Conversations with customers are evolving and businesses are adapting to this fast changing landscape. With over 70% of respondents saying they have engaged with a business over text messaging or web chat, all organizations need to be ready.
Check out this research report and see how businesses use messaging to increase conversion rates and improve customer satisfaction.
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The Future of Customer Conversations
We know that customers love texting for customer service. According to Pew Research, 64% of people prefer text messaging versus phone calls for customer service, and at the same time social media business messaging is on the rise. More than ever, consumers are looking to get their customer support issues addressed on their own timeline and through their channel of choice.
We reached out to various businesses to find out about their experiences with messaging for customer service. The responses highlighted various benefits for both parties involved, but convenience and efficiency were common themes. Although the power of texting for business expands beyond customer service alone, addressing customer questions and concerns is one of its most valuable applications.
Rich messaging has made it possible for every step of the customer journey to be taken within a messaging window. Customers can select a product, make a secure transaction, and follow up with support inquiries, all without leaving the conversation. Many businesses are surprised by all of the benefits that cross-channel messaging can bring, as expressed by Daniel of Baker Street Funding:
“Everything from answering client questions, providing status updates; and even having clients send pictures of documents is done through our text messaging platform. We have found it extremely useful and it has been one of the main things that separates us from our competitors.”
Business text messaging comes naturally to consumers who already communicate with their friends and loved ones through this channel. As such, asking for help via messaging is often a consumer’s first choice. Many companies are seeing a decrease in support calls and an uptick in messages. Rahwa of MAIDSTR has observed firsthand the consumer preference toward messaging for customer service:
“We noticed that our customers increasingly wanted to engage via text, like they do with their friends and family, and that our inbound calls were decreasing.
So, we implement text-based customer service and found a greater level of interaction and engagement with our customers. Our customers still have the option of talking to a live person if needed, but we are definitely seeing a preference for text-based interaction via SMS or live chats over phone calls.”
Filling last minute cancellations or open schedule slots can be a challenge for virtually every direct-to-consumer service provider. The quick exchange of information through messaging offers a solution to these last-minute scheduling issues. Appointments can even be made within a message window itself, thanks to rich messaging. Gordon of GB Marketing & Communications shared a personal story which illustrates the customer experience when scheduling appointments and evaluating a service:
“When I was first evaluating [my chiropractor’s] service, text messaging was immediately used as part of the confirmation process as well as ensuring I knew where to go. Since that point, I get text messages as reminders when future appointments are set, as well as updates if another client cancels to see if I am interested in taking their open appointment spot last minute. From a customer / client perspective, I get a closer connection to their staff with texting, as you know there is a person on the other side that is there to respond to you as needed.”
The successful implementation of business text messaging for customer service depends on several key factors. First, it’s critical that customers are able to access support via a channel which is familiar to them. SMS is the most popular messaging channel, though other platforms such as Apple Business Chat, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter Direct Message are also very helpful channels that offer useful tools for businesses to address the needs of customers. These include response suggestions, identity verification, and appointment scheduling.
Another important factor in providing satisfactory customer support is timing. Asynchronous messaging platforms, such as Quiq, allow customers to start and stop customer service conversations whenever it’s most convenient for them. In addition, Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer automatically prioritizes incoming conversations for agents based on the cadence of the messages received, ensuring customers who are most engaged are taken care of first. Finally, bots can be incorporated into any part of the customer conversation from being used to route customers to the appropriate human agent, to present answers to common questions, or even to offload information collect from the agent before sending it back to them.
As you can see, texting for business offers a far more engaging customer service experience for employees and customers alike. Quiq powers consumer to business communications over web chat and messaging. Whether the conversation happens over SMS, social media messaging, web chat, or any other popular messaging channel, Quiq provides agents with a more efficient, centralized way to address the needs of customers.
Many organizations, such as Brinks Home Security, Aspira, and Texas A&M, have achieved messaging success with Quiq. To find out what the power of true cross-channel messaging can do for your customer service organization, see a demo of Quiq today.
Announced in June and being released in early September, iOS 13 is Apple’s next operating system for iPhones and iPads. Features include a Dark Mode, a Find My app, a revamped Photos app, new Siri voice, updated privacy features, new street-level view for Maps, and more.
While there are dozens of new capabilities in iOS 13, there are a couple new features that we find particularly notable and think you will too. The first is a great new addition that will continue to change how consumers and their favorite brands connect. This new feature builds on Apple Business Chat, released in December 2018, and is called Chat Suggest. The second is a new toggle button in Settings called “Silence Unknown Calls” that promises to make millions of iPhone users much happier, but may put your business even further than a phone call away.
Imagine you are enjoying family dinner on the one night you can get everyone around the table at the same time. Of course phones are not allowed at the table, but they are definitely laying on nearby countertops. All of a sudden, one starts vibrating and everyone pretends to ignore it while sneaking a look to see who’s phone is shimmying across the counter. At that point, someone inevitably gets up from the table to check their phone only to find it to be an unknown caller or unrecognized number. The call goes unanswered because we simply don’t answer calls from numbers we don’t know anymore.
Let’s be clear, no one actually wants to answer their phone in this day and age. Privacy-conscious Apple is just helping people do what they want – avoid calls from people they don’t know. Tucked away into the iOS13 release is a wonderful, new, little setting. Apple has come to our rescue by creating a setting to silence calls from unknown contacts. These calls will go directly to voicemail. This means you will need to find some more dinner table topics.
