Engage Customers with Conversational Messaging

 What is Conversational Messaging?

Conversational messaging is about helping, engaging, and providing a positive experience for customers across all your communication channels. A starting point that companies can do to create better conversations is to look at how different departments interact with customers on each channel. Here’s a list of departments that have the most customer-facing interactions:

• Marketing
• Contact centers
• Operations
• Customer service

And here’s a breakdown of the main channels used by most brands to keep the conversations flowing:

• SMS
• Rich Messaging
• Voice
• WhatsApp for Business
• Viber
• Email
• Social media

VoiceSage uses optichannel communication strategies to identify any problems in brand-customer communications. In case you are not familiar with the term, optichannel means selecting the right channel for the right customer at the right time.

Compared to omnichannel or multichannel strategies, optichannel is your key to success because you reach out to the customer’s preferred channel of communication when it suits them best. Therefore, conversion and engagement rates are likely to be higher. We believe that a strategic and personalized approach to reaching out to your customers starts by identifying which channels they are more likely to avoid or engage with. Then, brands can look at ways of optimizing conversational messaging.

Customer experience is the backbone of a healthy and long-lasting business. According to ClaraBridge, “45% of customers are willing to pay more for better customer service.” To deliver exceptional customer journeys, companies need to improve their customer conversations. To deliver impactful and positive conversations, here’s what you can do:

Make conversations about your customers, not you

Conversational messaging is about making listening to a priority. By listening to the problems your customers encounter with your products or services, you can resolve their issues. Don’t interrupt a customer while speaking, offer real-time assistance via live chat, and even self-serve options.

Personalize the customer experience

Give that special feeling to customers by making the conversation one-on-one. Find out the most suitable times to contact them and on which channel they are more likely to respond. VoiceSage uses in-depth analytics to identify customer preferences, guiding to make your customer experience more valuable.

Keep a positive tone

Pay attention to the tone of voice used on your channels and make sure you don’t sound like a robot. Many chatbots use AI and machine learning to analyze customer sentiment and intent. While other companies use automation up to a point, making agents available for customers to reach out to.

Match conversational messaging to the right channel

Choose an optichannel communication that matches the right conversation, on the right channel. For example, if you are trying to sell via live-chat, make sure you are helpful, and not too pushy because it might turn people off. In other customer service instances, showing empathy through live chat is not a realistic communication, especially if the chat is automated. In this instance, a phone call can express this feeling better than text. Moreover, an email can be an excellent channel to provide a point of reference for complex technical issues. While a rich message is perfect to self-serve or promotes your latest offers.

Conversational Messaging Demand and Expectation

Conversational messaging’s demand and expectation started when we all became the mobile-first customer generation. Think about how much we use our phone daily to pay our bills, research services, and products, compare prices, read testimonials, write emails, and the list can go on.

All customer notifications that we are expecting are done via mobile. If you have a doctor’s appointment,  then you will receive a notification to confirm it. If you need to pay your gas or electric bill, you will get an alert from your utility provider.

When you place an order, the courier will send you a text with delivery notification. Anything that has to do with booking, payments, customer service, feedback, or marketing is now done on mobile-first.

So, of course, conversational messaging is a thing of the future. The digital disruptions of recent years have taught us as customers that we want to approach businesses openly. And that brands need to be there for us to listen and engage.

What Conversational Messaging Brings to Businesses

The opportunities that conversational messaging can bring to companies are endless. Customers use many channels. Think about how many social media platforms are out there and how businesses are expected to have a presence on them. Email marketing services can be a great tool to drive engagement and build relationships.

Accessibility and channel diversity are two factors that influence how you interact with customers. “Customers use many channels… when they interact with organizations,” writes Gartner, “and they expect a seamless experience as they switch from channel to channel.”

Be prepared to integrate your channels and customer communications. At VoiceSage, we like to keep all brand-customer interactions into a single view inbox to make your life easier. Contact center agents don’t have to lose time switching between platforms. Be proactive and efficient in your customer communications and see where your customers are in their journey.

Conversational Messaging with Voicesage’s Platform

VoiceSage can help you create simple integrations between channels into your current tools. Our conversational messaging offering focuses on delivering the message to numerous channels. And when your user switches between them, you can still provide great customer service.

Whether you use SMS, voice, email, or WhatsApp for Business or are ready to explore other forms of rich messaging, get in touch with our team so we can explore the endless opportunities to make your conversations rock. Book a demo today.