Tag: text messaging

What Your Customers Think About Using Customer Service Chatbots

Posted on The Quiq Team

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.

How Business Messaging For Retail Delivers More Personal Service

Posted on The Quiq Team

Contactless payments, buy online pick up in store (BOPIS), and curbside pickup have become a big part of the acceleration of ecommerce brought about by COVID. Just because in-person interactions are becoming less of a thing doesn’t mean that personal service has to be. In fact, some might argue that consumers’ shift to online shopping should be more personal.

Take, for example, how consumers now behave and engage with brands on social media. Companies can not only sell directly on the social channels where consumers feel right at home, but consumers can share reviews and recommendations, consume multimedia content, and receive more personal recommendations based on previous purchase history.

Text messaging has come a long way from the character-limited days of SMS and retailers can use this channel to deliver jaw-dropping customer experiences. In this post, we’ll explore how retailers can use messaging to deliver a more personal experience.

Why Business Messaging for Retailers is Relevant

There’s been a sharp reduction in the number in-store interactions that consumers have with brands. Even before the pandemic, consumers were migrating online to save-time and expand their options.

According to McKinsey, high-income earners and millennials are leading the way in online spending across both essential and nonessential items. Gen X has experienced a similar online shift, although not at the same scale as millennials. Meanwhile, Gen Z has concentrated its shift online in particular categories: apparel and footwear, at-home entertainment, and food takeout/delivery. But the shift has been across every generational cohort.

According to the National Retail Federation Pre-COVID boomers “typically made less than half of their purchases online.”  Since this population has been more at risk during the pandemic they have accelerated adoption of technology like BOPIS and curbside pickup. Two thirds of this population say these services help improve their buying experience.

With more people working from home, online shopping has soared and consumers expect the store to come to them. “The crisis has prompted a surge of new activities, with an astonishing 75 percent of US consumers trying a new shopping behavior in response to economic pressures, store closings, and changing priorities” according to research.

The surge of online shopping means that companies have had to quickly adjust to digital engagement channels to help consumers through new buying behaviors. Now brands must invest quickly and aggressively to create enjoyable, memorable, and personalized experiences on these channels.


Now that mobile and online shopping is permanently ingrained into consumer’s shopping habits, retailers must consider digital experiences to be just as important as in-store experiences. Consumers’ ability to message a brand for pre-sales service or post-sales support is the equivalent of having friendly, knowledgeable associates on the floor and ready to serve the customer.

Messaging has helped brands like Overstock and lululemon keep up with the spike in online sales. Here are a few key ways retailers can use text messaging to deliver more personal service:

  • Ensure delivery of order status updates

Proactivity sending your customers updates on their order status is expected but sending these types of notifications through email misses the mark. With Quiq messaging you can push these time sensitive messages directly to your customers mobile devices. Messages can be sent individually or sent out to thousands of customers in no time from short or long codes. If customers have follow-up questions or want to place an order, they can simply reply and be connected to a bot or one of your employees.

  • Send trusted messages

Sending spammy messages from unknown phone numbers is something something brands should stop doing immediately. Quiq can provision your existing landline to send and receive messages. No random numbers here. Just the same 10 digit number that your customers use to call you.

Verified SMS, Apple Messages for Business, and Google’s Business Messages all provide the kind of next level branding that plain SMS doesn’t. Companies can send messages, loaded with logos, colors, and verification badges that signal to the consumer that the message is legit. If you want to make the experience more personal for your customer, make sure every touchpoint is trusted and secure, with your familiar branding.

  • Offering mobile personal styling services

Mobile engagement gives retailers room to really flex their creative muscles especially when it comes to providing personal styling and shopping services. To some, this concept might seem intimidating. How could you possibly offer customers the same attention and selection that they’d receive in store? The answer is – it’s not the same, but it can be better.

Imagine how much easier a digital personal shopping experience is when the consumer can quickly exchange product pictures back and forth. Overstock did exactly that and enabled their Customer Service Associates to help customers 24//7. Instead of a customer describing a style verbally, they could just send a screenshot of the space they are trying to fill. The two-way, conversational nature of texting allows designers to easily go back and forth with a customer, ask clarifying questions, add a personal touch and ultimately make a sale.

  • Share timely, targeted offers

Sharing information in a timely manner is what text messaging was made for. Text messaging allows you to quickly and easily send out alerts and promos to all opted-in shoppers.

Outbound notifications can be more than the transactional “your order has shipped” messages we’ve all come to know and love. Sending trusted, timely and relevant information to customers creates a stronger connection to your brand and a more personal experience for the customer.

Use messaging to target certain segments with info and promos that are specific to them. Want to send a special offer on cat litter to your feline loving customers – done. Need to notify everyone that ordered the new velvet throw that the matching accent pillows are back in stock – done. Unlike email, which has at best a 20%-ish open rate, text messaging has a 98% open rate, so you know your customers will get the message.