With iOS 13, your iPhone won’t ring if the incoming phone number is not known. Nuisance SPAM calls drive us crazy every day and with the iOS 13, Apple wants to fix the issue with the help of Siri, which will scan your Contacts, Mail, and Messages to see if you’ve previously been in contact with the caller. If you have, it will ring through. If not, it will go straight to voice mail.
While this is music to the ears of consumers, this could have a real impact on businesses that have legitimate reasons to call to reach people. For companies making outbound calls, their already low connect rate will plummet. It isn’t all gloom and doom. If your business has a mobile phone number, you can message someone instead. To comply with privacy laws and the TCPA, businesses need to have permission to text a number, but they also needed permission to call. With messaging, people open and read 96% of all text messages. With Quiq, those messages can be two-way. What does that mean? It means you can send a notification that a payment is due or something is ready to be picked up and the recipient can reply back to you. This can be the start of a conversation that leads to more business and better customer satisfaction, and believe it or not, many messaging platforms can’t do this.
Leave the phone behind and connect via messaging
It’s been getting harder and harder to talk live to people on their phones, especially if you are not a family member or friend. Apple’s Silence Unknown Callers feature makes this even more difficult for all iPhone users. Instead of fighting this tidal wave, it is time to consider a better way to connect. Messaging is, without a doubt, the best way for businesses to engage with consumers. Messages get read. Messages get a response. Messages cost less than phone calls. Why wait? Make your life easier and your business more success. Get messaging.
As an authorized Apple Customer Service Provider, Quiq helps brands present their customers with consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, Apple Business Chat, Google Rich Business Messaging, web chat, and social channels. With Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform, companies can easily orchestrate commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans. For more information about Quiq, go to www.quiq.com.
Consider for a moment the many ways customers are inundated with a multitude of brands, all vying for their attention. Take the email inbox, for example. Customers can’t unsubscribe fast enough from all the generic email newsletters they receive. The influx of email newsletters, social media messages, and online advertising adds up to marketing fatigue, a result of too many messages not relevant to customers. While messaging is still the most effective channel, with double the conversion rate of email, the way businesses currently communicate with customers needs to change.
Customers often unsubscribe, scroll past, unfollow, and mark as spam when messages are not relevant. What is the first sign your audience is experiencing marketing fatigue? A good indication is lower response rates, with even lower click and conversion rates.
Mastering the art of meaningful communication with customers is vital to keeping them interested, engaged, and connected. The best way to engage audiences has changed — expanding beyond the traditional phone and email, to reach customers how, where, and when they want to be reached.
Web chat, in-app messaging, SMS/text messaging, social media — there’s a lot of service channels for customers to choose from (and for agents to manage!). It’s critically important for companies to consider how they define and manage communication at every step of the customer journey to ensure messaging does not add to customer and business channel fatigue.
People who are just starting their journey, in an information gathering stage, require a different kind of message than, say, a customer looking to upgrade their existing product. Don’t fall for the allure of making a hasty attempt to close the sale. Sending too many messages geared toward completing purchases to a customer who is firmly in the early stages of their journey will lead to annoyance, fatigue, and a bad taste in their mouth associated with the brand. Instead, the best way to craft the right message is to put yourself directly in the customer’s shoes — and if you happen to sell shoes, who knows, they may just end up buying a pair!
So, how are companies battling marketing fatigue successfully reaching their customers?
The best way to prevent channel fatigue while reaching customers at the right place and time is to be available on their favorite channels. Multi-channel messaging makes your business available in all the places your customers frequent in ways that are most convenient for them — whether that’s on a Facebook Business Page, Twitter Direct Messages, Kik, SMS/text messaging, rich messaging (on Apple Business Chat and Google Rich Business Messaging), Web Chat, or In-App Messaging.
Transform how you engage with customers by letting them talk to your business the same way they talk to their friends and family.
Companies that put effort into understanding which channels are most important to their customers are better equipped to manage channel fatigue. For example, companies can optimize their communication and define message relevance customer-by-customer, based on behavior, demographics, preferences, journey status, and purchase data.
Another way to help customize the customer experience is to keep in mind the different tools customers use to view messages.
Messages sent over Web Chat are viewed on a computer most of the time, making Web Chat a better platform for sending resources, guides, and text-centric solutions. Alternately, Facebook, Twitter, Kik, and rich messages (all which are great for sending multimedia) would most likely be viewed on a mobile device. In this case, you might opt to engage your customers with interactive rich messaging features like images, videos, gifs, emojis, and cards that can be inserted into conversations on social media platforms and business SMS.
Ensure that your messages provide your audience value by making them enticing and relevant.
Not every individual within a target audience will find relevance in mass messaging. With an audience full of customers at varying stages in their journey or simply at different income levels, personalization must go beyond just using first names or location. Rather than sending out one mass message across channels, the best way to engage a varied customer audience is to segment them out into smaller groups, and target messages from there — because if a customer clicks on a message to discover that it isn’t as relevant (or specific) to them as originally implied, they will lose trust in your messages and, subsequently, your business.
If your message is relevant to your audience, then format becomes less important. What matters is that you’re sending content that is low-effort to read and react. However, if your message is possibly irrelevant to certain customers’ interests, you should focus on capturing their attention while still keeping their effort levels low. Easy, fun, and visual is best — it gives your customers less to look through, making it a perfect fit for their busy lives.
