As people spend more time online, a seamless omnichannel customer experience becomes increasingly important. Personalized services and products are in high demand. Generally, our world has become hyper-digital, and customer behavior is changing. In response to these new demands, business text messaging has become one of the most effective methods of communicating with customers.
Text messaging is a frictionless and intuitive tool that scales personalized communications and delivers them in a convenient and non-intrusive manner. Additionally, it is more affordable compared to other solutions like call center retraining, one-to-one texting also meets customers on a channel they already prefer, seamlessly and securely.
Business texting has emerged as the best way for telecom and financial services to enhance and accelerate interactions with their consumers, creating a digital experience that helps build an authentic connection.
To help you hone your texting strategy, let’s look at the best practices telecom and financial services should lean into when texting customers who now expect better and demand more.
Prioritize Compliance With Regulations
Compliance is a critical aspect of business text messaging that cannot be overemphasized. As a matter of fact, there are legislations such as the Canada Anti Spam Law(CASL) and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation(GDRP) set in place to make sure that your business is operating within laws that protect you and the customer.
Compared to other marketing channels like email, the laws around business texting are strict, with the most important difference being the opt-in requirement that requires a company to have permission to send texts to an individual's mobile device. People need to choose to be contacted and, along with this opt-in requirement, companies must also include an opt-out or unsubscribe element.
So before embarking on any texting campaign, it is imperative to have the systems in place that can track and guarantee the compliance of your messaging and prevent unwanted communications. Failure to do so can result in stiff penalties: the CASL calls for fines of up to $1 million for individuals and up to $10 million for corporations per violation, while the GDRP sets maximum fines between €10 and €20 million.
Ensure That All Messages Are Personalized
Regardless of industry, service or product, people want more personalization in their digital customer experiences. In fact, 72% of consumers say they only engage with personalized messaging.
Personalized communication works because it makes people feel that you understand their unique needs. This helps develop trust and lays the foundation for developing an authentic, loyal relationship, one they will nurture with their wallets: 91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations that are relevant to them.
Leverage your data to ensure your messaging is always relevant and tailored to the specific background, needs, and location of a customer’s journey. Engaging with content that speaks to them brings customers closer to your brand, opening up new revenue streams and the chance to increase sales.
Be concise and provide value
In our fast-paced world, people have neither the time nor the desire to read paragraphs of texts. As consumer attention spans shorten, it’s more difficult than ever to grab their attention.
So texting truly shines as a short-from messaging medium. While emails can visually highlight a product, they are a long-form, low-priority communication tool that has much lower open rates: Text messages are opened and read almost 138% more than email.
Depending on your business texting software, you’ll likely have a 160-character limit for marketing messages, so make it count. Keep your text messages short. Make sure your message has a purpose, and get to it as quickly as you can, while still building in ways to personalize it. Lead customers to a precise and explicit CTA.
Leverage your data
Once you start texting your consumers, you’ll need to know how to leverage your data to find out what works and what doesn’t so you can chart your future campaigns.
Systematically tracking the content of your message – its length, wording, degree of personalization, for example – and then collecting real-time data on customer impact will help refine your testing and iteration process so you’re always improving your messaging.
Over time, you’ll begin to develop an in-depth understanding of what kind of messaging works with which kinds of customers, and then you can tailor your campaigns accordingly.
But how exactly do you do all of this?
Deploy the right texting tools
Data is everything, and the right texting tools will let you take advantage of the data you already have, along with the data you will produce.
At Statflo, our award-winning business texting software is designed to collect customer information, help you personalize and automate your ongoing communications, and deliver your message in the best way possible.
A best-in-class texting platform like Statflo has all the elements in place and out-of-the-box to scale marketing campaigns, streamline customer service, and enhance the entire digital CX experience. Not just that, but in a way that saves resources and meets the expectations of today’s more digital-savvy consumers, all while ensuring compliance with the regulations concerning data security and privacy.
Engaging personalization, streamlined automation, secure compliance. Statflo brings you wins across the board, so you’re always capitalizing on your data to build better and more robust communication strategies.
Adapt to the new era
While shifting consumer behaviors have changed the landscape for all sectors of business, telecom and financial services included, business texting has an inherent versatility to adapt to emergent customer expectations.
It is important to remember that a well-crafted text cultivates an authentic connection with your customers, which is the entry point into brand loyalty and future sales opportunities.
Applying these best practices to your everyday operations, along with a few carefully selected words, ensures you’re always optimizing your messaging and improving both your long-term relationships and your ROI.
Learn how to incorporate these best practices into your everyday operations: request a demo today!