How To Use Business Messaging for Retail

There are so many different ways people can use smartphones today, including apps, email, music and social media. When it’s all said and done, text messaging is ubiquitous with 97% of smartphone owners using text messaging regularly, according to Pew Research’s most recent analysis of smartphone use. This remarkably high figure illustrates that basic communication remains a key driver of behavior even as the number and complexity of potential distractions increase.

This basic ability to connect with others is a driver as to why businesses of every size should look to leverage text messaging to communicate with their customers. For retailers, messaging has proven to be a highly reliable and personalized medium.

What’s more, messaging is ubiquitous across all platforms and mobile devices, allowing businesses to reach their customers. Even if your customer doesn’t have the latest device or if they’re using a basic prepaid handset they can still receive simple, timely SMS messages. These days, most customers are capable of receiving rich messages like Apple Messages for Business, and Google’s Business Messages—which deliver the kind of modern messaging experience that consumers have come to expect. Combine this with the fact that everyone carries their mobile device with them at all times (even to the point of sleeping with them), and you’ve got a recipe for success.

The market is ready for new brands to introduce messaging into their channel mix, but are you? If you need help with getting started Quiq is here to help. Contact us so that we can learn more about your business and how text messaging can help you provide more personal service.

Pella Resolves Pane Points with Messaging

Posted on The Quiq Team

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.

The Nature of Business Messaging

Posted on Lauren Winder

What makes messaging a unique channel and how should we optimize for it?

Messaging. It’s not chat. It’s not email. And it’s certainly not voice. Messaging is often dubbed an “asynchronous” channel, meaning that the two parties – in this case a customer and a business representative – don’t need to be simultaneously dedicated to their ongoing discourse. 

In this post, we’ll dive into the messaging channel and how to use this popular channel to boost productivity and customer satisfaction. But first, let’s set the foundation and revisit the difference between asynchronous and synchronous communication.

The Difference Between Asynchronous And Synchronous Channels 

Email is an asynchronous channel. It’s not necessary for the two parties to simultaneously read one anothers’ messages and craft responses – in fact that would be bad. When an email arrives at your business, it’s fine if it goes into a pile and doesn’t require real-time routing. 

Voice is the ultimate synchronous channel. The conversation must be routed directly to a live agent in real-time. The two parties are then wholly engrossed in the dialogue or tasks related to it. Web chat is mostly a synchronous channel, but it’s possible for agents to handle more than one conversation at a time. Here’s a diagram that shows how the traditional customer service channels fall on a spectrum of synchronicity: 

Synchronous and Asynchronous spectrum for different communication channels

Where should messaging fall on this diagram? Somewhere in the middle? Somewhere a bit to the left of email? Those are reasonable answers. However, the best answer is that each individual conversation can appear at different places on the spectrum. 

Even a single conversation will exhibit periods of increased synchronicity and increased asynchronicity. Sometimes it will behave more like web chat and sometimes it will behave more like email, based on the customer’s responsiveness. 


Don’t panic! This is a good thing. This is the convenience your customers crave and leads to higher customer satisfaction scores (CSAT). This is what allows your agents to support multiple customers concurrently. This is the magic of messaging. You just need to ensure you have the right solutions in place.

In the end, calling messaging “asynchronous” doesn’t seem to tell the whole story. Perhaps it should be called an adaptive channel. Other descriptors might include natural, organic, persistent, and self-paced. 

So what does it look like to properly handle this unique channel where customer interactions should sometimes consume a synchronous “session” with a business representative, but sometimes not, based on how synchronous the conversation is itself? 

Embrace Concurrency

The ability for agents to serve multiple customers at once is a big selling point for messaging. But it’s also a basic requirement of managing the channel. Imagine a system wherein agents receive one conversation at a time, similar to some web chat systems. 

If the customer texts in “Hi” and the agent responds with “Hi, how may I help you?,” but the customer does not immediately respond, the agent is now in a dilemma where she/he must decide how long is too long to wait for the customer’s response. It could be that the customer was interrupted and had to walk away for a bit, so they didn’t get a chance to respond. Or perhaps they’ll respond immediately. The longer the agent waits for an unresponsive customer, the longer other customers have to wait and the agent is not fully utilized.

The way to address this problem is to first allow agents to have a configurable number of concurrent sessions, such that the law of averages keeps conversations moving. The system should endeavor to route as many conversations as it can, spreading them across the available workforce. In this way, agents can help other customers while awaiting responses. 

All of this requires a real-time UI that automatically reacts to updates on any and all of the conversations assigned to an agent and it also necessitates some additional tools to enable the agent to manage their workload.

Monitor Customer Responsiveness

The next step is to use the customer’s responsiveness to determine if a conversation should be actively assigned to an agent and if so, how it should be prioritized amongst its peers. 

