know why the company is offering messaging and the intended outcomes.  The best way to do this is to establish goals and baseline metrics from the beginning.  Some key goals and metrics would include:

Business Metric:  Cost Reduction

  • Goal 1: Offload phone calls to messaging channel
  • Goal 2: Increase agent productivity
  • Metrics: Monthly calls received, monthly calls presented to the agent, cost per contact per channel, # of inquiries per channel

Once the messaging channel is opened up to your customers, there will be a progressive transition from phone calls to messaging, typically in the 10-20% range to start, growing over time. Not only that, agents that work the messaging channel will be able to handle multiple conversations at once versus phone calls that must be 1-1. We have found, depending on the complexity of the inquiries, agents can handle approximately 10 simultaneous conversations. With the ability to include images and videos over messaging, agents can understand and solve problems faster. This increased agent productivity and efficiency, coupled with the shift from phone to messaging, results in significant cost savings for your organization.

Business Metric: Employee Productivity

  • Goal 3: Improve time to resolution
  • Metrics: Number incidents handled by day by agent, first contact resolution rate, time to first response

The pure nature of messaging can allow for faster interactions. They may not always be shorter per se, due to the pace the consumer engages, however the time it takes for the agent will likely be shorter than a phone call. Conversations are direct and to the point.  Because agents can easily manage multiple, simultaneous conversations, they are more productive than if they have to handle phone calls or emails. With the addition of images/video agents can understand and solve problems faster. Likewise, agents can send multi-media back to the customer allowing them to see the solution

Business Metric: Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)

  • Goal 4: Increase CSAT by 5 points
  • Metrics: Customer satisfaction survey results, employee satisfaction results, resolution rate

The consumer is one of the most important factors for business representatives to consider when they implement new marketing or communication strategies. Research suggests that about 96% of Americans own a mobile phone, which means mobile can be a reliable way to stay in touch with customers. What matters most is that those consumers are satisfied after each purchase. A business can determine customer satisfaction by using the results of a CSAT score.

Retailers can use messaging apps and unified communications solutions to evaluate customer value perception. This may include taking surveys and performing check-ins with consumers post-purchase. It’s possible to build up a CSAT score and find areas of improvement by collecting feedback from customers about push notifications and instant messages. With access to this essential data, business leaders can work toward solutions that allow them to provide the best possible customer experience. A retailer leader can also measure CSAT scores by surveying the satisfaction of service agents.

2. Staffing and Training

Staffing for a new channel like messaging is not as daunting as it seems. A great start is to gauge your current call volume. You can generally expect 10-20% of customers will select messaging over making a phone call once you make it known that it is available.  One popular option is to assign a set of agents to a single “live” channel, such as messaging, and then supplement their time with email. Some other best practices include:

  • Messaging Etiquette:  If you are using phone agents to now be messaging agents, be sure to test their writing skills. Depending on the demographics of your customer base, agents may need to adjust their voice to be more or less formal.  Additionally, their style of writing may require proper language use, which includes spelling and grammar, or they may need to freshen up on their texting shortcuts. Not only that, it may be wise to also consider a policy for emoji usage. The decision should be driven by the desired voice and persona of your brand.
  • Staff Training: There is not much training required at all for agents to step in and handle the incoming messages, particularly if you select a messaging solution that seamless integrates into your existing CRM solution. We all text multiple times a day and this is no different. Something to focus on instead are any pre-built messages that can be sent and having a small library of those available to leverage. For example, a standard greeting, response to an order status inquiry can be written ahead of time as pre-built snippets. Agents can then use shortcuts to quickly respond to common questions.
  • Access to other applications – Generally you will have the choice to integrate messaging into the primary application agents use or add messaging as a separate channel. Either way, be sure to take advantage of the messaging solution’s user interface. Quickly integrating one or more applications will save agents invaluable steps and time. For example, if agents need to access an order system or billing system or a knowledge base for nearly every interaction, make sure those are integrated into the messaging interface to eliminate clicks and save time.