If your business keeps track of the content and frequency of your messaging, as well as your engagement across platforms and audience segments, then there are a lot of different communication channels to consider. The key is to make the most out of each channel.
Studies show that Business SMS/text messaging is the most effective channel to capture customer attention because it is a diversion from the typical email and promoted messages omni-present in their digital lifestyle, while maintaining the same level of immediacy. Text messaging is personal, download-free, and doesn’t require an internet connection. It’s also low effort to read and take action.
No matter what channel your customer base chooses to use, be sure to keep track of response and conversion rates to inform smart decision-making surrounding your brand communication. When it comes to platforms that give you insight and platforms that help businesses with messaging, Quiq doesn’t make you choose. By integrating directly into your existing CRM system, you’re able to continue receiving the reports that you know and love.
Fight channel fatigue with the proper strategy — focused on intent and personalized communication. Quiq Messaging connects your business to a variety of different platforms seamlessly. Want to learn more about Quiq’s multi-channel messaging platform? Send yourself a message today.
Watch this short video and share in Laurie’s excitement as to how their business has expanded their contact center portfolio and found messaging ROI. Laurie Simpter is the Sr. Manager of Customer Relations at Pier 1 Imports and explains in this brief testimonial why they chose Quiq to support their business messaging initiatives.
We love our customers and there’s no better feeling for us than when we see our customers find greater success by implementing Quiq’s leading customer engagement platform. If you’re ready to transform your contact center, see a demo and get started today!
Cross-channel communication doesn’t just provide a more seamless user experience — it also keeps customers coming back. Companies who offer a cross-channel user experience have seen over 90% higher year-over-year increases in customer retention, according to Aberdeen.
Cross-channel engagement has been a blessing as well as a burden for some companies. On the one hand, businesses have more ways to interact with prospects and customers. On the other, all of these channels, be it social media or text messaging, requires companies to actually monitor, respond, and engage consistently with customers over all of these channels.
Cross-channel management doesn’t have to be a cumbersome exercise though. Today, it is imperative to business efficiency and effectiveness for all customer conversations to be in one holistic view.
The companies realizing the most success with cross-channel messaging are seeing a boost in customer satisfaction and revenue, with positive impacts on productivity. Let’s dive into the ways that cross-channel messaging can be used to engage customers and drive more business.
Following proper business texting etiquette[3] is important for a very simple reason — your texts will be read. Unlike emails, which often pileup unread in a customer’s inbox, your text messages are rarely ignored. In fact, SMS open rates are as high as 98%, versus just 20% for email, according to Gartner. This makes the content and timing of your texts critically important in ensuring customer satisfaction. So what can your business do to ensure a positive SMS conversation experience?
Do keep it to the point
SMS is appropriate for short and succinct messages. The length of a single standard text message is 160 characters, so that’s a good limit to shoot for. Of course, you can use rich messaging to send longer messages, but avoid sending walls of text via SMS.
Do ask permission first
Since text messages pop up front-and-center in a customer’s daily life, it’s important to make sure they give consent before getting the conversation started. Your first message can be a simple opt-in request, or your customers can subscribe to your texts via your website. If they send the first message, then their consent to receive a reply is implied but it’s still a good practice to ask permission before sending any unrelated messages, such as promotional texts.
Do stay positive
Keeping your text conversations polite and positive is essential, especially if you’re using the channel for customer support. Certain phrases may be misconstrued by the recipient, so make your dedication to customer satisfaction clear. While you do want to stick to the point, use complete sentences to avoid coming across as terse or impatient.
Do time your texts right
No one likes to be rustled awake by a midnight message, so make sure you send your business texts at an appropriate time. The best time to text your customers is soon after they text you. That way, you know that they are already engaged in the conversation. Similarly, you can reach out to them immediately after they opt-in to receiving your SMS, or right after they submit a support ticket. If you’re sending the first text, you’ll want to be mindful about the customer’s time zone and only message them during normal business hours.
Do get rich
Rich Communication Services (RCS) can transform your business texting into a full-on conversion platform. You can complete transactions, schedule appointments, and send videos to engage with customers in a more powerful way. Quiq’s cross-channel rich messaging automatically transforms your messages into the right format, so you can richly communicate over SMS, web chat, or Facebook Messenger — all from one centralized platform.
Don’t use unprofessional language
SMS is famous for acronyms but your business texts should avoid using them. Save your “LOLs” and “C U l8rs” for more casual conversations. That said, some emojis may be appropriate, depending on your audience — professional language can also have a bit of fun sprinkled in.
Don’t forget to double-check
For some customers, a misspelled word — or even an innocent typo — is unforgivable. Be sure to review your message drafts before hitting the send button. If your business uses message templates, revisit them periodically to make sure they are error-free and still in line with the tone of your brand.
Don’t wait too long to reply
Text messaging is all about rapid response. If customers don’t hear back from you quickly, they may move on to another service. Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer prioritizes customer conversations for your agents based on how swiftly a customer stays engaged. If your agent cannot respond in time, the platform automatically hands the conversation off to the next available representative. With Quiq, there is no need to keep customers waiting.
Don’t rely solely on SMS
Text messaging is only one of the many conversation channels out there. Your business should use it as just one part of an overall customer messaging strategy. Understand the benefits of SMS alongside its limitations, and see where it fits in your conversation ecosystem.
By following these tenets of business texting etiquette, your brand can connect with customers in a more powerful way. Discover the true potential of business messaging and try a demo of Quiq today.
