What is business messaging, you ask? Oh, it’s only a way to get better customer engagement, attract more customers, and deliver a better customer experience. That seems like a tall order for something as simple and commonplace as messaging, right? The truth is, the simplicity and reach of business messaging is what makes it so powerful for your business and preferred by your customers.
What is Business Messaging?
Business messaging is a set of channels over which companies and consumers can communicate with each other. The most common business messaging channel is SMS or text messaging. We’ve all had experiences with shipping notifications, marketing offers, promotional campaigns, and appointment reminders. These are the kinds of messages we typically associate with business messaging.
But business messaging isn’t just one-way, and it isn’t just SMS/texting. Business messaging can happen on any digital channel where your customers already spend their time and it’s expected that dialogue can flow in both directions. Here are a few scenarios that happen all the time:
- A home security subscriber who needs help setting up their new video camera.
- A shopper on your website who needs help finding a product and reaches out via web chat for help
- Direct messages exchanged over social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Kik to provide one-to-one customer service
- A retailer proactively communicating shipping and delivery information to consumers to help prevent an inbound phone call
Business messaging delivers the ease and convenience consumers have come to expect when they engage with family and friends in pre-sales and post-sales interactions with companies. In fact, 66% of consumers rank messaging as their preferred channel for contacting a company.
What Messaging Means to Your Customers
Your customers want to message you. Consumers are looking for a company to:
- Meet them where they already are – on mobile, social, and on the web
- Proactively reach out to them with relevant products and services
- Make it easy to do business with you
CONVENIENCE: Messaging lets customers reach out via SMS, Facebook, or live chat, and respond on their own time instead of stopping to call. With messaging, they can respond and engage in 5 seconds, 5 minutes, or 5 days.
EASE: Customers keep their mobile device within an arm’s reach at all times. Business messaging makes it easy for customers to shoot off a message whenever they need and then get on with their lives. They don’t have to wait until they are in a quiet place to call or vigilantly watch their email for a response.
FLEXIBILITY: Messaging means flexibility for your customers. Customers have the real-time response of a phone call with the ease of reference that an email provides. That flexibility around their busy lives is more than a welcome mat. It’s more like the red carpet, and it’s what differentiates companies among competitors and turns prospects into customers.
What Messaging Means to Your Revenue Growth
Increasing revenue is the number one thing that companies focus on. Every strategy and tactic is a means to that end. Often, companies will consider introducing a new product line or service, or increasing prices as a way to bolster revenue.
New products take time and money to develop. Raising prices risks losing customers to competitors. There are people ready to buy what you already offer, and existing customers who can be encouraged to return. That’s why companies turn to customer experience, where messaging makes the biggest impact
Messaging makes it easy for consumers to engage with your company when, where, and how they prefer. Prospective buyers can have questions answered with ease, speed, and convenience. Returning customers get timely service and support at their moment of need, which means they’ll be back for more and will tell others how great you are.
Consider these examples and how your business can help customers move closer to purchase with business messaging:
- Service companies win when their prospects are able to get the answers they need to make a decision on a provider. Prospects can book an appointment to receive an estimate easily with business messaging. Messaging avoids delays and missed calls that can drive consumers to take their business elsewhere.
- Companies in the travel and hospitality industry use messaging to provide a premium experience from the very first interaction. Questions on weather conditions and cancellation policies are answered quickly so that potential guests can ease right into the booking process with peace of mind.
What Messaging Means to Your Employees
In any other day and age, allowing customers to engage with your company through so many channels would have been overwhelming. But it’s not that day, and we’re past that age. In today’s modern messaging world, Quiq makes it easy for employees to manage conversations.
In fact, Quiq Messaging can help optimize agent performance by providing advanced productivity features that improve the customer experience. With Quiq, employees are able to handle multiple messaging conversations at once, thereby increasing their efficiency and reducing the cost to serve.
There isn’t any downtime for training. Adding business messaging is a pretty flat learning curve for your employees. They are likely using messaging in their daily lives and are familiar with sending and receiving messages. The only difference is that they’ll have an easy way to manage conversations.
All messaging conversations are managed within a single, unified desktop with features that help employees prioritize conversations, monitor customer sentiment, and make every conversation more personal and effective. Employees can feel empowered to provide the best customer experience possible.
Business Messaging Means Business
Business messaging makes a significant impact in two ways to grow your business: get new customers or have your existing customers buy more.
- Attract new customers – Make your business accessible so that it’s easy to do business with you.
- Keep existing customers happy – Empower your customers to get service 24/7 through business messaging. Make it easy for customers to address questions and issues that may arise after the sale, and they’ll be more likely to come back again.
The key takeaway here is that business messaging isn’t just good for your business. It’s a main ingredient in the secret sauce that can keep your business running successfully. Ready to see Quiq Messaging in action? Sign up to try it right now for free or have one of our experts walk you through a custom demo.
