Customers want FAST service! What is faster than text messaging!?
Providing SMS (text messaging) as a customer support channel provides fast and flexible response times for your customers. It can also be very cost effective. Rush Order’s recent data shows that customer retention increases by as much as 50% when customers begin to receive near immediate responses to their support inquiries.
Another perk of SMS is proactive outbound communication to your customers who opt-in for such notifications. For example, if you are conducting a flash sale, you can quickly send a text letting your customers know! You can also send a text to customers if you are experiencing an outage or issue and you want to provide an update on the resolution. This can help ward off unnecessary complaints and keep your labor costs to a minimum as well.
How does SMS support work?
A number of providers, including tools from the likes of Zendesk, can provide you with a telephone number to place on your website and/or shipping inserts. A. shipping insert is a simple flyer or postcard that can be placed into your shipping box or retail packaging that contains the SMS enabled phone number. All Rush Order clients who use our customer support services are automatically supplied with their own unique number for SMS and phone support.
When customers reach out via SMS, it is important to ensure that all messages are categorized in a helpdesk system. Again, Zendesk is a good example of such a system, but there are many others out there with varying features and associated costs.
In our experience, it is important to configure your helpdesk system to categorize the entire SMS conversation as an individual “ticket” that resides in an open or closed status. A conversation can include multiple texts back and forth between your Rush Order or internal support agent and the customer. This setup allows you track specific reasons for the inquiry and ensure every customer issue is thoroughly resolved in a timely manner.
SMS is quick and easy for customers to receive any information. At Rush Order, our agents use SMS to send FAQs, URLs of any kind, step by step product install directions, how-to videos, and much more. We believe most brands should take advantage of SMS to stay on top of their customer service game!
We invite you to reach out to Rush Order if you are interested in learning more about all the creative ways you can use SMS to improve your brand’s image and customers’ experience.