Cross-channel communication doesn’t just provide a more seamless user experience — it also keeps customers coming back. Companies who offer a cross-channel experience have seen over 90% higher year-over-year increases in customer retention, according to Aberdeen.
Cross-channel engagement has been a blessing as well as a burden for some companies. On the one hand, businesses have more ways to interact with prospects and customers. On the other, all of these channels, be it social media, web chat, or text messaging, requires companies to actually monitor, respond, and engage consistently with customers over all of these channels. Not an easy task!
Cross-channel management doesn’t have to be a cumbersome exercise though. Today, it is imperative for all customer conversations to be in one holistic view or businesses will fail on business efficiency and effectiveness.
The companies realizing the most success with cross-channel messaging are seeing a significant boost in customer satisfaction and revenue, while also achieving positive impacts on productivity. Let’s dive into the ways that cross-channel messaging can be used to engage customers and drive more business.
Convenience and choice are the fuel that powers today’s commerce engine. Your customers demand options that allow them to do business on their terms – which is often on a mobile device while they are on-the-go. In a nutshell, cross-channel messaging should matter to you because it matters to your customers and they’re telling you by how they spend their dollars.
According to Shopify, using cross-channel marketing increases revenue by 38% when one additional channel is added, and this number jumps all the way to 190% when three additional channels are used. Quiq’s conversational engagement platform supports over seven channels — all with rich messaging. Rich messaging is just one of the advances in cross-channel engagement that exceeds customer expectations.
The latest developments of cross-channel-messaging involve the use of rich content. Rich messaging is messaging that is “enriched” containing more than just text. With rich messaging, you can complete transactions, schedule appointments, and share different types of media via Rich Communication Services (RCS). Let’s get fancy. Imagine a customer placing an order via text message or rich messaging on their phone, then hopping on their computer to pay for the transaction via web chat. The conversation follows them on whichever channel they use, and a wide variety of cool capabilities can be utilized via rich messaging.
The modern contact center utilizes customer information from a variety of channels to create comprehensive customer profiles. Businesses are provided with more than just data points when you combine basic information such as addresses and emails, to more extensive information like past order history and customer status. This information allows businesses to provide personalized engagement, which is key to delivering better customer experiences and more effectively driving conversions.
Creating those profiles from disparate sources can create challenges. The challenges that arise with handling complex cross-channel environments, such as prioritizing channels, necessitate the use of streamlined business messaging software. Quiq enables businesses to deliver true cross-channel messaging experiences to customers across a wide variety of communication services with the efficiency of a centralized platform.
Customer inquiries flying in from different channels can result in a large number of live conversations, so it’s critical to prioritize the conversations, with the most pressing conversations presented first. Urgent customer service needs must be differentiated from casual queries in order to ensure the highest priority issues are addressed first. One way to measure customer urgency is by how quickly the customer engages in the conversation — if there are long pauses between replies, chances may be the matter is not as urgent or the customer is not able to be fully engaged. Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer is a unique feature that prioritizes customer service conversations based on the cadence or pace of customers.
Messaging bots are popular for their ability to instantly reply to queries and route customers to the correct human agent. The language that your bots use should be in line with your brand voice — be sure they utilize the same business lexicon that your support agents do. Bots can also be used to welcome users to your site and get them pointed in the right direction. As an important part of the cross-channel toolbox, bots can help shape the experience you deliver, no matter how – which channels – customers are using to get in touch.
You don’t have to wait for customers to message you to get the conversation started. Effective cross-channel communication relies on you reaching out from time to time on a customer’s preferred channel. The type of channel you reach out on can be tailored to the customer segment. For example, you can use Twitter direct messages to reach customers who like to stay current within the social media sphere. Cross-channel communication is not just about what you say — it’s also about where you say it. That means engaging with customers on the messaging platforms they prefer.
In the end, true high-quality, cross-channel communication is about delivering a seamless and intuitive customer experience across the entire spectrum of digital messaging channels. When customers have the freedom to engage with your brand on their terms, their sense of loyalty and satisfaction is strengthened. Quiq allows you to have true cross-channel communication with your customers, so you can build brand loyalty and increase customer satisfaction.
To find out more about the ways you can more effectively engage with customers in a cross-channel environment, check out 10 Cross-Channel Customer Service Best Practices You Can Count On.
Business SMS/text messaging is the fast, convenient, and preferred way for customers to engage with you. According to research, “mobile messaging the communications channel with the highest anticipated growth.”
Done correctly, messaging is a powerful tool to help consumers connect with businesses – especially when it comes to customer service.
The normal sounds of a contact center are usually a cacophony of ringing phones, one-sided conversations, clicks, and keyboard taps. These sounds, or at least some of them, and their association to call centers may soon be fading into the background. According to McKinsey & Company, 57% of executives consider reducing call volumes their number one priority for the next five years, which is music to the ears of customers and contact center employees alike.
To achieve this goal, technologies, such as chatbots, live chat, and text messaging, have been identified as the top ways to make that call reduction dream come true. These new channels are highly valuable to reduce calls and costs, as well as necessary investments for this generation of digital-first consumers. Let’s dive into the ways to reduce inbound call volume without sacrificing the customer experience.
Reducing call center volume may get a bad rap in some circles. Some may think of reducing calls as simply a way to cut costs. There’s more to the story than just that. It’s true, you’ll see an impact on your bottom line by reducing inbound call volume. Fewer calls can translate to fewer agents to handle those calls. But that’s not the only way fewer inbound calls can affect your bottom line.
