Do you remember the last time you were enthralled by the service or outreach of a brand? In fact, is there a brand that has left a long-lasting stamp in your head for customer innovation? However much you may think, it’s hard to put your finger on a particular brand in this era of brand explosion. Except for the spaces they operate in, there’s hardly anything that differentiates XYZ brand from an ABC brand. This, when brands have evolved to increasingly harnessed digital to be at the center of all the action.
But then, customers have evolved too. Thanks to all the technological changes that have happened around us, today’s customers are not content with one-dimensional, on-the-surface marketing that lacks freshness. Customers are looking for brands that serve them well at the time of a need and engage with them and understand their choices without being obtrusive. In essence, brands need to establish a deeper connect with their customers to break through the clutter and stand out.
Engaging your customers with conversations is the first step towards that. The power of conversations is well documented. After all, conversations are an integral part of human existence and peer-to-peer relationships so why not for business to customer interactions? The popularity of messaging apps worldwide is a testament to the fact that humans are hooked to conversations inherently.
For businesses, this opens a huge window of opportunities - right from engaging customers at the pre-purchase level and ensuring that they are delighted with after-sales service, to making them a champion of the brand. Brands that engage well are able to retain customers, thus increasing the lifetime value of a customer and eventually their topline.
Imagine calling your bank for information on a forex card that you need for your upcoming holiday. Having waited for more than 15 minutes to connect to customer support, you are frustrated and now decide to move to another bank which is offering a better service. In an age of instantaneous communication, being unresponsive can leave a bad taste in customers’ mouths and cost your brand business.
And even if there is customer support, the quality of support is questionable. So, how can brands balance the need for speed by being both quick as well as helpful? The answer - conversational messaging.
The technology, which has come a long way since its introduction in 1966, allows consumers to chat with company representatives, get customer support, ask questions, and receive personalized responses, all without having to talk to a real human.
For brands, this translates directly to lower staffing costs, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced friction, as it ensures that only the most difficult customer requests are elevated enough to warrant human interaction, while simple queries are handled by automated systems. Conversational messaging also increases brand safety protection, as poorly trained staff who may misrepresent a brands messaging are less likely to be hired.
Previous attempts at replacing phone support included live chat, which can bring down customer wait times by 80% and significantly reduce cost-per-interaction for brands. But while this method offers convenience and faster resolution than phone support, issues persist.
To start a dedicated session, users must wait for an agent to become available, which can take a while during busy times such as Black Friday or public holidays. This can be off putting for customers and can have a negative effect on the brand experience in a way that’s similar to long wait times for phone support.
Chatbots eliminate those wait times almost completely, ensuring that only the most critical issues are handled by appropriately trained customer service agents. While chatbots of the past were clunky, awkward, and reminiscent of bad sci-fi movie robots trying to fit in with human society, today’s chatbots can easily leave customers thinking that they were speaking with a live person the entire time!
Chatbots are already making a difference in many organizations. For instance, a railway company in the U.S. deployed a chatbot on its site’s pricing/ticket booking page which led to booking rate shooting up by 25%, while revenues from online booking rose by 30% and user engagement increased by 50%.
Conversational messaging extends far beyond customer service and can function as a powerful marketing tool for brands, allowing them to go beyond simple SMS blasts. Brands can utilize messages with attachments, audio and video files, GIFs, photographs, product carousels, forms, buttons, and other embedded elements. This can all be done wherever customers are engaging with your brand, whether that be on WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Slack, Telegram, or almost any other messaging service.
Now, brands can automate product discovery, recommendations, service requests, appointment bookings, refund requests, and more across virtually any channel - something that would have seemed science fiction just ten years ago.
In today’s market, customers don’t just care about the quality or price of goods and services. As per a survey, 73% of buyers say that customer experience is an important factor that influences their purchase decisions. On the other side of the table, about 58% of customers are also willing to sever a relationship with a business if it can’t meet their expectations. For brands wanting to improve their customer service and keep their consumers loyal, conversational messaging is no longer an option - it’s a must.
