Newsletter
SMS for Service: How to Text Professionally
9 in 10 people want to text with your business for customer service.
It’s easier for them to text than call, so that’s what they do. It also means you need to be able to help them through text while remaining professional. Here’s how to do that.
1. Respond ASAP
It’s better to over-communicate for customer service.
You probably won’t have someone available 24/7/365, and that’s okay. At least create an autoresponse so that people who text you know their message was received, and that a real person will follow up as able.
Once you do get to the conversation, respond quickly and helpfully. If it’s going to take you a few minutes (or longer) to look into their account or talk to your manager, that’s fine. Tell them. The customer may take a bit to reply, but you want to be quick and thorough.
Simply speeding up response times will help you appear more professional and even lead to more customers working with your company.
2. Know When to Redirect
As much as we love texting, it’s not the best for every conversation.
You should 100% of the time try to support the customer and resolve any issues through the channel they used to reach out. If they chose to text you, text them back.
However, some things may get lost in translation and cause friction, a situation may be more complex than a text or image can handle, or the customer may actually want to talk on the phone with a live agent and just texted you first to get your attention.
Much of this is subjective, but work with your team to determine when you should offer a phone call or other option to best serve a customer.
3. Have a Personality
People want to feel like they’re working with real humans.
Sometimes you need to be all business—that may be good for disclaimers or message templates, for example—but in most cases you should text with customers the way you’d text with a professional peer.
Show some emotion
Use an emoji
Send a few short texts instead of one long message
Share an attachment to get the point across
The best experience you can create for customers is making them feel taken care of. That requires a personal touch, so let your personality come through.