Fewer inbound calls also mean that agents can dedicate more time providing a higher level of service to each customer. Fewer calls equal shorter queues, less wait time, and faster response times, and higher quality interactions with agents. These incredible benefits are also the inherent traits of companies who have made the customer experience the way to differentiate themselves and win repeat business.
Take, for example, Tailored Brands. The retail holding company responsible for multiple brands, including the Men’s Wearhouse and Joseph A. Bank, strives to set themselves apart from their competition based on the service they provide customers. In the highly competitive and fast-moving retail space, that means more than just offering a wide product line, since consumers literally have a world of options at their digital fingertips.
Instead of competing solely on clothing quality, inventory, and price, Tailored Brands implemented messaging to make their customer’s purchase journey a uniquely convenient and easy experience. They aren’t alone in their race to make changes to their customer experience using digital transformation. Customer Experience Futurist, Blake Morgan, reported in Forbes that enterprise decision-makers have given themselves a two-year horizon to make significant changes in digital transformation before they fall behind their competitors and financially suffer.
When you view your contact center as more than just a cost center, the importance of reducing inbound calls become clear. Reducing inbound calls to your contact center has less to do with cutting costs and more to do with adding value for customer through easier pre and post-sales interactions.
Tailored Brands, like so many other companies from retail to financial services, want to make doing business with them much more convenient. Opening up their “messaging doors” with channels like ,web chat, SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, and Facebook Messenger, are how these companies are slashing inbound calls without sacrificing the customer experience. In fact, these channels are enhancing the experience by providing easy, convenient ways for consumers to engage with companies at their convenience.
Here’s how companies are reducing their call center volume with the help of technology:
Give customers the channel they prefer
This one’s easy. Not every customer wants to phone or email you. In fact, almost no customer today wants to call or email a company. For Tailored Brands, the addition of text messaging was a way to adapt to their consumer’s shift from traditional methods of contact, like phone and email, to more convenient engagement channels. Because Tailored Brands is catering to their customer’s preference for digital channels like chat and messaging, they’ve deflected expensive phone calls, realizing a 175% increase in text messages received by each brand.
Let the channel match the customers’ challenge
Other companies, like the popular ski destination Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, have also reduced calls through text messaging. Jackson Hole was specifically looking for web chat as a more cost-effective way to engage with their guests. The company rolled out both web chat and text messaging and saw a drop in calls and emails because many of the customer’s inquiries were simple and straightforward questions like, “What are the tram hours” or “What are the recent snowfalls”. Answering these questions via messaging meant that reservationists were more available to help customers with bookings.
Prepare for spikes ahead of time
Whether it’s tax season, the wake of a big promotion, a product release, or Black Friday, you know when to expect seasonal spikes in call volume within your contact center. As they say, the best defense is a good offense and preparing for those spikes well in advance can help reduce inbound calls.
Some companies, like Williams Plumbing, have the added complication of not knowing when those spikes will happen. Severe winter weather and high volumes of emergency calls used to create spikes for the civil construction and plumbing company with offices across Montana, Wyoming and North Dakota. The company now uses text messaging on their mobile site, chat on their desktop site, and Facebook Messenger to ensure that their customers can reach them whenever they are needed. William’s Plumbing has seen their customers choose text messaging rather than waiting on hold, which has helped decrease their call abandonment rate from almost 13% to 5-8% and allowed the company to capture more leads for future services.
Reducing inbound calls has a large impact on contact center productivity. Unlike asynchronous digital channels like web chat and SMS/text messaging that allow agents to handle multiple, simultaneous calls, agent-assisted inbound phone calls must be handled 1 to 1. As consumers shift to messaging, agents will also shift from handling one phone call at a time to 6-8 messaging conversations at a time.
According to the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI), channel mix is one of the biggest drivers that affect agent productivity. High volume contact centers, like Office Depot have quickly gravitated towards these digital channels to decrease Average Handle Time (AHT), while increasing agent utilization and contacts per agent per month.
Messaging channels such as web chat, SMS/text, Twitter, and Facebook have opened a whole new world of possibilities for reducing inbound call center volume. Quiq enables companies to provide pre-sales service and post-sales support across all of these channels through a simple, intuitive agent desktop that supports agents as they deliver exceptional customer experiences.
If you’re searching for an innovative, cost-effective way to reduce your inbound contact center volume, start by exploring Quiq Messaging. Schedule a demo today.
Business messaging is the way top brands and today’s customers engage with each other. Quiq’s Conversational Engagement Platform ensures companies provide consistently jaw-dropping customer experiences across SMS/text messaging, rich messaging, web chat, and social channels. With Quiq, brands can easily orchestrate commerce and service conversations involving both bots and humans.
Check out this very short video to see why Quiq is the leading platform powering conversations between companies and customers. See a demo and get started today!
Chatbots, or bots, are at the top of countless Google search results these days. Why so much research and chatter about bots? Faster customer service and a better customer experience are just a couple of the ways companies believe bots can drive results throughout the organization and it’s making a stir.
A lot of people have gone past the point of wondering how to employ chatbots within their organization to actually building them. While there are plenty of tools out there to help you drag and drop your way to an AI-infused representative, you’d be ill-advised to jump right into it. Before you build a bot, there are some important things you need to consider.
