The call center industry is an industry that is centered around the customer and the customer’s experience. This being the case, the priority for contact centers is to consistently offer an excellent customer experience. However, with technology that is constantly changing, staying up-to-date on the methods of delivering an excellent customer experience can become more of a challenge. In the early days of Customer Service, phone and e-mail were the primary means of communicating with customers. Eventually, Live Chat was added and in more recent years, social media. However, there is one method that is emerging as the very preferred means of providing great customer service and that method is Text Messaging. Text messaging? Really? Well…yes! More and more, we are finding that text messaging really can provide a better customer experience; here’s how.
HOW TEXTING IMPROVES THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
- It’s Mobile-Friendly: Texting enables the contact center to utilize mobile devices, which are always with us. Let’s face it, who doesn’t have a smart phone or other mobile device with them at all times? Plus, many companies today offer loyalty programs that are SMS based, enabling them to communicate with customers on the go.
- It’s Immediate: People look at their phones countless times throughout the day. This makes texting a very efficient means of communication, especially since the majority of us respond to texts within 10 minutes of receiving them. Faster response time, tends to yield a quicker resolution to a customer issue, thus enhancing the customer experience.
- It’s personal: Personalized service is one of the primary factors that improves the customer experience and overall customer satisfaction. Texting provides this with its personal, one-on-one means of communicating.
- It yields a higher response rate: Texting is responsive with a 98% open rate, as opposed to e-mail that tends to have about a 20% open rate.
- It’s efficient for agents: Texting allows agents in the call center to communicate with more than one customer at a time. Additionally, text threads provide an immediate “written record” of communication between the agent and the customer.
- It allows businesses to be pro-active: Texting is a great means of providing outbound messaging to customers keeping them up-to-date on current offers and providing a convenient and efficient means to respond.
Today’s customer has come to expect superior service that is also delivered quickly and efficiently. If customers are required to wait for a resolution to their issue, they will likely move on to a competitor. This has necessitated that call centers be on the cutting edge of technology while providing the most reliable and efficient means of communicating with customers; text messaging has quickly emerged as one of the best means to do this.
At Centris, we offer a variety of services to our customers and texting is an essential means we use to communicate with their customer base.
If you would like to learn more about the tools Centris can offer to improve your customers’ experience, contact us. We’d love to help.
