6 Reasons to Offer SMS Customer Service and Support

Using SMS or Text Messages to Offer Help, Service & Support to Your Audience: An Introduction

Text messaging is an ideal tool for offering help and support to your audience quickly, cheaply and efficiently. However…

There a lot of discussions on the web about how SMS customer service software can be invaluable, but in almost all cases, these discussions center solely on one-way communications.

In other words, they discuss the value of using mass texting to send a single, similar message to dozens, hundreds, or thousands of your clients. For example…

Your 2015 Honda has received a recall notification. Please call or service department as soon as you are able.

There’s no doubt that this offers value. In this case however, I am not talking about using simple mass texting for mass customer service notifications.

I’m talking about true, two-way communication – all done with text messaging – between you and your staff or support representatives – and your audience, whomever that may be. They send in a support text message, and your staff responds.

The discussion continues in this fashion until the issue is addressed.

Bada-bing, bada-boom! Simple.

If you haven’t considered the value offered by such a system,

1. It will save you and your staff or support reps time.

Text communications are brief, concise, and to the point. Best of all, communications that would be considered rude and informal in email or via voice are not considered so in text, since the brief format leads to a very matter of fact, almost curt, communication style. As a result, it takes very little time to respond to messages.

2. It will save you money.

It goes to reason that if you can address your audience or client’s concerns faster and more efficiently it will cost you less money to do so. Plus, if you’re using a platform that allows you to easily manage multiple text conversations at once, you can become even more efficient – meaning your support requirements can be addressed by fewer people.

3. Your audience will love it.

Not only is text messaging an extremely comfortable and familiar technology that almost everyone uses for a growing number of people it’s their preferred communication channel.

In other words, using a text message solution for support, help or customer service gives your clients or contacts the option to connect with you in the way that’s most convenient to them.

After all, a text-based support option frees them up from having to wait on the phone to talk to a support representative. That means they don’t have to schedule 10 or 20 minutes out of their day to connect, they can send a message, and go about their day until you respond.

4. It provides access to people who would normally have a hard time reaching you.

For example, if your business or organization supports people in poverty, you already know that most of them do not have data or voice minutes on their phone

The same may be true if you cater mostly to a younger audience.

In short, if you don’t offer the ability for them to reach out to you via text message, it makes it significantly more difficult to do so.

5. It’s cheap.

Offering support by text message is much more cost effective than any other communication channel.

6. It’s still easy to escalate to another communication channel if necessary.

Text messages of course, are going to be a great option for addressing issues that are relatively straight forward.

But sometimes you are going to need to migrate a conversation to email or phone – utilizing a text messaging support tool does not mean these options are no longer open to you.

Offering Customer Service and Support By Text Message Makes Sense!

Alright there you have it, 6 Reasons Why You Should Offer Customer Service & Support Via Text Message.

If this video has piqued your interest and you’d like to learn more about a SMS customer service platform, I invite to watch the review of CONNECT, our Cloud based customer service platform.

It’s an affordable, easy to use service, and you can try it free (no credit card required!).

Of course, if you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out and contact us at anytime!