Let’s consider priority first. Obviously, any conversation awaiting a response from the agent should be prioritized above conversations that are awaiting a response from the customer. But among all of the conversations awaiting a response from the agent, how should we sort?  Prioritizing the conversation that’s been waiting the longest is an obvious solution, but can we do better? Imagine two customers interacting with your business:

  • Marcus – Sitting alone at a coffee shop checking with his bank on new car loans and fully engrossed on his mobile device
  • Sophie – Texting during breaks in her workday about new car loans

It doesn’t make sense to prioritize Sophie ahead of Marcus, even if she’s been waiting longer. Each customer has a different expectation of responsiveness from your business, based on their own urgency and needs. So conversations should be sorted with the customer’s recent responsiveness in mind. This is the thinking behind Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer feature which automatically prioritizes highly engaged customers higher than customers who aren’t as responsive. 

In addition to prioritizing an agent’s active workload, a customer’s lack of responsiveness should result in their session being forfeited, temporarily, for the benefit of other customers who are more active. 

Suppose a conversation was progressing rapidly and is clearly not concluded. The customer has gone dark for the last 30 minutes, perhaps because they stepped into a meeting. What should we do with this conversation? We can’t throw it away because we know it’s not done yet, but it’s wasteful if it continues to occupy an agent session and keep the agent from helping others.  

A messaging system needs to be able to pause such conversations, making room for other customers, while being ready to handle it immediately when the conversation comes back alive. Quiq’s product calls these “inactive” conversations. 

When an inactive conversation is reactivated by the customer, it should be routed to the same agent if possible. The possibility for inactive conversations to come back alive requires the system’s routing capabilities to understand the difference between an agent’s preferred degree of concurrency and their maximum load.

Mind the Messages

Embracing concurrency and monitoring customer responsiveness sets you up for success when tackling the fluctuating synchronicity of messaging. Further improvements come from the messages themselves. Messages, whether inbound from the customer or outbound from an agent, should be able to inform workflow. A simple example is automatically closing a conversation when a customer responds “No” when asked if they need further assistance. Another example is not making a conversation active when a customer responds with an ineffectual message such as “thanks”. Leveraging rich messaging and NLP to automate workflow are deep topics that merit their own articles—check out one I wrote here.

Mastering The Messaging Channel

At Quiq, we’ve been focused on mastering the messaging channel since 2015. Our system was purpose-built for the next generation of async customer communications. We believe that by using Quiq, messaging won’t be just another channel. It will be the channel preferred by both you and your customers. The nature of asynchronous messaging also allows you to serve more customers with the same number of agents, meeting the customer in the channel of their choosing and being respectful of their time and priorities.

Quiq makes it easy for your customers to contact your business via the messaging channel. Ready to put messaging to work for your contact center? Schedule some time to speak with one of our conversation experts today.

Author, Kyle McIntyre

kyle facebook messages customer support using Quiq

How Messaging Creates Seamless Credit Union Member Engagement

Posted on The Quiq Team

Prior to the pandemic, online and mobile banking already represented the primary banking channels for two third of Americans. As the pandemic forced branches to close, credit unions and consumers readily embraced more online banking options including chatbots to provide members with 24/7 automated service. 

Whether it is to help manage account transactions or process loan applications, everything has had to move online. In this post, we’ll show you how credit unions have quickly deployed technology to manage unexpected changes and better connect with members.

Follow The Technology Your Members Are Using

Every company out there has had to take a closer look at how they connect with their customers. Credit Unions have not been an exception. 

Buddy Bennett, COO at Cyprus Credit Union spoke about it during Quiq’s webinar entitled,  “Digital Member Connections That Are Seamless and Compliant”. Buddy recalls how his organization, which manages 1.3 billion in assets, examined how to better connect with their members as part of their strategic planning sessions for a number of years.

The 30 person contact center at Cyprus used to service its 119,000 members primarily through emails and phone calls. The organization wanted to make it easier for members to connect and get the help they need. 

The vision motivated Cyprus to look at text messaging and chat so they can meet members in the channels of communication in which they live. Consumer’s growing reliance on their cell phones and texting made messaging the more appealing option. As Buddy puts it “Really, we felt like to get to members and to be able to communicate with them, text was going to be the way to go.”

“Really, we felt like to get to members and to be able to communicate with them, text was going to be the way to go.”

The accounting group at Cyprus was one of the first groups to use messaging within the credit union. The department uses messaging to notify business members when checks over a certain amount have cleared. From there, the lending department started successfully using Quiq to reach out to members to follow up on loan applications and soon the collections department will use Quiq to notify members when payments are past due.

The credit union has since rolled out messaging to their contact center to manage inbound inquiries from members. Members and employees have welcomed the new channel with enthusiasm and Buddy says they’ve been surprised at the volume they’re seeing in the messaging channels.

Delivering a seamless and convenient customer experience was vital to the future success of credit unions before the onset of the pandemic. Now, there’s more of a spotlight on the vital importance of enabling members to conduct business at a time and place that is most convenient to the member. Messaging is the channel your members prefer that allows self-service to happen on their terms.