3. Ensure Customer Adoption With Unified Communications

Finally, and most importantly, you need to let your customers know that messaging is now available. Some great ways to start are:

Inbound Communications

  • Phone
    • Inform customers as they are actively engaging with your organization
    • It is easy to let customers know they can now text or message your customer service team while they are on hold or as an intro message before routing them to the appropriate queue.
    • Even better, you can give customers the option, while they are in the IVR, to initiate a text instead to resolve their inquiry.
  • Website/In-Apps
    • Place the offer to message first and foremost on your mobile site, not just on the contact page.
    • Add the text button to both the Contact Us and Customer Service areas of your website.
    • On the main website, update any references to your phone number to include “Call or Text”.
  • Social Channels
    • You are likely ahead of your competition when it comes to adopting messaging, so promote this new offering on your social channels
    • Turn on Facebook Messenger and let customers know they can reach you with questions

Outbound Communications

  • SMS: The obvious first step is to determine if you would like to proactively communicate via SMS with your customers in addition to offering messaging as a support channel. If so, this is a fantastic opportunity to shift from marketing blasts to conversations with your customers.
  • Email: Many of our clients share the adoption of messaging as a way to engage with customers through their outbound email communications by including it in a newsletter or other promotion
  • Press Release: Many brands pride themselves on being innovative and leading their competition, so promoting this publically to demonstrate their commitment to the customer experience sets them apart
  • Direct Mail: Depending on your demographic, a messaging announcement can be included on a planned flyer
  • Registration: When customers sign up, register, or provide their personal information to you, ask them for their mobile phone number and tell them they can now be identified in the case they have any issues or questions and want to message your company. If you plan to use it for outbound communications, be clear to state that and of course, follow the CSAM and other opt-in/out requirements.

4. Monitor Results and Improve Accordingly

Developing a communication system is all about increasing customer value. The best way to enhance a business strategy is to monitor and use results properly. Constant improvement is the key to success in a market that relies on personalized customer experiences. Effective monitoring and analysis help customer service agents gain experience, and they can offer the tools necessary to improve cost management.
Providing consumers with post-purchase updates, alerts, technical support, and special offerings is easier than ever with the help of instant message platforms. Business improvement starts with gathering data and then using the results of these new strategies to make productive updates and changes. With this method, retailers can determine which aspects of their plans work and which ones have more room for development.

Consider these three tips as you explore instant message platforms.

  • Track Your Metrics: Industry leaders may use several metrics to measure the success of their messaging strategies. For example, the work time metric helps evaluate the amount of time that agents are spending with consumers and how long it takes for those consumers to receive answers to their questions. Other metrics to track include Net Promoter Score (NPS), upselling and cross-selling rates, and Revenue Per Customer (RPC). Keeping a record of these metrics from each month throughout the year will help customer service teams gather comprehensive, reliable data.
  • Share Results With Your Team: Analyzing information and making improvements is a massive team effort. Sharing results with the team and collaborating on solutions can be a valuable and insightful way to make decisions based on a set of information. It allows agents to consider new ideas and discuss key takeaways of the relevant trends. In addition, it can help customer service representatives understand their own strengths and weaknesses. This gives them the power to think more critically about how they can improve their services via message and phone.
  • Make Changes Based On Trends: The next step in the process is to create a plan with tangible goals. After they collect and analyze the information, it’s the responsibility of industry leaders to use this information productively. Creating a plan based on data from a communication platform allows industry leaders to improve efficiency, the timing of messages, agent performance, and presentation of information.

Get Started With Business Messaging

As you can see, once you establish your goals, the rest can fall into place rather seamlessly. Your team and your customers will truly appreciate the ability to communicate via this new channel.

In this series, we have talked about how important messaging is, how to select the best messaging vendor for you, and what to do when you are ready to implement – and we have enjoyed every minute of it!  SMS, text, Facebook Messenger, and chat…we love it and live it.  We have made our careers in helping drive improvements to customer service and the customer experience. Let us help you successfully add Messaging to your organization.

Text Messaging for Government: How to Connect With Citizens

It’s more than just reporting potholes. Cities are transforming through the use of 311 by providing citizens with information on anything and everything – from where they can take defensive driving, to when the library on Main Street opens, to getting building permits. When citizens need non-emergency government information, 311 is quickly becoming where they turn. Since its inception, 311 has evolved with technological advances into a multi-channel service that connects citizens with their government, while also providing a wealth of data that improves how cities are run.

Cities are now thinking about 311 as if citizens are customers, and doing a lot of the same things you see innovators in the private sector doing today. Ideas that embrace user-centered design and improved customer experience are becoming a focal point of local government’s strategy.

As a growing number of businesses recognize the ubiquitous nature of messaging, municipalities are asking themselves how they can adopt text messaging as a means to provide better service to their constituents.

