How To Boost Customer Retention and Engagement Through SMS
A staggering number of businesses are obsessing over Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and Social media to market their products, but SMS or text messages are still effective at engaging and retaining customers for you. Reports show customer engagement is essential to sustain a successful business over time and to have loyal customers. Up to two-thirds of a company’s profit depends on effective customer engagement.
What is Customer Engagement Exactly?
A customer engagement counts when there is ongoing interaction between a brand and a customer, offered by the brand, chosen by the customer. Recent surveys reveal about 82% consumers choose to enable SMS notifications, and almost 78% consumers prefer text messages over making calls to businesses as the messages are answered instantly. It is no different in Australia.
Now that you know how powerful business text messaging can be, here are a few tips to help you maximise customer engagement and retention.
Provide Customer Service and Support via Text Messages No Matter The Location
Customer service is the backbone of your business. So it should be instant and mobile. Provide your customers the satisfaction of seamless text messaging for queries, requests, notifications, acknowledgements, troubleshooting and all other interaction. It is the best way to provide 24/7 customer-support. For example, you can use virtual numbers in Australia to establish your mobile identity with customers even when you are overseas.
Ensure timeliness of your text messages and try using words like ‘Limited Stock’, ‘2 hours left’, that focus on urgency to induce immediate customer response.
Implement Contextual Marketing
This is a smart tactic you can adopt to deliver targeted SMS to your customers to boost their engagement with the brand or product. For example, consider sending a food coupon to your customer whenever they pass by a restaurant, or delivering a cab-services advert when they arrive at an airport or railway station. Such contextual SMS ad has higher chances of customer action.
Request Permission
SMS marketing follows permission based strategies as targeted notifications can be sent to customers who have signed up for them. You can plan specific marketing strategies targeting particular regions, customers and exclusive product offers. Such personalisation can help build customer loyalty.
Seek Customer Feedback
Opening up for customer feedback on latest products and offers will automatically boost customer-service and interactions. Customers want you to guide them in the right direction. But they also want their thoughts and opinions to matter to your brand. If there’s a two-way text engagement with your customers, it can go a long way in customer retention. Send ‘How to Improve’ forms and SMS surveys to customers and enable easy-click text responses for immediate action. You should also consider incorporating their feedback into your business.
Reward Loyal Customers
Value your loyal customers. It costs five to ten times less to retain an old customer as compared to acquiring a new customer. Besides, on an average, an old customer is likely to spend about 65% more on your brand than a new one. Make loyal customers feel special by sending loyalty rewards, special offers and secret flash-sale notifications. This can encourage them to consider redeeming the offers.