Improving Your Customer Service With a Better SMS Gateway
SMS campaigns for customer service and support can go a long way toward cementing your brand in the minds of your target demographic. If you want to make a positive impression, it all starts with sending the right message at the right time. See how personalization can boost the engagement and loyalty of customers.
SMS Campaigns for Customer Support
All short messaging services, aka texting, campaigns begin with the most fundamental marketing question: What do you want your customer to take away from what you have to say? If you’re sending out SMS reminders about a limited-time product, you want to inspire urgency. If you’re trying to answer a question about a delayed order, though, you want the client to feel as though their concerns are being addressed and people are working to resolve the issue.
The basics of configuring an SMS application programming interface are fairly easy to understand. Where most marketers run into trouble is the execution. A good SMS gateway will need to account for everything from differing time zones to customer preferences. For instance, some people don’t want to fill out surveys about their experiences, even if their feedback could help improve future experiences.
Prioritizing Benefits for Better Engagement
Different brands have different expectations for their customer support. It helps when you choose one or two key benefits that you want to deliver to customers. Here’s what a flexible SMS API should be able to accomplish:
- Personalization: Whether you want to thank a customer for their business or help them track their order, a personalized SMS campaign can do wonders for client satisfaction.
- Customer engagement: Loyalty is not easy to build these days, especially if you’re in a saturated market. Mitto, an SMS API provider, has seen how it doesn’t always take very much to make your mark. It can be as simple as giving consumers the option to directly respond to your text messages.
- Proactive communication: No one wants to take the time to call a company and follow up on a purchase or question. Customers know that it sometimes has to be done, but it will leave a bad taste in their mouths. If you don’t want to play the reaction game, SMS campaigns can be a great way to get ahead of a problem so that the client knows they haven’t been forgotten.
- Issue resolution: Calling a customer is likely to relegate you to voicemail, and emailing is a great way for your good news to get buried underneath endless promotions. On the other hand, text messages provide an immediate way to tell a customer that their problem has been fixed. For the best results, keep the message short and sweet, and give the customer a chance to follow up if needed.
Best Practices for Your SMS Campaigns
The best practices for each company come down to what your customers want to see from you. Not everyone loves to get text messages, and sometimes, it has nothing to do with you. There are plenty of companies and organizations that overuse this contact method, causing some clients to see all texts as spam. Other people prefer not to use their phones for anything other than communication with friends and family. The staff at Mitto understands how important it is to identify recipients’ personal preferences if you’re serious about enhancing customer service.
Once you know where people are coming from, it’s much easier to design your SMS reminders and messages to meet them where they are. Regardless of what your target audience desires, the right SMS API will be able to accommodate a variety of preferences.