Text messaging is surfacing as a clear way to better service by:

  • Reducing wait times for citizens to reach advocates within the 311 call center,
  • Facilitating more effective connections by enabling the ability to instantly collaborate with the right department staff, and
  • Permitting citizens to send pictures, links, and videos to better communicate their concerns

The need for text messaging for government

These are lofty goals to pursue considering the constraints that most 311 departments operate under. If you’re like most 311 departments, you’re running pretty thin and have to do more with less. According to research conducted by the City of Minneapolis, cities that have over 600,000 citizens are fielding an average of 24,150 calls per agent/advocate per year, or close to 70 calls a day. What this all boils down to is when budget cuts occur and service levels spike, everyone suffers.

Before 311, routing phone calls and emails to the right department (hopefully) was the only way to connect with a municipality. There was a lack of consistency, coordination, and citizen focus when handling requests for information and services. Now with 311, citizens have a central place to get the help they need, but the challenge now lies with managing the volume of calls, and delivering a consistently high-quality citizen experience at a good value to taxpayers.

This is the driving force for many municipalities to look at text messaging for government departments as a means to hand large call volumes at a fraction of the cost. As a larger number of people become more comfortable with text messaging as a primary method of communications, both public and private sector organizations will need to adjust.

Improving Citizen Satisfaction through Messaging

Naturally, today’s citizens want to be able to interact with government from their phones ortablets, wherever and whenever they want. Quiq can help you deliver consistently high-quality information and service regardless of the communication channel.

Public sector clients clearly see how Quiq Messaging delivers major improvements to 311 operations:

Greater responsiveness

Accessibility through SMS/Text, Facebook Messenger,  and Web Chat means that citizens are able to submit inquiries or request services using their preferred channel. The ability to attach pictures and links to conversations, a feature most smartphone users are comfortable with in any of these channels, makes each message more effective and helps municipalities understand the issue more clearly and therefore respond more quickly and appropriately.

Agents are able to handle multiple sessions at once, so several customers can be served by one advocate. Solutions like email and phone calls, which can only be handled 1-on-1, typically result in wait times, voicemails, back and forths, and abandoned calls.  With Quiq Messaging, 311 advocates can be working six or more simultaneous text conversations, resolving citizen inquiries faster and more effectively than ever.

Increased transparency

Earning trust and the favorable opinion of citizens can support a strong future for a city. Increased transparency and better communication helps achieve those goals. Cities with improved communications that deliver exceptional customer service attracts more residents, visitors, and businesses because people recognize that the city is responsive and makes customer experience a priority.

Governments can increase transparency and open the lines of communication with Quiq Messaging. Municipalities can send outbound messages to alert neighborhoods of shutoffs to repair water lines or car owners to use off street parking as city plows prepare for winter storms. Citizens can also be alerted of community events, which bolster the local economy by encouraging businesses and citizens to partake.

Providing citizens with the ability to communicate with local government through platforms they already use like text messaging, Facebook and Kik empowers citizens to easily file a report whenever they spot a problem. Collectively, the data that citizens submit through these platforms create a citywide sensing network that gives city officials transparency to where resources need to be deployed.

Reduced time and cost per inquiry

In 2011, it cost taxpayers in the city of Minneapolis $9.15 for each 311 report. Every broken spotlight reported and question about permits and licenses carried the same burden. As labor and benefit costs continue to increase, the price tag to request government services through 311 have escalated.

One of the biggest hurdles many municipalities face is the cost to run a 311 call center. Staffing 311 call centers with well trained agents increases the cost per contact. These agents, however, can still only handle one call at a time. Deflecting calls to messaging means that costs drop dramatically to pennies per call as text messaging is a far cheaper communication channel and agents are able to handle multiple calls at once.

Employing text messaging has the possibility to touch every dimension of government—from emergency response to public health, and from policing to disability services. Leveraging this technology today can help build a stronger community tomorrow.

Quiq Messaging can help you reduce costs, facilitate more effective customer service by reducing the time to connect with the customer, and enable instant collaboration with the right department staff. Request a demo to see how easily your municipality can implement Quiq messaging.

Update citizens with alerts

It’s important for citizens to stay up to date about what happens in their communities. With a single mass text comprised of a few words, government representatives can send notifications to thousands of people at one time. This standardizes communication and minimizes delays, allowing citizens to access the information they need quickly, right from their mobile devices.

For example, citizens may need to be notified right away about city-related schedule changes and public safety issues. Municipalities can make sure their citizens receive accurate information in a timely manner with the help of SMS texts. Common alerts used by governments may include:

  • Street parking information: If there are any street parking adjustments due to law changes, street cleanings, construction, or other significant events, a quick SMS message can keep nearby residents informed. Municipalities may also provide information on local road closures and detours.
  • Severe weather information: Incoming snowstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and thunderstorms can delay travel and pose safety risks. Weather alerts and preparation directories help people stay up to date in case of emergencies.
  • Public safety issues: Quiq SMS messaging solutions allow government agencies to alert citizens of potential public safety issues immediately. Instead of having to turn on the television or check online, residents can simply look at their phone notifications for the answers they need.

