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How Conversational Commerce Leads to True Customer Focus
Picture your customer or potential client needing a question answered about your product or service. What channels are they able to use to reach you? Is texting/instant messaging one of them? Given the options between phone, email, or text/IM, which do you think your customer prefers?
If you’ve been following the trend of 62% of people in the U.S., the answer is clear. In this article, we’ll explore this movement known as “conversational commerce,” why consumers like it, and how it can help your company be truly customer-focused.
Conversational Commerce Defined
First seen in a 2015 piece written by Uber’s Chris Messina on Medium, the term “conversational commerce” refers to buying or selling products/services or providing customer care using conversational platforms. Examples of these platforms are your smart phone’s text service, social media sites like Twitter, chat apps like Facebook Messenger, or voice command tech like Amazon’s Echo product.
Some companies have chatbots connected to Facebook Messenger or alternative chat apps while others have integrated virtual assistants into their brands’ websites.
In whatever way their consumers want to engage with them, businesses are making themselves accessible.
Why Consumers Like It
Ask anyone who has ever had to call a customer service line and you’ll likely hear horror stories about them — the seemingly endless phone menus to get to the appropriate department, long wait times to speak to an actual person, and finally getting a human who is then unable to answer their question or fix their problem. Imagine having the option to use a chat app instead of going through all of that. Which do you think your customers would choose?
Of course, your ideal audience could be on the opposite end of the spectrum — these consumers are so used to communicating with anyone via chat services that it seems perfectly normal to use that avenue for talking with businesses. Why try to get someone on the phone or through email when a text is so much faster? And if your company is on the other end of that text and your rep replies back just as fast, you will likely have a satisfied customer who will sing your praises and return for another purchase.
Improving Your Rep as a Customer-Focused Brand
Companies that have jumped on the conversational commerce bandwagon and built the infrastructure to quickly respond to customers will more likely develop a loyal following among them. 55% of people in the U.S. say being able to message a business helps them feel more personally connected to the brand.
It shows your organization as one that is truly focused on customers by allowing them to communicate with you how they want and when they want. Your customers will feel respected and empowered when they can connect at their convenience and receive instant results or feedback from you. That level of consumer control helps build comfort and trust with your company, turning your customers from mere product purchasers to brand ambassadors.
The Modern Era of Consumer Communication
Conversational commerce is changing the way business gets done, and if consumer reaction is any indication, the movement is growing.
57% of people in the US consider business messaging the "modern way to communicate."
Whether you’re tweeting an answer to a customer’s question or closing a sale via text, your company is sure to make current and potential customers smile (maybe even cheer) by embracing this trend. It’s convenient, personalized, and efficient — all things customers find gratifying when engaging with brands. In turn, your business becomes a modern-day model of true customer focus for others to emulate.
New to conversational commerce or want to step up your chatting game? Chatfully can help! Click here to learn more.
Sources
1. "How Messaging On Facebook Is Changing The Way Businesses Communicate With Customers." Facebook Business. N. p., 2019. Web. 19 July 2019.
More and more consumers are growing comfortable with the idea of texting businesses to make their voices heard. The savviest of businesses understand the importance of this trend and is choosing to engage numerous customers using bulk SMS. Bulk SMS is changing the way businesses communicate and nurture relationships with consumers by empowering businesses to send messages at scale, without sacrificing the personal touch of their messages. For those interested in dabbling with bulk SMS, did you know you can take your current phone landline and convert it into a platform that enables 2-way bulk text messaging? You don't even need to change your landline phone number. All it takes is a quick call to your service provider. It’s so quick and easy In fact, you could easily text-enable your landline within the day. WIth flexible pricing plans depending on your needs all without disrupting your current business workflow. Soon you’ll be able to send tens of thousands of messages efficiently and effortlessly.
Texting with prospects and customers is a new marketing channel for most businesses, but the benefits are staggering.
As you’re learning more about conversational commerce, you may start to feel defensive about your current email communication strategy. It seems to be working for you and you're comfortable with the system in place. Why put time, energy, and resources into implementing a new process, like using SMS texting and instant messaging, that may not work for your needs? It’s a natural way to react to any type of change—probably more so in business where you’re not just risking your personal reputation and money, but your business’ as well. It’s the responsible reaction to question anything that claims to be “better for you.” So to all of you cautious decision makers—we say bravo and applaud your thoughtful judgment. We are not here to convince you that you need to completely change your communication plan. Rather, we are here to provide insights into how you may augment your arsenal to enhance what you’ve got and make it even better. We’ve got nothing against email. On the contrary, we’ll show you how to improve your email strategy while adding SMS texting and instant messaging capabilities as options for your audience. Before we do that, we will first address some common concerns about using SMS and/or IM for business purposes. Then, we’ll outline when to use instant communication with your audience and when to use email. Common Concerns about SMS and IM Concern #1: They’re intrusive. Some people may find getting a text or chat message from a business on their personal phone as an invasion of a sacred space that should only be designated for trading emojis and gifs with your nearest and dearest. That’s a fair point if the customer did not opt in to receive SMS or IM from the company. However, standard practice for most organizations is to request permission before contacting a consumer. By doing this, businesses know whether the consumer wants to hear from them or not. In addition, companies usually offer a way to opt out if consumers change their mind or were contacted by mistake. So, ultimately this choice of communication style is left with the consumer. Those people who find it intrusive can opt out—they would be among the minority anyway. When Facebook surveyed daily messaging app users, 61% of those surveyed in the US told them “they had messaged a business in the past three months.” The same statistic from other countries was either the same or higher. It’s clear most people around the world don’t find SMS or IM from companies intrusive at all. Concern #2: No access or limited access. There may be a cost barrier that limits or prevents people from receiving text or instant chat messages. Those consumers have the same choice as above—they can opt out of receiving these types of instant communication altogether or choose the chat platform that’s most accessible to them whether that be SMS, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, or the like. Businesses can access all of these mediums through a unified platform, like Chatfully, that will keep the conversations organized and open for teams to view and collaborate on the best solutions. If the targeted recipients do opt out of any instant communication, hopefully, they have the option to be reached by email, phone, or postal mail instead should they have questions about your product or service or want to be alerted about sales promotions. Concern #3: No records. For everyday personal use, it may not be possible to keep a history of your texts or DMs, and if one did, it would take up precious space on your device. For businesses, however, there are services, like Chatfully, that can help you maintain records of all your conversations (no matter the platform) for however long you want to keep them. So if you’re looking for that complaint sent over Twitter or that billing question sent via WhatsApp, you can easily find it through a unified platform like Chatfully’s. But which tool is best? Now that we have addressed the common concerns about using SMS texting or web-based instant messaging, for the rest of this article, we will refer to both of these mediums as “instant chat” and compare “instant chat” to email. The other pros and cons in certain situations for both SMS and IM are the same so both will be grouped as “instant chat.” This guide will help you choose the best tool for each of the following areas: Scheduling Customer success Sales Marketing Use Cases for Instant Chat
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