In this article, we’ll explore 5 key considerations to get you started on a better chatbot path. Incorporating these concepts into your strategy will ensure you build a bot that improves your customer engagement and their experience.
Sometimes having too many options can lead to confusion and indecisiveness. That’s not the case when it comes to bots. The meteoric rise of the digital channels used throughout companies to drive better customer experience has resulted in exponential demand for chatbots. Chatbots are being deployed from customer service to sales and marketing across channels such as web chat, SMS/text messaging, and social media.
The opportunity to use bots within single or multiple points in the customer’s journey seems crystal clear to many. The question isn’t whether you should use a bot within a conversation. The pressing question seems to be when is the appropriate time within a conversation for a bot to engage with a customer.
Before you answer that, consider these bot must-haves. In our experience, working with clients from a variety of industries, these 5 bot approaches ensure companies deliver better bot experiences.
What’s your order number? Can I verify your email? What model is it? Can you verify your address? How many times have your human agents had to ask these questions? Short answer, too many. With chatbots, the better question is how many times does a human agent have to ask these kinds of questions? Short answer, zero. Zilch.
These questions, and many more, are super simple and repetitive. The answers are fairly straightforward and necessary to help a customer and move them closer to resolution. One of the first things to do prior to building a bot is to define the parts of the typical customer interaction that could be handled by a bot, where that is prior to, during, or after an interaction with a human/agent.
Quiq clients have realized success by building bots to handle some of these simple questions, with the intent of providing human agents with more information faster to ensure they understand who the customer is and the issue at hand.
You shouldn’t have to revamp your entire workflow in order to implement a bot. Make sure your bot or bots work within your current process to improve it.
Consider using bots throughout the customer’s interaction to expedite established processes. For example:
Our messaging clients frequently look to chatbots as a way to help the human interaction, not replace it entirely. Quiq clients have realized a lot of success from using bots to work in conjunction with humans.
As mentioned above, bots can be used in any one or multiple parts of customer interactions. Before you build your bot, make sure you’re creating a seamless experience for your customer as well as your agents.
Quiq’s messaging platform enables agents to transfer conversations to a bot, just like they would another human agent. Once the bot completes gathering whatever information they need, the conversation is transferred back to the human agent.
Just as a conversation can be volleyed between human and chatbot, make sure that your conversations can be transferred to other bots.
Take, for example, a bot that greets your customer, asks how they can help, and presents suggested solutions. Your customer can choose the appropriate topic with a single tap. Based on their response, another bot can pick up the conversation and bring the customer through the selected process.
Quiq is unique in that you can deploy any combination of 3rd-party bots and/or Quiq bots in our system and they are treated the same. The focus is on helping the customer, not on technology.
Improving customer engagement and experience doesn’t stop when a bot or multiple bots go live. Once you’ve implemented your bot(s), monitor performance the same way you’d monitor a human agent’s performance.
Quiq’s messaging platform reports on bots and human agents the same way. Our platform monitors the customer’s experience and provides actionable feedback, such as the customer’s sentiment during the conversation, regardless of who is helping them. Simple icons alert managers if a customer is using negative words or phrases that signals intervention is needed.
Receive the same types of stats for bots that you have come to expect and demand for agents.
These critical must-haves for building a better bot should help you answer our question above: “When is the appropriate time within a digital conversation for a bot to engage with a customer?” The answer depends, of course, on the unique needs of your customers and the reasons they reach out to you.
Quiq can help you deploy bots throughout your organization that work seamlessly across chat and messaging channels. If you’re ready to take the next step to building a better bot experience, request a demo.
The announcement of Quiq’s Series B funding round has been picked up my multiple news outlets as an exciting continuation of the companies pursuit of being at the forefront of consumer communications across digital engagement channels. Quiq has set itself apart and this news is a clear indication of the confidence and strategic positioning the company has garnered in contact centers and enabling enterprise customer communications. In raising $12.5 million in a series B round of funding led by Foundry Group, with participation from Teamworthy Ventures, Venrock, and Next Frontier Capital, the company plans to build out its platform to “make it smarter” through AI and bots that “deliver the next generation of conversational commerce.”
Be sure to check out the articles below to see how the market has picked up this exciting news. If you want to learn more about how Quiq is making it easy for businesses to better connect with their customers in more of the ways they prefer, be sure to reach out and we’d gladly show you how the product is transforming customer engagement.
Quiq raises $12.5 million to bring bots and messaging to customer service
Quiq Raises $12.5 MN; To Be Used for Expansion of Its Conversational Engagement Platform
Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers
Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers
Messaging Platform Quiq Notches $12.5M For AI Build-Out
Quiq Raises $12.5 Million to Transform the Way Companies Engage with Customers
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Quiq Raises $12.5M in Series B Funding
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The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 7/29/19
Quiq $12.55 million Financing. Michael A Myer Released Jul 29 Form D
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Quiq Gets Funded for Bots, Messaging for Future of Work. Exclusive Interview
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MarTechSeries has featured Quiq’s founder and CEO, Mike Myer, in this insightful Q&A conversation as part of their MarTech’s Interview Series. In this fun Q&A style chat, Mike discusses his progression as a technology leader to the founding of Quiq where he identified “a huge gap between the way consumers could communicate with companies and how they communicate with family and friends.”
For businesses considering messaging as a part of their mobile marketing technology stack, Mike outlines several use cases across a variety of industries that demonstrate how Quiq is used from pre- to post-sales and support, truly revolutionizing the way in which customers and businesses engage and build relationships.