Support safety net programs

SMS marketing solutions for governments help agents reach out to residents about local and federal safety net programs. Citizens who may have specific financial or healthcare needs can register to have details sent directly to their mobile devices.

For example, SMS and MMS marketing can extend to SnapFresh benefits. If someone uses food stamps to put meals on the table each month, a quick message can make them aware of nearby stores that accept food stamps. This is an easy way for residents to access affordable grocery items without having to go from store to store looking for support.

Government agencies can also send messages regarding low-income healthcare programs such as Medicaid. This support helps residents learn more about affordable healthcare, and it’s easier to stay in touch with these citizens throughout the year using SMS messaging platforms. SMS text communication benefits the local community while saving time for agents who may have other responsibilities.

Answer Citizen Queries With Quiq

Thanks to Quiq technology, government agencies can gather contact lists and send out mass text messages to the public without having to waste time or resources. Municipality residents deserve to have the information they need at their fingertips, and engagement is easier than ever with the help of SMS communication, social media messaging, app messaging, and live chat. Messaging solutions empower both support representatives and citizens to communicate and develop more beneficial relationships.

Quiq offers a platform designed to appeal to municipality and government communication requirements. For more information, contact us today.

Apple Business Chat MSP (Messaging Service Provider): How to Get Started

Key Takeaways

  • Apple Messages lets customers initiate messaging with businesses directly via Maps, Safari, Search, Siri, or within apps, and enables richer interactions like scheduling, browsing product catalogs, and secure transactions.
  • To use Apple Messages, companies must partner with an Apple-approved Messaging Service Provider (MSP) or Customer Service Platform (CSP) that can route, queue, and manage asynchronous conversations across channels.
  • The MSP/CSP must support features like intent recognition, multi-channel messaging, analytics, and CRM integration to meet Apple’s approval criteria.
  • Quiq is an approved MSP/CSP for Apple Messages, offering integration support, agent tooling, and cross-channel messaging so that businesses can adopt the channel more easily.

Today’s smartphones and tablets offer new opportunities for brands to connect with consumers traveling through the buying journey. Customers researching a business on their iPhones or iPads have the option of contacting a business through the messages icon that appears in map and search results. Apple Business Chat facilitates these messaging conversations.

Apple Business Chat software allows customers to use a familiar text messaging interface and receive richer responses compared to in-person interactions. For example, employee representatives can offer to schedule appointments, share product listings, and collect feedback. The ability to complete transactions securely through RCS messaging is another advantage of Apple Business Chat.

To start using Apple Business Chat, businesses must first register with Apple and partner with an approved Messaging Service Provider (MSP).

What is an Apple Business Chat Messaging Service Provider (MSP)?

A Messaging Service Provider (MSP) manages customer message routing between Apple Business Chat and the business. Think of a MSP as an intermediary that allows a customer service team to respond efficiently from their desktops to what customers send from their iOS Messaging apps.

Apple lays out several requirements for messaging platforms if they are to become approved MSP’s. A platform needs to demonstrate it can identify customer intent from messages and queue, prioritize, and route the customer to the right members of a customer support team. The platform must also support asynchronous messaging channels other than Business Chat, and its team must offer resources to help clients become launch-ready for Apple’s rich messaging service.

There are other Apple guidelines to qualify for MSP approval, but perhaps most important is a platform’s ability to manage and monitor multiple channels while collecting customer metrics. Quiq has holistic features that classify interactions and route messages to support agents, integrate with CRM solutions, and organize a complete customer history within the UI.

Why Deploy Apple Business Chat?

Apple Business Chat makes it easy for consumers to initiate a conversation with a company when searching for a business through Maps, Safari, Search or Siri or even in the businesses’ own app. Business Chat allows consumers to ask a question about a product or service, or complete a transaction using Apple Pay. With Apple Business Chat it’s easier to reach a live person and consumers are always in control of whether they share any contact information with a business.

“The things that make text messaging the most popular communication channel with family and friends also make it the preferred medium for customers to engage with companies,” said Mike Myer, CEO and Founder of Quiq. “Adding support for Apple Business Chat allows connected customers to engage with businesses in a way that is personal, frictionless, and easy, using the Messages app on iOS. Companies using Quiq will simply have access to a new messaging channel within the Quiq Messaging platform.”