Seamless Member Engagements Starts with Simplifying The Experience For Agents

Black Hills Federal Credit Union manages 15 locations throughout South Dakota along with 1.5 billion in assets and 70,000 members. Even before the pandemic, the organization started to see challenges in their contact center which motivated the team to look at messaging.

John Buxton, SVP and CIO at Black Hills recalls how his organization started to see high abandonment rates and long wait times. As he recalls, “it just didn’t feel like we were maybe providing the service that we wanted to.”

Black Hills also wanted something that simplified the messaging channels for agents instead of a bunch of different systems that agents would have to navigate. When Black Hills went live with Quiq, agents were up and running after only 1 hour of training.

As far as agent adoption, John says, “It was very easy to get them involved because they have requests all the time from members – that’s how members want to communicate. And so they were excited to be able to use something that members want. It was literally just go through a power training and then start doing some testing between each other, texting back and forth….it was very quick for our agents to become familiar with it.” 

It didn’t take long for members to notice the change either. John recalls how surprised the team was when the credit union went live with messaging in their mortgage department. “As soon as we text enabled those phone numbers, and we hadn’t even trained our staff internally or announced it, we were receiving messages. Members were just instinctively thinking that they can text the credit union. They were texting the mortgage phone numbers that were on the website before we even trained our staff internally.” 

Black Hills started with messaging in the contact center, mortgage department, card services and are now moving it into their branches. The credit union has also integrated messaging into their IVR. If a member has been on hold for a certain amount of time, they are presented the option to have the conversation via text. 

The conversation is handed off to the messaging channel where it’s easy for the agent to respond. All conversations are handled in one intuitive workspace where agents can use features such as canned responses (also known as snippets), routing, transferring, and response timers to manage conversations. 

Gain Operational Efficiency Throughout Your Credit Union

If making it easier for your customers to do business with you and simplifying workflows so agents can deliver better members experiences isn’t enough, consider this. Messaging enables your credit union to gain operational efficiency and boost productivity, which is a win for everyone. 

For example, IH Mississippi Credit Union uses text messaging in multiple departments including the financial solutions department, the contact center, and within their retail team. The organization rolled out messaging in the financial solutions department first, using Quiq to send out messages to members who were delinquent or on the path to payment delinquency. 

Credit Union member texting representativeNormally, IH Mississippi would use email and phone calls to contact these members. This process was time-consuming and usually didn’t yield a high response rate. The team now uses messaging which has reduced processing time and boosted response rates.

The financial solution team pulls a report of members who are delinquent on payments or nearing delinquency. A CSV file is uploaded and text messages are sent to those members automatically. What used to be a time-consuming process now takes 5 minutes to execute.

The credit union has realized a higher response rate to these messages compared to those delivered through email or phone. Now, members can discreetly respond and let the credit union know when they will make their payment or simply say “Hey, I forgot, can you transfer the funds now?”

Messaging Will Continue To  Be Your Members Preferred Channel

Prior to the pandemic, there was already a high adoption rate of messaging among credit union members. Covid-19 pushed branches and members to adopt digital technology overnight. Your members will continue to seek safe, secure, and convenient ways to bank with you and messaging will continue to be a channel they expect to be available to them.

Quiq’s digital engagement platform is used by top brands and a list of credit unions that grows by the day. Our business messaging, web chat and bot technology helps credit unions deliver an amazing member experience. Before you develop the next phase of your self service strategy, schedule some time to meet with one of our conversation experts to discuss how messaging can go to work for your organization.

How to Use a Messaging Platform to Assist With Holiday Returns

Posted on luisa@webfx.com

As customers buy up clothes, collectibles, décor, toys, and appliances this holiday, some of these products will inevitably be returned after the season ends. In fact, a survey from 2019 showed that the majority of consumers were likely to return at least some of their holiday gifts. This trend leaves retailers with a massive number of returns, which is why refining the customer return process in preparation for the holidays is essential.

Using messaging platforms for returns is a convenient and economical way to manage more customers and provide fast service. Quiq provides messaging software with seamless integration and chatbot capabilities for retailers looking to streamline communication.

The Benefits of Using a Text Messaging Platform for Returns

Text messaging creates a more personalized customer experience. It also offers a way for agents to keep consumers informed by using a common communication channel. With a texting platform, retailers can:

  • Quickly provide support: Mobile technology allows people to access messages from anywhere at any time. Texting is personal, and it gives retailer representatives the ability to operate at a faster pace. It’s a better option for shoppers who are looking for immediate service.
  • Organize the returns process: With texting platforms, retailers can prioritize messages, create inboxes for separate topics, and monitor incoming inquiries. These capabilities make it easier to organize the returns process according to retail business specifications.
  • Reference order and customer information easily: While talking on the phone or speaking in person can be a hassle for both the consumer and the agent, SMS messaging allows you to access essential information in minutes.

