How Financial Brands Can Appeal to Consumers’ Emotions with SMS/RMM

Creating strong experiences and appealing to consumers’ emotions helps financial brands increase loyalty and customer lifetime value. And nothing is more capable of generating positive or negative emotions than money.

Countless studies show the negative effects that stress about our finances has on our mental and physical well-being, and a recent survey shows that 94% of UK employees are “suffering from money worries.”

This means that companies that can help reduce financial concerns are primed to create positive emotional experiences for their customers.

Below are ways SMS and Rich Media Messaging (RMM) can help financial services companies and service departments appeal to customers’ emotions.

SMS alerts helps financial brands appeal to consumers’ emotions by reducing financial anxiety

Customers, particularly millennials, are interested in receiving real-time SMS notifications and alerts on their phones to help them manage their money and avoid fraudulent charges. SMS is a low-cost solution that financial services companies can use to engage with their millennial customers and build brand loyalty.

UK millennials wants to be kept up to date about what’s happening with their finances to help ease their anxiety, and according to the Salesforce report What Millennials Expect from Their Banks, nearly half want to receive this information in the form of SMS alerts.

By sending SMS account alerts about recent transactions and account balance updates, financial brands can help improve customer experience by reducing financial anxiety and spotting potentially fraudulent activity sooner.

Another benefit of SMS is its two-way chat feature, which allows customers to reach an agent quickly to address account or billing issues without having to make a call and wait for a representative.

RMM payment reminders ease worry, prevent customers from falling behind

One way financial services brands or finance departments can help prevent the worry that comes from falling into arrears is through Rich Media Messaging payment reminders. RMM reminders can be sent days before the bill is due and take customers to a personalized web page where they can make a payment, set up a payment plan, make a promise to pay, or be routed directly to an advisor for more help.

For example, Studio Retail LTD wanted to make it easier for their customers to make payments and address any potential credit issues, so they worked with VoiceSage to create RMM payment reminders. Messages were sent to customers two days before payments were due and allowed them to make a payment quickly and securely, preventing them from falling behind.

As a result, around 90% of customers who used RMM continued to do so because it was easy and reduced their worry.

SMS and RMM provide an empathetic collections process

Stress about debt can be compounded when late payments result in debt collection calls at inconvenient times. Finance departments can improve the relationship with their customers – and improve collections payments – by reaching out to customers with SMS and RMM late payment reminders.

A survey of UK consumers found that they want “to receive a greater proportion of late payment reminders via text message…than they currently do.”

Vanquis Bank improved relationships with their customers with RMM and SMS. Vanquis, a leading UK-based credit card company, needed to stay in contact with customers when payments were due. The company first used diallers and live agents to contact customers about payments. But it was labour-intensive and didn’t provide a great customer experience.

Vanquis Bank used voice, text, and rich media messaging reminders to boost mobile payments.

Vanquis found that, compared with the dialler traditionally used for outbound collections calls, VoiceSage’s voice, SMS, and RMM customer prompts:

• delivered a higher rate of conversions of “promises to pay,”
• required 60% fewer agent resources because of automatically generated messages,
• and allowed call center operatives to be redeployed to support customers in other areas.

RMM helped the bank make timely, efficient contact with all customers through their preferred channels of communication. By empathizing with their customers’ preference to avoid collections calls and instituting RMM, Vanquis used fewer resources to get better results.

RMM prevents fear of overcharging

Inaccurate utility bills are a pain point for many UK customers. The most common culprit is the estimated meter reading by energy companies, which often leads to overcharging. Customers live in fear of receiving a bill that’s higher than expected and no way to pay. In fact, according to Citizens Advance, inaccurate bills accounted for 60% of energy customers’ problems.

But VoiceSage offers an RMM solution that can help customers receive accurate bills and save utility companies the time and expense of sending field service teams out to read meters.

With RMM, customers can take a photo of their electricity, gas, or water meter to get the most accurate reading, upload it, and send it to their utility provider.

This will help ensure customers receive accurate bills, and it’s more than 75% faster than traditional readings.

VoiceSage offers financial brands solutions that appeal to consumers’ emotions

VoiceSage works with several financial brands companies like PayPal, Vanquis Bank, and Capital One to provide SMS and RMM solutions that appeal to consumers’ emotions by improving customer experience, providing a more empathetic collection process, preventing customers from falling behind in payments, and improving the billing experience.

These solutions also benefit businesses by enhancing revenue and reducing both inbound calls and the cost to collect payments.

Book a demo to learn how VoiceSage can help your business.