Today, consumers prefer business messaging over any other form of communication to engage with businesses and a lot of companies have had to sit up and take notice. As mobile browsing and chat interactions continue to grow and overtake traditional channels business messaging, especially through rich communication services like Apple Business Chat has quickly become more than a nice-to-have for companies.

What you need to get started with Apple Business Chat

To get your company started with Apple Business Chat, Apple requires businesses to set up a Business Chat Account, but before they do so, they should follow these steps to ensure a smooth approval process with Apple.

First, your company should outline the business need to support starting a Business Chat Account. This should provide a very clear explanation for why you want to enable Business Chat for your customers as well as outlining a process for how to identify and authenticate customers within Business Chat. If this sounds a little technical, it’s because it is, which is why it is essential (and required) to have an Apple Business Chat Messaging Service Provider (MSP).

There are very specific requirements for the type of account your business will choose to enable with Apple and applications are reviewed carefully. To qualify for a Business Chat Account, you must have an asynchronous messaging platform staffed by live agents during business hours. An Apple Business Chat partner, like Quiq, can help navigate the process and requirements set by Apple to get started with setting up a Business Chat Account.

Quiq was one of the early Messaging Service Provider (MSP) to support Apple Business Chat, which is a new way for users to communicate directly with businesses using the native iOS Messages app on iPhone and iPad.

Once you have addressed the business need, outlined a plan to support inbound Apple Business Chat conversations, and selected an Apple Business Chat CSP, you’re ready to create a Business Chat Account.

As a part of getting your Business Chat Account submitted, your business will want to set up an internal testing account. This gives your business an opportunity to see and test Apple Business Chat internally prior to exposing it to your customers. At this point, you will need to have chosen an Apple Business Chat MSP, in order to proceed with testing. With your internal testing account, you’ll then be able to send and receive messages through your MSP. As an additional resource, Apple has provided a step-by-step guide to Getting Started with Business Chat.

Why Work With Quiq To Implement Apple Business Chat?

Apple recommends that businesses decide which approved MSP will connect their customers to their live agents while waiting for Business Chat Account approval. It’s a good time to get acquainted with Quiq’s capabilities with Apple Business Chat.

Quiq is built around asynchronous messaging, aligning with Apple’s platform requirements, and is an Apple-approved Customer Service Platform. With Quiq, you can seamlessly integrate with your internal system or choice of customer engagement software and offer rich media experiences through text messaging.

Quiq has helped many clients start utilizing the advantages that Apple Business Chat has to offer. Quiq representatives get to know each client’s goals, and a Quiq implementation specialist guides each client through the Business Chat registration process.

Quiq also provides the support clients need to branch out into other SMS, web, and social messaging channels. Our Conversational Customer Engagement Platform supports many customers’ preferred messaging channels. With Quiq, you can begin providing an enhanced customer experience with Apple Business Chat or another business messaging channel and manage cross-platform conversations easily.

Ready to get started?

Quiq makes it easy for customers to contact a business via Messaging, the preferred channel already in use with friends and family. In return, companies get a digital engagement platform to communicate with customers. Try it out yourself today with a free demo!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are Apple Messages?

Apple Messages is a messaging channel that allows customers to start conversations with businesses directly from native Apple apps like Messages, Maps, Safari, and Siri. It enables richer, more interactive customer experiences with features like product browsing, scheduling, and secure payments via Apple Pay.

Why do businesses need a Messaging Service Provider (MSP) or Customer Service Platform (CSP)?

Apple requires businesses to work with an approved MSP or CSP to use Business Chat. These providers handle the routing, queuing, and management of messages across channels, ensuring compliance with Apple’s standards and providing a smooth experience for both customers and agents.

What makes Quiq an approved provider for Apple Messages?

Quiq is an Apple-approved MSP and CSP that supports the technical and operational requirements for Apple Messages. Its platform includes intent recognition, automation, CRM integration, and analytics – making it easy for businesses to manage Apple conversations alongside other channels like SMS, WhatsApp, and web chat.

How do Apple Messages benefit customer service teams?

Apple Messages creates a seamless, branded experience for customers while giving agents access to advanced tools like canned responses, automation, and rich media sharing. It helps teams resolve inquiries faster and improves overall satisfaction through personalized, secure, and convenient communication.

How can a company get started with Apple Messages through Quiq?

Businesses can partner directly with Quiq to implement Apple Messages. The Quiq team helps handle Apple’s approval process, configure the technical setup, and train teams to manage the new channel effectively – all within the same messaging platform they already use.