How to Use Bots to Help Automate Holiday Returns

Advanced text messaging platforms allow retailers to improve their return processes with chatbots. Automated systems can now guide customers through the beginning steps of a return, and they can often operate much faster than human agents. Chatbots:

  • Address frequently asked questions: Chatbots generate fast responses to simple questions that a buyer might ask. For example, if someone asks how to make a return, a bot can get them started on the right track.
  • Automate obtaining order information: Automated messaging systems also collect order information, such as names and order numbers, from consumers. This process speeds up data gathering so that agents can focus on the more complex parts of the process.
  • Preview messages: With message previewing capabilities, bots can answer questions more quickly — much faster than a person can. The faster a buyer receives a reliable answer, the more satisfied they will be.
  • Have a past history log of interactions: Bots keep a record of past interactions with consumers, which helps retailers provide a more individualized approach to service. The history log gives retailers quick access to customer information, which simplifies the return process.

Facilitate Holiday Returns With Quiq

Modern technology improves returns processing for retailers in all sectors of the industry. If you’re looking for a way to expedite holiday returns this year, Quiq can provide a comprehensive messaging platform solution. For more information, contact Quiq for a demo.

Sending Customer Updates is Easiest With Text Messages

Posted on luisa@webfx.com

People use their mobile phones to work, play, text, and scroll every day. That’s why businesses use customer service text messages to stay in touch with customers. It’s a great way to increase loyalty and reach a wider audience. For industry leaders who are looking to enhance their customer service strategies, integrating SMS solutions is essential.

How Businesses Can Use Text Messaging for Customer Updates

The possibilities are nearly endless when it comes to implementing customer service text messages. Customer service agents can use SMS to interact with consumers in easier, more engaging ways with higher levels of satisfaction.

Asking for Feedback

The key to success is the willingness to grow and adapt. With this in mind, you can implement SMS messages for customer service by using them to gather feedback. Consumers like to feel heard, and they like to know that businesses respect their opinions. 

Asking for constructive feedback during and after service is a great way to connect with consumers and show an interest in their needs. This can help increase customer engagement and lead to company growth over time. Automated messaging solutions can expedite this process by helping companies reach customers and collect meaningful data more quickly.

Sending Business Updates

Text messaging is an excellent opportunity to send quick, convenient business updates, such as:

  • Shipping notifications: Text notifications can provide customers with shipping details and updates.
  • Billing reminders: Billing reminders help ensure consumers make payments on time and know when their funds have been withdrawn.
  • Promotions: Advertising discounts and new product updates are easier than ever with outbound messaging platforms.
  • Troubleshooting: Asynchronous troubleshooting allows customers to address issues and fix them quickly and at their convenience without having to talk on the phone.
  • Replacement product options: Representatives can give customers more options by sending product replacement opportunities via text.
  • Delivery updates: It’s easy to design brief automated texts that provide location, arrival time, and delay updates.
  • General business information: The business can send out information regarding products, business hours, company updates, and more.

The Benefits of Text Message Updates

Offering customer service updates through text message is a major part of staying competitive in retail and online markets. The benefits of SMS message updates include:

  • Improved customer experience: Selling products and services is about more than making the sale. It’s about engaging with customers and providing the high-quality experience they deserve. Text message is a more intimate and accessible form of communication that improves the experience for both consumers and customer support.
  • Increased customer loyalty: Happy consumers become loyal consumers. While one negative experience can sour a person’s experience, effective communication helps prevent misunderstandings and inspires the customer to keep coming back. Customer loyalty is great for business, and it can improve a retailer’s reputation in the long run.
  • Asynchronous: With customer service text messages, retailers, and eCommerce providers have the freedom to engage with consumers at a faster pace. Asynchronous communication is perfect for mobile users, as it allows them to message back and forth with representatives on their own time. This method also ensures that all conversation messages are saved so the two parties can pick up where they left off.

Contact Us to Learn More About Business Text Messaging

Using SMS messages for customer service is a smart way to improve consumer relationships and foster more efficient communication. Text messages are useful for all types of communication, from promotions and reminders to convenient technical support. If you’re interested in learning more about how asynchronous messaging enhances the retail industry, contact Quiq online today.

How Chatbots for Customer Experience Deliver Results

Posted on Lauren Winder

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 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.quiq.com.

Customer Service Tips: Facebook Messenger for Business

Posted on Lauren Winder

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).

[/fusion_text][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”default” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” content_alignment_medium=”” content_alignment_small=”” content_alignment=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”” id=”” margin_top=”” margin_right=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” font_size=”” fusion_font_family_text_font=”” fusion_font_variant_text_font=”” line_height=”” letter_spacing=”” text_color=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_offset=””]

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

Posted on Lauren Winder

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 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

Posted on The Quiq Team

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.