Read the full interview on MarTechSeries and get inspired as Mike tells his story and his vision for the future of customer engagement. If you want to know how he’s been so successful, one-word, ‘Persistence!’
For the second year in a row, Quiq has been featured as one of the best tech startups in Bozeman. The Tech Tribune started the series with the mission to “recognize and honor the most exemplary young companies all across the country, companies that too often do not get a well-deserved turn in the spotlight.” The full list for Bozmena, MT can be viewed on The Tech Tribunes site, 2019 Best Tech Startups in Bozeman.
The Tech Tribune considered the following factors when choosing companies, including but not limited to:
Additionally, all companies must be independent (un-acquired), privately owned, at most 10 years old, and have received at least one round of funding in order to qualify.
The Tech Tribune delivers the latest technology news, in-depth technology articles, and insights on the hottest technology startups all over the world.
Quiq makes it possible for any company to deliver a world-class customer experience using business text messaging. Quiq’s messaging platform enables companies to use their existing landlines to send and receive messages to their customers via SMS/text messaging, live chat, social platforms, and in their own app.
Brinks has been using messaging for almost 2 years now. In that time, the company has improved agent efficiency by automating routine interactions, realized double-digit increases in customer satisfaction, and experienced more engaged customers.
Watch this short video to peek under the hood at Brinks Home Security. Learn the many ways the company is using Quiq messaging and how this channel is making an impact throughout the organization.
ZDnet’s recent coverage of Brinks Home Security “Home security firm moves one in 10 customer service calls to Quiq mobile chat channel” highlights the company’s customer-centric motivation that drove the adoption of messaging for home security. The article states that Brinks “wanted to use a communications channel that would be chosen by its million customers to connect with the brand.” And connect they did. The article reports that Brinks has seen at least 1 in 10 of their customers switch from making phones calls to using messaging.
Brinks realized that their customers needed more convenient options to engage with their brand. It wasn’t hard to see messaging as the channel that could provide that and more.
Texting offers immediacy and convenience, highly desirable traits when it comes to engaging with the provider of your security and home automation system. But the requests that Brinks receives over messaging aren’t just the urgent kind. The company also receives messages from customers who need help troubleshooting a major issue or to just replacing batteries in their hardware.
When asked what motivated the company to look to messaging as an engagement channel, the company’s response clearly captured their commitment to delivering a superior customer experience with leadership stating “…We wanted to provide a channel that put the format back in the customer’s control.”
The switch is paying off in a number of ways. The article quotes Chief Customer Office at Brinks, Jay Autrey as saying “By adding the messaging channel, we have seen a double-digit improvement in customer satisfaction, improved agent effectiveness, improvements to the bottom line, and a more engaged customer experience.”
Brinks and ZDnet aren’t the only ones who predict more consumers and companies will prefer to engage with brands via messaging. Other industries such as education and financial services are rapidly adopting messaging to connect with their customers as well.
A software investment of any kind takes due diligence, and purchasing live chat software should be no different. The live chat experience that you provide reflects the quality of your brand as a whole, which makes it critical to only use the best website chat software possible. When potential customers visit your website and want to get in touch with you, business messaging channels, such as live chat, are the fastest and easiest methods available.
Every live chat solution, in its simplest form, should make it possible for your company to connect with your customers while they are on your website. But that doesn’t mean every live chat solution is right for your business. In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can determine which website chat software is best for your business.
There are some universal features you should expect when investing in any software such as:
These features are just as important when purchasing live chat software. You’ll also want to consider answering questions about why you need a business messaging solution like live chat and what type of experience you want to deliver. Here are a few questions to consider:
Some companies choose to have chat available on specific pages, while others offer chat on every page. The live chat solution you choose should be able to provide both options.
No one will know your business better than you do. There is no one-style-fits-all for live chat. Ensure that you have the option to provide proactive or reactive chat to your customers.
Your live chat should be a reflection of your site and your brand, so make sure you work with a platform that allows you to customize colors, greetings and other details within the chat experience to fit the look and feel of your company.
Answering these questions are a good and basic foundation for choosing the best live chat software for your business. Let’s take a look at some of the more advanced features of live chat that you’ll want to consider.
When customers visit your site and fire up your chat feature, they’re looking for a quick response time and quality service. No one wants to send off a message to a business and wait until you get a chance to get back to them. If that was the case, they would have sent an email.
Some wait time before chatting with a human might be acceptable, but why make it the rule when it could be the exception? A modern chatbot messaging solution allows instantaneous and high-quality responses that can seamlessly greet customers, gather information, and point customers in the right direction or even hand the conversation off to a human.
The ability to start a conversation, determine the intent, and route the conversation to the appropriate person, all before a human agent accepts it, make intelligent chatbots a non-negotiable attribute for any web chat software. Chatbots can offer suggestions based on customer feedback or route your visitors to the appropriate human agent if need be.
But chatbots are only one aspect of a multitude of advanced features to consider. Chat technology has evolved and now offers features that deliver a better experience for the customer and the agent. For example, Quiq’s messaging software can tell your agents which page your visitors are on when they click to chat with you, present their entire chat history with your company, and even monitor how the conversation is going based on sentiment analysis.
Nowadays, communicating online goes far beyond text-based chat alone. Short videos have become a language in and of themselves, and entire conversations can be carried out through emojis. Chat software that includes rich messaging capabilities allows you to raise the bar when it comes to business chat, and offer more fun, immersive, and interactive experiences.