5 Tips To Enhance eCommerce Customer Service

For many consumers, purchasing a product is about more than just the product itself. Consumer demands continually grow as they prefer faster and higher quality customer service from brands. That’s why many businesses today are choosing to implement a more effective online customer service experience strategy. eCommerce businesses are ramping up their digital customer service to make sure their customers keep coming back to them instead of exploring other options.

How to Improve Your eCommerce Customer Service Strategy

Online shoppers want instant replies and easy answers. eTailers that are catering to their customers in these ways will benefit from consistently refining their service, sales, and marketing communication strategies. Five common ways to improve eCommerce customer service include the use of the following communication channels and automation.

1. Text Messaging

Text messaging for customer service is fast and convenient making it easy for eCommerce companies to connect with consumers to assist in shopping cart conversions and follow-up with pertinent order information. This shopper-friendly channel allows consumers to be on-the-go, and in this busy world, text messaging has become the channel of choice for receiving information, solving problems, and answering urgent questions.

Consumers prefer text messaging because they are able to start the messaging conversation while on a mobile eCommerce site and finish them at their convenience while moving about in their normal life. Imagine an online shopper sending a message to a brand requesting help getting the details of their online shopping cart correct, but then needing to get on with their busy day.  The agent could build and confirm the order and send a link back to the consumer via SMS.  The consumer can then click the link that would send them to a secure mobile web page where they can confirm the contents of their shopping cart and complete the purchase securely.  

An asynchronous conversation like this allows for eCommerce businesses to move at the speed and cadence of their customers, making for better customer experiences and more modern shopping experiences.

2. Web Chat

When it comes to eCommerce and enabling customers with a fast and easy way to get in touch, web chat is the most obvious choice. Customers on your website may have a multitude of options for finding answers, like an FAQ page, sending an email, or calling, but none help customers as fast as the omnipresent option of web chat, typically presented in the lower right corner of your website. 

Online shoppers expect fast answers when they are adding items to their shopping cart or in the process of completing a purchase, similar to when they are shopping in-store.  Without web chat, customers may save their purchase for another day, or find what they are looking for elsewhere altogether. This is why the messaging channel is a critical part of any eCommerce website to ensure customers find what they are looking for and are being helped at every point in the customer journey, from product recommendations to purchase confirmations, and being available for any follow-up questions.  Never miss a chance to answer customer questions or assist in a sale.

3. Social Media Messaging

The market for customer conversations has grown beyond websites and call centers to include social media platforms, which is why more than 90% of businesses today have some form of social media presence. Consumers have not limited themselves to engaging with and conversing about brands to only in-person interactions and are now expressing themselves in more amplified ways across platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

eCommerce companies can engage with their customers across these social media platforms to build advocacy and highlight their brand in the broader marketplace.  These platforms offer more opportunities to connect with consumers in direct messages to answer questions and be a part of the conversation. Consumers are becoming increasingly agnostic to where they expect brands to provide support, and social media is an example of where conversations are happening and where brands need to ensure they are part of them.

4. Outbound Messaging

Online retailers reap huge rewards by keeping their customers in-the-know.  A prime example is regarding order status. Customers feel better when they know what to expect, like if their package may be late or even to hear it’s arriving early.  Never miss an opportunity to delight customers.

Outbound text messaging is an incredibly effective way to communicate with consumers, particularly if you consider they are reading texts at a rate of 98%. With this much attention being paid to text messages, it becomes an great opportunity to entice them with upcoming specials or promotional codes.

The best solutions don’t stop at just sending outbound messages.  Businesses should also enable 2-way conversations so consumers can respond and have agents or bots standing by to help answer any questions.

5. Chatbots

Retailers and eCommerce companies are increasingly leaning on the efficiency and cost savings that chatbots provide.  Chatbots are always available to answer pre- or post-sales questions, assist shoppers with their selections, provide order and shipping information, and answer common questions.  

Chatbots are truly revolutionizing eCommerce to encourage more sales and are becoming a key part of customer service strategies to improve customer satisfaction. Research indicates that the chatbot market will grow to 9.4 billion by 2024 at a growth rate of almost 30%, which means it’s predicted to become mainstream in the coming years.

Chatbots are increasingly important for companies with high volumes of traffic to be able to deflect questions that can be answered with an automated response, to resolve issues more quickly. This is critical in assisting agents and routing the most high-value conversations from consumers for extra-special customer care.