What is Rich Messaging? Everything You Need to Know

Posted on The Quiq Team

If you’ve never heard of this technology, then your first question is most likely, “What is Rich Messaging?”  That’s exactly why we wrote this piece. In this article, we will dive into the topic of rich messaging and all of its capabilities and implications. After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of what rich messaging is, why it is an exciting technology, and the capabilities it brings to both businesses and consumers.

What Is Rich Messaging?

Rich Communication Services (RCS) is a method of communication between a smartphone and a cellular service carrier. This messaging protocol aims to replace standard SMS messages with upgraded, interactive messages and supports person-to-person or business-to-person transmission. Senders can attach high-resolution photos and other multimedia to enhance the recipient’s experience.

RCS is likely to be the SMS successor in personal communications and business outreach. SMS messages do not respond as well to encrypted media, handle group chats, or enable other features like read receipts. They also require a cellular connection, which can be limiting. Though SMS is still around, RCS is becoming increasingly popular for personal use and business operations as companies utilize external RCS apps like WhatsApp and Facebook messenger.

There are many ways that RCS impacts businesses directly. Rich messaging means that businesses now have the ability to:

  • Capture new customers
  • Service customers directly via text, chat, or social media messaging
  • Interact with customers in real-time

All of this happens within the messaging conversation with the support of rich media and features that elevate the messaging experience. RCS helps create a solidified and branded experience across all devices since it does not depend upon the recipient’s network.

In this article, we will dive into the topic of rich RCS messaging and all of its capabilities and implications. After reading this article, you will have a better understanding of what rich RCS messaging is, why it is an exciting technology and the capabilities it brings to both businesses and consumers.

Why Expanding Communication Channels Is Important for Businesses

In today’s fast-paced, dynamic marketplace, it is crucial to develop communication channels with your customers in a way that is convenient for them and facilitates lightening fast conversations. Consumers in the modern era are incredibly busy, tech-savvy, and have a massive amount of information at their fingertips. They are not interested in spending any amount of time, unless absolutely necessary, calling a company for help.

Businesses are constantly looking for the next technology that is going to improve and expand conversation, facilitate high-quality customer interactions, and give them an edge over their competitors. That is why more and more businesses are increasingly turning to messaging and rich messaging.

Rich messaging is the next evolution of text messaging, otherwise known as short messaging service (SMS). It is startling to think that the first text message was sent nearly 30 years ago, and yet the experience has not changed much — until the introduction of RCS rich communication messages, that is.

Text messaging has grown in popularity in recent years, specifically as the most common technology used on a daily basis to communicate with family and friends. SMS/text messaging has just as rapidly gained popularity in consumer-to-business communications. Business messaging has quickly gained a foothold as the preferred way to contact companies versus placing phone calls. The next evolution of SMS/text messaging is rich messaging. Let’s dig in some more to rich sms!

How Google and Apple Approach Rich Text Messaging

When we talk about rich messaging, there are two providers, one for iPhone and one for Android devices. Apple and Google are the two giants in the communication space. These two providers are both offering great features via rich messaging; they are just going about it a little differently.

Google and Apple are investing massive resources to convince carriers to adopt the rich messaging protocol.  In order to strengthen the relationship with consumers, consumer-oriented businesses are now utilizing technology that both increases meaningful conversation and decreases the inefficiencies of traditional communication methods, like email and phone calls.

Rich messaging is not one of the messaging chat apps like WhatsApp or WeChat. Rich messaging or RCS rich communications is the next stage in text messaging technology that comes with features like read-receipts, group chat, image sharing, video calls, and a never-ending supply of GIFs, emoticons, and animated features.

Apple’s Approach to Rich Messaging

The Apple approach enables businesses to offer a direct line of communication for customers to engage via Apple Business Chat. While Apple uses the word “chat” in their feature, it is really messaging.  To digress a moment, web chat or live chat is when consumers engage with a company on desktop devices versus using messaging or Apple Business Chat on their mobile device.

Getting back to Apple Business Chat, a few of the rich messaging capabilities available are the ability to present product choices to customers in a tap-to-pick list, offer calendar availability to allow for appointment scheduling, as well as the ability to complete secure financial transactions using Apple Pay.

Google’s Approach to RCS Messaging

Google has come to market with Google Rich Business Messaging (RBM). The Google approach is to work directly with the carriers to encourage them to adopt the rich communication protocols versus Apple opening up the gates directly to businesses on their platform. The native messaging experience Google offers Android devices also offers exciting rich messaging capabilities such as the ability to share real-time updates, book appointments, and complete transactions within the messaging conversation.

A growing number of organizations are taking advantage of these features. Chicago’s transit system uses the Android approach to allow customers to get directions and arrival times. Redbox is letting their customers browse their product availability, reserve their choices, and locate a station, all within the Android platform. Overstock is using rich messaging to allow customers to receive order information like purchase, shipping, and delivery confirmation, as well as presenting a product review survey.

The Benefits of RCS Messaging Services for Businesses

Messaging and chat applications have provided businesses proof that engaging with consumers in more meaningful ways is one of the keys to driving sales and repeat purchases. RCS business messaging is a great way to interact with customers in a convenient way that is above the noise of all the other chat apps now populating the conversation infrastructure.

