Why Text-Based Customer Service Is Emerging So Rapidly?

Text-based customer service refers to customer service that encompasses all customer services including texting in some form. It can be SMSs, chats, WhatsApp, emails, etc. SMS is the most common and used form. With text-based customer service customer service teams can carry out key tasks, such as relaying notifications, scheduling, resolving customer queries, conducting customer support sessions, and reading reviews. Most customer service teams use SMS customer service platforms, to manage incoming and outgoing messages efficiently.

Benefits

• Cost-effective

SMSs are comparatively cheaper than all other forms of computer. Also, SMSs can be operated from basic computers. Due to this, you don’t have to purchase expensive mobiles to run your SMS campaigns. This reduces a lot of costs.

• Customers’ preferences are put first 

Customers nowadays prefer quick replies and don’t like to be waiting. With SMSs, they can get prompt responses and direct contact with the business. Also in the phone agents will find it troublesome to explain the same solutions to customers again and again. With SMSs, they can simply send quick automated replies to customers.

• It frees up your top representatives

With text-based customer service, the productivity of the employees increases as they are able to manage multiple conversations. Also, the highest-priority inquiries are directed to the most experienced customer representatives easily. This selective routing frees them up to spend more time on more complex tasks.

• Win the trust of your customers 

Customers want a connection with the brands they follow. And SMS customer service fulfills that. It provides one-on-one interactions with the brand.  It showcases your customers how much you value their time. SMS is more reliable than many other communication channels as text messages are transmitted over a cellular network and it doesn’t require internet connections. All these factors elevate your brand and set the stage for years of loyalty.

• Get customers’ feedback and reviews

With SMSs, you can get your customer’s feedback and reviews by providing a feedback and review form with the help of SMS marketing service providers. This will let the customers give their feedback and brands resolve their issues and improve their services.

Best Customer Service Strategies

• Personalization

Though the content of your messages is automated for the different segments of audiences. But you have to put your customer’s name and their other basic details in their messages. This will personalize your messages and customers will pay attention to it more. 

• Two-way Texting

Enable two-way messaging so that your customers can revert back to you. This will enhance your communication with your customers. Customers will become more engaged with your brand when they are able to raise questions and get its answers. 

• Multichannel Communication

Only one communication channel is not sufficient for your business to flourish. So always open all the channels of communication so that customers can choose according to their own requirements and preferences. Different customers prefer different communication channels.

• Customer Feedback

When customers’ demands aren’t fulfilled or their complaints aren’t heard then they won’t stick to your business they will simply switch to your competitors. To eliminate this problem always give your customers the option to give feedback and always respond to them and try to resolve their issues and improve your services.

Best Text-Based Customer Service Providers in the market

Twilio SMS for SuiteCRM

This is a messaging tool developed for SuiteCRM and Twilio SMS API powers it. It has many customizable pre-built templates to make the chat more personalized. With this, you can start a chat with your customers from the system and send online SMSs in real time. You can chat with multiple customers at the same time and a separate dedicated chat window will be opened for each chat. You can also send emojis along with text. The agent will get daily reports of the total SMSs sent, received, missed, replied and unsubscribed on their emails. Admins can check the activities of agents at any time of the day. It stores all the chat history. It also records the first-time message senders in CRM.

All the phone numbers are stored in a centralized location. There is a separate place where you can check all the opted-out phone numbers. In case you have missed any incoming message then you will get a notification. Time zones are automatically adjusted depending on your location. The user interface is very customizable and easy to operate. You can also export the chat history of any phone number. Its price is $499.

Twilio MessagingX

This is a centralized omnichannel messaging platform that allows businesses to communicate with their customers and leads through many communication channels.  It uses AI and natural language processing to extract customer data and analyze them.

It offers two services

• Programmable Messaging API

This provides one-way transactional messaging. The Transactional messaging can be SMS, MMS, or WhatsApp. You can send promotional messages, notifications, etc.

• Conversations API

With this, you can provide customer service to customers on the channel they prefer. The channels can be chat, SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google’s Business Messages, etc.

Attentive 

It is a text-based customer service platform that provides omnichannel support across many communication channels like mobiles, emails, web, voice, and social media. It also provides AI-automated answers. Analytics and reporting are also provided. The workflows are automated. Many addons can be done in it and it can be integrated with many applications and tools. It is available on a free trial for 60 days and to know its pricing you have to contact the team.

Podium

It provides text-based customer service including bulk messages, scheduled messages, and calls to text. It is best for end-to-end customer engagement. With it, you can easily send your customers text-based review requests so that they easily leave feedback. You can easily increase its performance capabilities as Podium gives you access to its REST API. You can integrate it with many other applications and tools.

Textedly 

It is one of the best affordable text-based customer services available in the market. It offers features of custom keywords, unlimited contacts, and picture messaging. Textedly gathers information about your subscribers and makes their profiles. It offers a built-in conversation with Instagram through which you can receive all the messages that you get on your Instagram profile. For this, you have to add a “Text Us” button to your social media page. It also has an analytics dashboard which gives you insights. It has many subscriptions at different prices. 

TextMagic

This is a text-based customer service provider and is best for connecting with the international audience. It covers 190 plus countries. It also offers local phone numbers in 25 countries. You can send really long messages about 918 characters. It has a real-time character counter through which you can check the number of texts you have entered.  Apart from English, it is also in languages like Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. It is available in many subscriptions for different prices.

Conclusion

Customer service is the most crucial part of any business. This customer service can be made more effective and efficient for both your employees as well as your customers with text-based customer service. This makes the entire process quicker and eliminates the need for employees to explain the same solutions to different customers again and again. Also, the customers don’t need to wait to get responses as they have to on calls. For all these advantages businesses must include text-based customer service in their service.