Contact Us for a Demo

You can improve eCommerce customer service for your business in a number of ways, from implementing business messaging software to including automation with bots into your customer service strategy. Whatever your company’s goals, Quiq is here to help you find the ultimate online customer service solution. Contact us today to request a demo.

3 Benefits of Instant Messaging Customer Service to Help Your Business

With the abundance of technology available to companies that promise to streamline processes, increase productivity, and reduce costs within the contact center, why do so many companies choose to invest in instant messaging customer service? The answer is simple. Instant messaging for customer service accomplishes all three of these things plus it’s easy to implement.

The main reason most companies turn to instant messaging for customer service is to provide their customers with a better experience, but there are other, less obvious, benefits that instant messaging provides. In this post, we’ll take a closer look at instant messaging for customer service and why more companies are turning to this method of communication to achieve more than better conversations with their customers.

What is Instant Messaging?

Instant messaging is a type of communication that allows two or more people to transfer text in real time over an internet or cellular connection. It’s a great way for shoppers and service representatives to correspond quickly with short, deliberate messages. Unlike other communication types, instant messaging apps help consumers receive answers in seconds without having to meet in person or speak over the phone.

At the turn of the century, people used instant messaging platforms such as AOL Instant Messaging (AOL) to transfer information. IM is the standard for casual communication everywhere today, although the practice has only been mainstream in public society since the 1990s.

Today’s technology lets people send shorter, more personal messages that are easy to read and digest. Also known as text messaging or business messaging, this mode of communication is quickly becoming the norm for sales teams and customer service agents.

The Benefits of Instant Messaging for Customer Service

The way we communicate has evolved and instant messaging has emerged at the top of the food chain. In fact, “4 out of 5 consumers send mobile messages at least daily, while nearly half also use Facebook Messenger and a further third use other messaging apps daily.” (Customer Preference for Messaging, Market Strategies International)

The high adoption of messaging makes it an obvious choice for consumers to reach businesses. Using instant messaging for customer service has been a no-brainer for consumers for a while. Customers who seek to use the same fast, easy, and convenient way to contact companies, as they use to contact family and friends, have been trying to engage via instant messaging for some time. Companies, while quickly adopting the practice, have taken longer to realize their customers preference for instant messaging. Here are three benefits of instant messaging for customer service to help your business that you should prompt you to act right away:

1. Streamline processes

Agent labor is the biggest expense for a contact center, therefore time efficiency is one of the biggest challenges. Requiring agents to do things like cut and paste information from one system to another, gather simple information before receiving a call, or answer basic questions that could be handled without the help of a live conversation, are tasks that can be avoided.

Quiq Messaging has features that help contact centers reduce “time wasters” such as these. Here are a few common scenarios you’ll find in a contact center and how instant messaging can streamline the processes:

  • Gathering basic information
    • Quiq’s web chat has the ability to present your customer with a short form to gather information like name, order number or email. Before the agent even accepts the call they are armed with information to search your internal database and gather valuable customer information. Quiq Messaging has the ability to integrate with a CRM system so that your agent can view customer information alongside the conversation with the customer to provide a better customer experience.
  • Answering common questions
    • Agents can avoid the task of repeatedly typing out your return policy or performing a copy/paste to share the terms of your guarantee. Commonly asked questions can be easily answered through pre-built snippets. This feature allows Quiq clients to store answers to frequently asked questions that agents can access with a few short keystrokes.
  • Scheduling an appointment
    • Quiq’s Messaging platform enables agents to automatically send a list of available time slots that customers can pick from with a quick tap. This feature saves our clients the tedious back and forth usually required when trying to coordinate things like delivery times or service appointments.
  • Understanding what the customer is trying to describe
    • Quiq clients have found that customers can easily send videos and images to better explain their issue since consumers are able to quickly take a photo, screenshot or video with their phone or tablet and attach during the conversation. This feature has helped reduce handle time since agents can see what the customers see and are better equipped to assist the customer to resolution.

2. Increase the productivity of your agents

In addition to streamlining processes that allow your agents to accomplish tasks more quickly, messaging enables your agents to do more tasks. No hocus pocus or smoke and mirrors here. The asynchronous nature of messaging is the magic ingredient to this boost in productivity.

Asynchronous means that your customers can communicate intermittently, as their time permits. It also means that they can shoot off a text to check on an order or schedule an appointment while they are at their kid’s soccer game without missing a single play.

The customer’s pause in conversations presents agents the opportunity to receive and respond to multiple conversations at one time, often handling 6-10 conversations at once, without sacrificing the customer’s experience. In fact, it enhances the customer’s experience because the customer is able to tick that “call” off of their to-do list without disrupting their day.