Businesses of all sizes can utilize rich messaging to create a more holistic conversation with their customers across multiple networks, from any device. This opens up a lot of opportunities for businesses to improve their brand image, optimize their customer service, increase customer satisfaction, and gain deeper insights into the pain points of their consumers. Below are some of the specific advantages you will gain from using RCS messaging.

1. Cost-Effectiveness

When you use rich messaging, you know you will gain competitive business advantages through a solution that is easy on your budget. The Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA) has implemented a universal profile that pulls APIs, display formats, and brings other technological complexities together into one economical and easy-to-use format.

Rich messaging also helps your organization save money by reducing customer support costs. When consumers need to talk to someone at your business, they can speak to knowledgeable agents through your rich messaging platform. You will reduce the need to provide the hardware and staffing required to run a full customer service call center, and you will be able to use those savings to invest in other areas of your business.

2. Real-Time Insights

Using rich messaging, companies gain access to conversation analytics that provide the real-time insights they need for improvement and success. Rich messaging also provides reports on click rates and other helpful interaction metrics.

Businesses can use rich messaging’s real-time capabilities to keep consumers informed and satisfied. You might provide them with real-time order confirmation, delivery updates, and product announcements, for instance.

3. Increased Engagement

credit union member messagingText message marketing through rich messaging enables businesses to boost consumer engagement through rewarding communications. Using rich messaging, your company will engage in meaningful conversations through SMS marketing and business texts that keep consumers informed about and interested in your brand. Your business might also use rich messaging to drive loyalty programs that engage and retain customers.

4. Streamlined Shopping, Scheduling, and Paying

One integral benefit of rich messaging is its enhancement of various consumer activities, from online shopping to appointment scheduling to making payments.

Rich messaging platforms transform the way customers shop by making online purchases more fun and convenient than ever before. They give consumers options for browsing, selecting, and purchasing items, all within the convenient messaging window. When shoppers have questions, support agents are readily available and have a full suite of tools, such as video options, at their disposal to enhance consumer shopping conversations.

Consumers can also schedule appointments with just a few clicks of their mouse and pay for products and services with platforms like Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal.

5. Security

In addition to streamlining connections between your organization and its consumers, rich messaging offers dependable security and peace of mind. Rich messaging provides a secure, protected environment for fruitful conversations to take place.

Today’s consumers often seek out trustworthy businesses that have stringent data privacy measures to protect sensitive data. Rich messaging offers consumers the confidence of knowing their messages are going through a reputable organization with enhanced security protocols.

6. Repeat Purchases

Rich messaging tends to make repeat purchases easier and more likely. When consumers experience seamless, convenient shopping through a rich messaging platform, they are more likely to return for future purchases. If a business uses its rich messaging capabilities to develop quality customer loyalty programs, it will boost customer retention and repeat purchases even further.

Contact Us

How Companies Are Successfully Using Rich Messaging

A highly regarded aspect of rich messaging is the diversity of interactions between consumers and businesses. There are a few different ways that companies use rich messaging in everyday interactions with their consumers.

One example of rich messaging is online chat boxes that pop up when shopping. These chat boxes turn questions or concerns into actionable conversations. The chatbot handles the consumer’s problem, and businesses build their reputation for exemplary customer service.

Business text platforms may change to meet consumers’ needs. In one of our case studies, a contact from Little Spoon notes how their rich messaging service to check order confirmation details quickly became a question line for mothers. Parents could easily ask the company’s employee representatives questions and talk to them as though speaking to a friend. In this instance, Little Spoon’s stakeholders learned and adapted to suit their customers’ needs so they felt heard.

Regardless of how companies use a rich messaging system, the impact remains steady. Rich messaging gives consumers a better experience with the brand while allowing businesses to communicate more effectively with their customer base.

Bottom Line – Rich Messaging Is the Future

The future is coming and it’s coming fast. Businesses across every industry need to shore up their messaging infrastructure in order to remain relevant with consumers. There is significant data that shows traditional customer communication channels, like phone, email, and web chat, have already fallen to the bottom of the preference list.  Companies must have the right plan and platform in place that allows them to react to the current change in customer preferences, as well as the future changes rich messaging offers.In addition to creating a solid foundation for the future, rich messaging offers businesses a greater reach than traditional methods due to the increasing adoption of GSMA’s standards. Major mobile carriers like T-Mobile and AT&T, as well as the OEM’s, namely Samsung, Apple, and Google, have already begun adopting rich messaging technology. More major players are expected to adopt it in the future.

The universal support across Google’s Android network gives every company a wide array of platforms and devices to utilize rich messaging. The emergence of Apple iMessage adopting rich messaging capabilities provides an even bigger boost to both consumers and businesses alike. A2P processes have brought about a boom in interest, investment, and adoption of rich messaging technology and services.

