When you start to text your customers, it’s important to keep in mind why you’ve incorporated text messaging in your business. Not only is texting the preferred platform for communication, but it also creates a casual and friendly environment for day-to-day customer interaction. Use the tips below to get the best results out of text messaging!
1. Introduce yourself
Whether you’re coming from a small or large company, no customer wants to feel like they’re talking to a computer. By introducing yourself before a conversation, or signing off with your name at the end of the first message, customers know they’re talking to a real person. In situations where customers have already spoken to you on the phone or in person, this establishes even more trust because they’ll recognize you when you reach out again.
2. Personalize the message
Using templates is a great way to quickly and efficiently text your customers, but adding a touch of personalization is crucial to getting a healthy response rate. Making sure to add their first name, and one other custom field is a great way to make the text message seem fully personalized to them. A great way to customize a thank you or follow up text would be to thank them for purchasing a specific product or service.
3. Be mindful of the time of day
If you have any sort of automated texts go out, such as asking for reviews or promotional texts, make sure to have them sent at a reasonable time that won’t disrupt the customer’s life. Texting late at night, or first thing in the morning can be more of a nuisance compared to an afternoon text. Also, pay attention to when you’re following up with customers. If you want to send a review request to have the customer leave feedback after they left the store, make sure to not send it the exact moment they step out, or to send it a whole week later. It’s best to send review requests before they’ve left your location, when their feedback is top of mind.
4. Use emojis!
Emojis are a great way to convey your tone and add a nice visual to your message. Customers are more likely to engage with a text message that has an emoji as it seems more friendly and casual. Adding a few emojis to the beginning or end of your text that relates to your message is a great way to express your company’s voice. However, the focus of the text should always be your message. Don’t clutter the text with emojis because it’ll become hard to read. Some examples of when to use some popular emojis include:
Announcement: 🗣📣
Confirmation: 😁👍
Promotion: 🎉⭐️
Be sure to avoid negative emojis as they can often be interpreted as a business not taking a negative situation seriously. Emojis are light-hearted and are meant to create a friendly atmosphere, so they’re best left for positive text messages.
5. Keep it short and sweet!
Texts are meant to be much shorter than emails. Do not use long terms that’ll be too tedious for customers to read. Instead, use short and simple words and phrases in all of your texts. You want to make sure it’s not an easy text to ignore, and that a quick glance is enough for your customers to know what the text is all about.
6. Spell check
While using emojis and abbreviations can be a fun way to keep the conversation casual, spelling mistakes will make the text seem sloppy and unprofessional. To avoid spelling mistakes, give your text a quick read before sending it out, and make sure any important information, such as confirmation numbers, are correct.
7. Reply quickly!
With texting comes an expectation of speed. Customers are looking forward to getting a response within a few minutes. While responding to text messages doesn’t need to be as fast as a face to face conversation, it’s still important to keep the flow going and respond as soon as possible. If you’re worried about getting to customers on time with text, a great idea is to set up an automated response to let the customer know if there’ll be a wait before they hear back.
8. Provide a Call-to-Action
You can provide links for your customers to engage with your website or leave you a review via text. By asking for a review, you can set up a quick link to your Google My Business page, or use business text messaging tools to set up a review invite for you. This is a great way to, not only boost reviews on your business, but to also reach more happy customers that may not have otherwise remembered to post their feedback. The ease and personable tone of text messaging makes it a valuable tool for businesses to utilize when talking to customers. Knowing how to use text messaging to engage customers and create lasting relationships is important for any business in 2020.
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