As the winter months put more drivers on the side of the road due to weather conditions or mechanical issues, all vehicle owners should know who to contact for help. But it’s not just about whom to contact for help, but how to do so.
No one sitting on the side of the road wants to wait on hold or download a special app to chat with a roadside assistance or insurance company. Drivers want to reach out for help on the mobile communication and messaging platforms they already use for several hours each day, like Meta’s Facebook Messenger, SMS messaging and whatever else they rely on to talk to friends and family. They want to send a quick message or voice note on the familiar platform of their choice and get a prompt helpful answer.
This means that brands must be where their consumers and customers already are if they want to have effective communication and remain competitive. And this is necessary in every sector; it’s not just for towing and car insurance companies, but for everything from utilities to retail brands to travel companies to medical practices.
Engaging with consumers wherever they are
This approach goes beyond simply having a page on Facebook that consumers can follow, or an account that posts beautiful images on Instagram. It means engaging with consumers one-on-one through these apps’ communication channels. It means that consumers can chat with representatives and complete tasks like changing a name on a ticket or checking the status of an online order within these platforms. For example, Frontier Airlines, which recently announced that it would no longer offer live agents by phone, allows customers to communicate via Whatsapp, in addition to a live chat on its website.
If brands are on the platforms that consumers already use, they no longer need to worry about download rates of apps; they can just start communicating. Brands should also not forget about the power of SMS texting. Although it’s one of the oldest mobile communication forms, it is extremely popular, especially in the U.S. market. The average U.S. mobile consumer sends between 16 and 52 texts each day, and 95% of those who receive SMS texts respond within a few minutes.
And it’s not just about responding to customer queries and requests for help; these platforms are also valuable for reaching out to consumers with special deals or information they need. SMS texts can be especially valuable for outreach, as 98% of SMS messages are opened and viewed, making them almost a guaranteed way to reach consumers.
Using AI to provide the best information and relieve the burden on human workers
In addition to being reachable on popular messaging and social media platforms, brands can also benefit from embracing AI-powered automated communications in order to respond to consumers in a timely and helpful manner on these platforms. Beyond providing information or answers to questions, AI-enabled bots that are integrated with the rest of a brand’s business can help consumers carry out tasks.
This allows customers to efficiently complete tasks 24 hours a day. I recently had a surprisingly pleasant experience with this sort of AI assistant on AirAsia’s Facebook page. After spending hours trying without success to reach the airline by phone, I discovered I was able to change some of the reservation details rather quickly over Facebook Messenger. When done well, smart automation often creates a better customer experience.
It should be remembered that the effects of automation go far beyond the customer experience. It is also helpful for customer service agents and the businesses as a whole. By taking care of simple repetitive tasks, AI frees up often stressed and overworked human agents to take care of more complicated matters. AI can also be useful to agents as part of their workflow; for example an agent can assign a bot to send out documents to a customer to sign, or to schedule an appointment for a client.
Being able to assign tasks to AI ultimate allows human agents to play a bigger role in business growth. They will play the role of humans in the loop, supervising and working with AI, rather than trying to be robots who take as many calls as possible each hour.
Taking an integrative and centralized approach to being available across platforms
When brands implement a strategy of being reachable across existing and popular platforms, it needs to be done in a centralized way that will advance overall business goals. That’s why many organizations will benefit from dedicated executive leadership charged with carrying out this transformation.
Such an executive tasked with automating communication for the company can make sure that when a brand becomes reachable on various platforms agents’ jobs become easier and more streamlined. A centralized and integrated platform that agents can work on to handle the communications on each channel–rather than handling them inside the channels themselves– and which also oversees central operation of all the AI functions, including chatbots, goes a long way in making this work more efficient.
This executive can also see that any communications, including automated ones, are integrated with the rest of the business. This is what will allow consumers and customer service agents to complete tasks, like appointment scheduling or dispatching a tow truck, via these platforms, rather than just using them to exchange information.
By meeting consumers where they are — on the numerous mobile apps, social media platforms and SMS texting they are already using for hours each day—brands can greatly improve the customer experience. At the same time, if these communications are automated well and overseen by humans, agents will be under less stress and more involved in tasks that drive growth. Ultimately, customer service can be transformed from a sunken cost to an investment that drives growth.