Instant messaging also enables more efficient team communication, as it allows agents to message back and forth when they need to relay important information. Instead of having to make dozens of phone calls or emails, they can reach each other in seconds with instant messaging systems.

3. Reduce costs

We’ve talked about two benefits of instant messaging for customer service that really focus on saving time within a contact center. The old adage “time is money” hasn’t stuck as a universal truism just because it’s short and catchy.

Phone calls can cost $3-4/call and as high as $12/call regardless of how simple or complex the customer’s question is. In contrast to expensive phone calls, where agents can only handle 1 call at a time, agents can handle multiple messaging conversations at once, reducing work time and costs within the contact center. Quiq clients have been able to reduce work time by at least 35% compared to using phone and email to answer the same customer inquiries.

4. Gain a cohesive instant messaging system

Instant messaging mobile apps and software programs provide a cohesive, streamlined way to reach a wider audience. Quiq supports SMS, online, and social media communication, and its messages allow retailers to update consumers across several different platforms.

Instant messaging is a great way to answer questions, send alerts, provide technical support, and schedule services using a single mode of communication. Messaging allows consumers to interact with retailers directly from their phones, and agents can reduce their workload with advanced technology.

Because it’s so fast and easy, team communication through instant messaging is more sustainable than traditional correspondence methods. Today’s consumers want answers immediately and they want to find them quickly. Mobile phone communication offers both convenience and speed, which makes it a scalable option for many retailers. It helps them meet more demands without forcing them to devote additional time and resources to interruptions. The process is simpler, and customer service representatives can automate certain responses for better service and efficiency.

5. Better serve consumers

People love having access to resources that deliver fast results, and that’s exactly what instant messaging provides. With message platforms, retailer agents can increase job performance and serve more shoppers at one time. The faster a customer receives the answer they’re looking for, the more likely they are to buy the product that catches their interest.

Consumers are fickle, and it’s important to find new ways to keep them engaged. With analytical insights and archive keeping, leaders can monitor performance and create more effective improvement plans. Instant messaging apps are also effective for helping retailers collect feedback on new strategies and policies. Surveys and post-purchase questions allow instant messaging service agents to determine customer satisfaction.

These platforms may also come with a variety of features such as multi-language support, group chat options, and automated bots. Instant messaging breaks down communication barriers between retailers and consumers while providing solutions that can generate accurate answers to simple questions within seconds.

Evolve the Way You Communicate With Consumers

Instant messaging has evolved into the preferred method of communication for consumers. This shift in consumer behavior means there’s an opportunity for companies to leverage this channel to streamline processes, improve agent productivity, and reduce costs.

A growing number of companies have realized these benefits within their contact center because they partnered with Quiq Messaging to better engage with their customers. If you’re ready to learn how you can realize these benefits, text or chat with us today.

See a Demo Today

Video: Shopify store – Conversational Commerce

Your customers are already using their cell phone, computer, or tablet to browse your Shopify store. Why not give them the mobile experience they’ve come to expect. Quiq Messaging makes pre-sales support and post-sales service fast, convenient, and easy. Help customers find and select products all within a messaging conversation.

Watch this short video to see how Shopify retailers can use messaging. From completing transactions to shipping notifications, to give their customers a seamless shopping experience. That’s the power of conversational commerce. Schedule a demo today to see how easy it is to integrate Quiq into your Shopify store.

The Future of Digital Channels for Business Messaging

A couple of years ago, we were focused on educating the market on messaging and if messaging was right for their company. Fast forward to today and we’re working with over 120 clients such as Overstock.com, Pier 1, and Brinks Home Security. These brands have improved customer interactions with connected conversations and they are setting a new standard for the customer experience.

Messaging will continue to shape the way companies and customers engage as a growing number of consumers expect companies to be available through multiple digital channels. New research reveals that 70% of consumers have communicated with a business over text messaging or webchat 2 or more times in the last month.

The accessibility of messaging has been the primary driver for consumers adopting text as a preferred method to contact a company. As we mentioned in our post “7 Reasons Why Customers Want to Text You”, 97% of smartphone owners regularly use text messaging, making it the most widely-used basic feature or app.

The proliferation of smartphones, tablets, apps, and social networking has brought us to our current reality, where consumers readily look for and expect messaging as an option to engage with a company. It’s the convenience, faster response, ease, and familiarity that makes these digital channels the preferred way to engage.

Download a complimentary copy of “The Future of Customer Conversations”. You’ll get a deeper look into consumer expectations around messaging and how your company can prepare to seize this opportunity.