Newsletter
SMS for Support: Solve Customer Problems Through Texts
Great customer support is key to keeping customers and growing your business.
Plus 77% of people want to text with businesses for customer service and support. Here are three ways to set your customer support team up for success with text messaging.
1. Give Support Its Own Text Line
Text enable your existing support line or add a completely new one.
That way your support team has its own dedicated dashboard (text line) to best manage incoming messages outside of sales and marketing conversations—which is helpful for every department.
Support reps will also get access to helpful text messaging tools on their dashboard, including:
Contact tags — To identify which rep is handling which conversation.
Autoresponder — To let customers know help is on the way, even if it’s after hours.
Templates — To offer consistent answers to common questions.
Contact notes — For documenting ongoing conversations or problems.
Your support team will be able to identify when reps are actively typing responses to new messages, plus whether or not a message has been resolved already.
A dedicated space with tools like these will help your support team respond to questions even faster and boost your business’s overall reputation.
2. Advertise "Text Us for Help"
Tell customers about your support line.
People don’t want to call and wait on hold, struggle with a chatbot, or try to navigate an online portal. They often just want to text and continue on with their day. That’s why you should show off your SMS support line to create trust and boost your reputation.
SMS Chat is an easy way to advertise on your website that customers can text you for support. Customers use the widget to text you directly from the web page, then any of your support team’s responses go directly back to their phone.
71% of businesses already text for customer service. You don’t want to lose out to competitors, because you didn’t advertise that you’re also available by text message.
3. Book Help Calls
Not all support conversations are suited for text only.
You need to be aware when a situation is best handled through text, and when it’s best to move it to a call. If a phone call is needed, nail down a time by texting a calendar link.
You know you’ll be able to reach customers successfully for support calls, when they see your confirmation text first. This eliminates any games of phone tag, so your reps can continue helping more people.
The more streamlined it is for customers to reach you to solve their problems, the higher your retention rates and overall revenue will be.