To enhance your SMS text strategies with a rich messaging platform, partner with Quiq. Our platform enables messaging communications that promote personalized engagement between companies and consumers. We help businesses connect via methods their customers are already familiar with, including text messaging, web chat, and social media.

The possibilities and opportunities for implementing rich messaging into current marketing and customer experience initiatives have never been better. If you are interested in learning more about rich messaging and what it can do, you can read more, or schedule a demo today to learn more about our platform.

Request A Demo

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

Posted on The Quiq Team

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!

5 Tips To Enhance eCommerce Customer Service

Posted on luisa@webfx.com

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

Posted on The Quiq Team

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

How to Text Message Your Customers

Posted on The Quiq Team

First, to set the stage, we know consumers are shopping online more often than ever before — and they’re using mobile phones to do it. As of 2019, it’s estimated that 96 percent of Americans own a cell phone of some kind. While not surprising, for some of us, we remember when the phone was still connected to the wall, so the adoption and growth of cell phones in such a short time is astonishing. Then came along the smartphone, and while the possibilities for how we use these devices are endless, there is a reason we still refer to them as phones, and it’s not because we’re making more calls on them. Consumers are communicating more than ever with text messaging, Facebook messaging, and messaging through other apps.

If your company isn’t taking advantage of the ability to text customers, you’re missing out on an incredible opportunity. Communicating with customers through text is personalized, easy, and fast, making this method the way consumers expect to be able to find answers and ask questions to resolve issues with customer service.

Using Text for Customer Service

Today, phone support, email, and web chat are the norm in how businesses and customers communicate, but there has been a shift to using messaging and it won’t be long before all businesses are using text messaging as a part of their digital customer service. The reason businesses are moving over to text for customer care is because messaging is already the preferred method of communication for customers, as well as employees. Both parties are already comfortable with the channel because they use it themselves in their daily lives, and unlike emails, text messages have a near 100 percent read-rate.

Customers are on the move and when it comes to service, they want more options. By offering text messaging as an option for customer service in addition to web chat, email, and traditional phone support, your customers will be delighted when they are able to choose the contact method they prefer, particularly if they are on-the-go. Don’t be surprised when they don’t want to call you on the phone and would rather text message your business instead, at their convenience.

Best Practices for Texting Customers

If your business is exploring text messaging for customer service, you may be wondering how to effectively and appropriately text customers. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind as you build your company’s strategy:

1. Enable Two-Way Conversations

First and foremost, a conversation is not very useful if it’s only one-sided. With text messaging, customers expect to be able to reply back. That is why businesses considering turning on text messaging should enable two-way conversations so they can accept and respond to customer questions and continue to foster the relationship.

2. Be Professional, Yet Conversational

It probably goes without saying that representatives should avoid using shortcuts and text lingo (lol, brb, ttyl) — texting is still a channel for professional communication. At the same time, text messaging gives businesses more interesting and less stuffy ways to engage with customers, like using emojis. Emojis add personality and make conversations more fun. Businesses should also identify and approve which emoji’s are acceptable for their business (?may not be always appropriate ?).

Still, one of the advantages of sending text messages to customers is the potential for building personal connections. Messages should be conversational and friendly, and not overly formal. Take advantage of the opportunity to build real relationships with your customers in a format they also use to talk with their friends and family.

3. Provide Consistent and Timely Answers

Customers will text customer care for help with a variety of issues, so make sure your customer service team is prepared to help. Utilizing texts for customer service is only effective if the service is quick and helpful. One of the benefits of text messaging is the experience for the customer, as it is at their convenience to respond, but businesses should treat these incoming messages with the urgency they would any other communication channel.

4. Keep Personal Information Secure

A data leak can cause customers to lose trust in your company. Be sure to take preventative measures to keep customers’ phone numbers and any other personal data secure — and make sure customers are aware of your privacy policies.

When comparing messaging solutions, businesses should do their due diligence to understand their vendor’s security policies in how they handle customer information. To have more peace of mind, choose a messaging vendor that is SOC II compliant.

5. Make It Easy to Opt-In or Out of Texts

In addition to customer service, your company can send outbound text messages to keep customers in the loop about promotions, order status, and appointment reminders. Customers will find a lot of value in receiving these kinds of notifications, however, it’s easy to lose customers by bombarding them with excessive or unwanted text messages. Make sure your messages are relevant and not spammy.

Just like with email, customers need to be able to control the messages coming into their inbox and should be able to opt-out of unwanted messaging.  Businesses using text messaging need to comply with all rules and regulations of TCPA to enable applicable opt-in and opt-out capabilities.

Text Customers Easily With Quiq

Centralized platforms to handle customer interactions are extremely beneficial for improving customer service. At Quiq, we make it easy for you to text customers and build better connections.

Learn more about our business text messaging services. Better yet, watch this product video to see for yourself how Quiq is powering better communication for businesses.

See a Demo Today