With rich messaging, you can complete transactions, schedule appointments, and even send rich media to engage your customers in a deeper way. Look for a web chat software that supports rich messaging so your business messaging can stand out.
Business messaging can give important insights into what’s working and what’s not when it comes to products and promotional strategies. The data you gather from your company chats can be critical to developing new strategies and adjusting business processes.
The ideal web chat software should allow you to report on conversations, queues, or agent performance – human or bot. Look for a platform that lets you export your data or even integrate it into an existing business intelligence platform.
Customers can’t always afford to stick around until the conclusion of a chat conversation. Asynchronous messaging platforms allow conversations to pick up where they left off, so they don’t have to endure the inconvenience of a chat conversation timing out and then restarting a new conversation. Your live chat solution should deliver a frictionless experience for your customers and allow them to set the pace of the chat. Quiq Messaging provides asynchronous communication across all supported channels, so even if your customer has to step away or gets distracted from the chat conversation, they can pick up right where they left off.
When we take into consideration all of the factors listed above, there emerges one clear winner in the chat game. Quiq offers an all-encompassing messaging solution for businesses looking to drive conversions and provide more capable customer support. We’ve only scratched the surface on what Quiq can offer here — robust analytics, asynchronous conversations that provide a frictionless experience, and solid security all fall within the scope of this powerful platform.
When you’re ready to discover the true potential of business chat for your enterprise, schedule a demo today.
In business since 1978, Smith Thompson provides home security, wireless monitoring, and pest control. The company is proud to say that it is entirely US-based, requires no contracts, and they do everything in-house. From sales and installations to monitoring and service, this Plano, Texas-based company takes care of its customers from beginning to end.
Company employees are always looking for ways to make it easier for customers to protect their homes, families, and businesses. Even when they are on vacation.
During a vacation ski trip in Jackson Hole ski resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, VP of Sales, Ryan Thompson. noticed that the resort was using a text feature on their mobile app. The resort also uses Quiq to provide immediate help to ski resort guests and answers all types of questions about ski rentals, weather conditions, and even which lifts are open – all through the messaging channel.
When Ryan saw how Jackson Hole Resort used messaging to effortlessly communicate with their guests, he was impressed with the ease and convenience this service offered and knew right away it was something he needed to look into for Smith Thompson. As VP of Sales, Ryan recognized that no one wants to call a company and sit in a hold queue.
Ryan wanted a more welcoming way to engage with customers who otherwise might be hesitant to reach out because they think they are going to sit in a hold queue only to talk to a salesperson in a high-pressure situation. Smith Thompson doesn’t work that way and views messaging as the channel that would allow consumers to quickly and easily get the information they need to make a no-pressure buying decision.
“Consumers want the ability to take the conversation with them wherever they go.”
– Ryan Thompson, VP of Sales, Smith Thompson
Before implementing messaging, Smith Thompson handled one to two thousand calls a day. Phone calls may fluctuate based on the season, but there is a pretty steady influx of daily email and phone calls handled by just the company’s service agents. After a quick implementation of Quiq, phone calls rapidly started to move to the messaging channel.
Similar to the phone calls received, half of the conversations are service related with the balance being sales inquiries. The company expects to see messaging conversations increase as more customers look to get their new system installed during the spring and summer before heading out on their own vacations.
In addition to phone and email, there was also the occasional Facebook message. Before Quiq, the direct messages received on Facebook didn’t fit into the normal workflow. Agents had to log into the company’s Facebook platform to handle these inquiries. Now, when agents log into Quiq, they can handle and resolve messages received from multiple channels – SMS/text, web chat, and Facebook – all in one place.
When the busy season rolls around, Smith Thompson will be well prepared to handle a spike in conversation volume. With messaging, agents can handle multiple conversations at a time because of the asynchronous nature of this channel. Quiq’s Adaptive Response Timer, which automatically prioritizes conversations based on how quickly or slowly the customer is responding to the agent, is one of many features that helps customer experience representatives increase productivity and handle multiple conversations at a time.
In providing a convenient new channel for their customers and prospects to easily engage with them, Smith Thompson made their sales process better as well. Prior to messaging, customers who wanted to switch monitoring services would have to have a technician come out to see if the security hardware they already had installed was compatible with Smith Thompson’s monitoring services.
Now, when prospects call in and request to switch to Smith Thompson, they can simply snap a picture of their current hardware and send it to the agent during the messaging conversation.
The company reports that the messaging channel converts about 30%-40% of their conversations to sales.
Smartphones have become a central part of consumer lives and the ability to control smart devices around your home, such as doorbell cameras and thermostats, has become an often standard part of home security. Smith Thompson recently introduced home automation to its line of products and services, waiting for the more stable second-generation home automation capabilities. The company has just started to promote the new line of services which include full smartphone control of its available locks, lights, thermostats, and cameras with plans to promote this new service more heavily.
In addition to promoting its home automation products, the company would like to use messaging as a way to further differentiate itself in the marketplace. Smith Thompson promotes the messaging channel across its website, as well as on their mobile “Contact Us” page. Smith Thompson sees this feature as a way to set itself apart from competitors. The company has set itself apart from others in the market by making it easy to work with them and sees the ability to text for pre-sales consultation and post-sales support an extension of their ability to serve families. Smith Thompson plans to broadcast the new feature in upcoming ads.
