Text is a useful tool for ecommerce businesses to reach out to their customers. With more than 95% of Americans owning a cell phone of different kinds and 77% owning a smartphone, the text is one of the most practical ways to reach customers where they are.
Particularly when you consider that 61% of consumers check their phone within 5 minutes of waking up in the morning.
Online businesses like travel companies and retailers can utilize SMS messages for a variety of purposes, like sending alerts, advertising promotions, and offering customer support. Ecommerce retailers who attract customers through SMS loyalty clubs have the edge over organizations who don’t.
71% of ecommerce businesses fail to use customer communication preferences to their advantage while 77% of consumers have a positive image of businesses who use text.
A well-aimed SMS campaign that offers more of what customers need can help build customer loyalty, resulting in happier customers and higher revenues for your ecommerce store.
Actually, customers are up to 8 times more likely to respond to a call-to-action sent in a text message than they are to respond to one sent through email.
Here are some examples of how ecommerce retailers can utilize text to improve their business.
Customer Service Magic Wand
SMS is a simple tool that can make a difference to your customer service. People are used to opening and reading texts right away. So your clients will value the following messages:
Reminders about the unfinished orders
Sometimes a customer simply needs that little push to get them to click through and purchase the product they left behind on your website’s shopping cart. A friendly SMS message offering a discount on the items in their shopping cart can be just the push they require.
Notifications
Other than being an ideal way for online businesses to alert customers of possible arrival dates and package deliveries, text messaging can help create an omnichannel experience when online and offline are consolidated.
Account updates
Security of your customers’ information ought to be a priority, and your clients would appreciate accepting immediate alerts about a change of your details or a suspected account breach. Just text them and let them know what steps to take to prevent their account from being accessed by an unauthorized outsider.
Customer service responses
Text is a very popular form of communication and businesses that offer it as an alternative to phone calls and email are having positive responses. Customers can pick SMS as a preferable way of contact for customer support issues.
In fact, this omnichannel integration using SMS helped increase sales by 98% over six months.
Enhancing Loyalty
As you collect information about your customers, ensure you take advantage of that. Birthday gifts, limited edition giveaways, notifications about the products they were looking for recently, your name it – you can come up with different ideas to delight your customers and use SMS to deliver the message immediately.
Conducting Surveys
You can send a link to your online survey or share a short questionnaire for clients to answer. The value of customers’ feedback is hard to underestimate, yet that’s not so easy to collect such criticism. Why not include one more channel to your arsenal?
If you’re planning to launch a new product line or want to know if your customers prefer fast shipping over free shipping, an SMS poll can enable you to discover what’s on your customer’s minds. When it comes to your millennial customers, 75% of them prefer to receive surveys through text.
Text messaging is an incredible tool underestimated by many ecommerce stores. Businesses who aren’t utilizing SMS to reach their clients are missing out on the opportunity to offer promotions, notifications, and customer support on the most immediate channel that all customers use.
