Do you know what differentiates a successful company from others? It is their ability to rethink and optimize every consumer touchpoint – delivering an emotional, experience-based connection. In today’s digital-first era, most companies are struggling to deliver a personalized and fully connected brand experience. This can directly impact their level of customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.
Today, consumers want to be understood. According to a report by Freshworks, nearly 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that offers a seamless and personalized experience. Hence, conversational messaging takes center stage here. In fact, approximately 80% of companies have or planning to practice conversational customer engagement, i.e., interactively communicating with consumers across multiple digital channels.
Let’s understand how conversational messaging can transform your CX strategy, improve brand royalties, and help build and drive better conversions.
What is Conversational Communication?
Conversational messaging breaks the limitations of one-way communication, helping establish two-way interactions with consumers across multiple platforms and throughout their buying journey. Two-way conversation is a crucial factor influencing consumer engagement and trust associated with a brand.
When consumers are asked what is the most crucial aspect they consider when connecting with a business, 31% said they want options to communicate. Unfortunately, only 13% of businesses allow their consumers to respond to their SMSes. This can negatively impact the buyer’s journey.
Hence, conversational messaging is a business imperative today. It gives a ‘voice’ to your consumers, helping you better understand how they perceive your brand. Meaningful, two-way interactions boost customer advocacy – building deeper collaboration that can lead to product or service innovation. When you allow consumers to share their ideas and thoughts, it will help them gain valuable insights into their needs and desires – making way for product or service innovation.
Most importantly, conversational messaging influences customer engagement. Amidst cut-throat competition, improved customer experience (CX) can help differentiate your brand significantly. Here, conversational messaging is the key. It helps nurture an environment where consumers trust your brand and wants to establish loyal relationships. Hence, it should be an integral component of your CX strategy.
A few popular conversational messaging channels are:
- SMS
- Social Media
- Video Call, In-App Chat, Voice Call
- WhatsApp for Business
Accelerate CX Transformation With an Omnichannel Messaging Presence
It is rightly said that “Too much of anything is not good.” And that’s what is happening in the field of brand messaging today. Amidst rapid technology advancements, consumers are constantly being bombarded with messages – text messages, mobile app notifications, emails, social media, etc. This often causes communication overload.
While you strive to reach your audiences through as many platforms as possible, it may result in message fatigue. And consumers have learnt to cope with this situation – they ignore mass messages. This can negatively impact your business, resulting in low response rates and even lower clicks and conversions. It can also affect your brand impression, inducing consumers to unfollow, unsubscribe, or delete your social media channels or email lists.
For improved CX, businesses need to focus on efficient customer interactions rather than bulk volumes of messages. This is where conversational messaging, with an omnichannel presence, can help deliver more relevant and engaging responses. Modern customers have a short attention span, even less than 8 seconds. Therefore, boring text messages may not intrigue them to take positive action.
Rather, businesses should take an omnichannel approach that enables them to engage consumers in their preferred channels. Conversational messaging isn’t about blasting your customers with the same brand message across multiple platforms – it is about engaging them meaningfully through customer communications at scale.
Through conversational channels, businesses can now send rich media messages in different formats that instantly catch the attention of their consumers. Here are some widely used conversational messaging tools and formats:
- Videos: Exceptionally attention-grabbing and interactive, ideal for how-tos or explaining product features & functionality.
- Chatbots: Integrate artificial intelligence into your CX strategy and let chatbots intelligently handle customer interactions. Chatbots are a great way to start conversations, saving you a lot of money and time – while enhancing customer satisfaction.
- GIFs: Trigger customer attention for special brand messages such as announcing an upcoming sale, launching new products, etc.
- Carousels: Highly interactive and engaging, perfect for interestingly displaying multiple products.
- Social Media: Host Q&A sessions, talk about industry trends or current events, ask creative questions, and run social media contests – ideal for improved customer engagement.
Why Should Businesses Practice Conversational Messaging?
Integrating conversational messaging into your CX strategy can deliver several benefits as discussed herewith:
- Build personalized customer interactions
Conversational messaging channels help establish personalized interactions that are more relevant to your consumers. Tracking customers’ previous interactions with your brand or their buying interests online can help create personalized brand messages. This helps trigger their buying interest, improving customer satisfaction and driving more sales.
Additionally, monitoring consumers’ behaviour patterns enable you to target the right audiences with the right message at the right time and on the right platform.
- Make the buying process simpler for your customers.
Conversational messaging enables you to reach your consumers on the channel that is best suited for them. This ensures an improved buying experience because the customers can quickly interact with your brand and make an informed purchase decision. Instead of requesting customer support or writing long emails, customers would want to connect through platforms they use regularly. This would mean better customer satisfaction and higher conversions.
- Streamline customer support
Prompt and relevant customer care is the foundation of a great CX strategy. And an omnichannel presence with conversational messaging can be effective here. Tools like chatbots or WhatsApp messages ensure quick responses, enabling you to provide excellent customer service. And better you serve your customers, the greater will be their experience with your brand.
Next Steps
Conversational messaging helps build meaningful customer interactions and on a platform they most prefer. Through rich messaging on the right channel, businesses can significantly improve their customer experience – driving increased sales and ROI in the long term.
If you’re looking to try conversational messaging for your business or service, Babeltext can help. We offer obligation-free demonstrations and can customize a platform that meets your needs.
But we don’t leave it there. We’ll send a representative to take your team through the platform step-by-step and show them how to use the tools to make customer service a breeze effectively.