Have you ever received a message from a brand you did business with through messaging apps? This is becoming a common practice among some brands, and it’s because messaging has positioned itself as one of the leading marketing strategies.
An estimated 3.09 billion cell phone users access messaging apps to communicate, and it is estimated that by 2023, 60% of customer service engagement interactions will be through digital and self-service channels. Facebook knew messaging would be a huge opportunity when they acquired WhatsApp for $19 billion in 2014.
Many brands have embraced social messaging and integrated it into their customer care strategies to ensure greater engagement and care of their customers. And they’re right to do so. These are some of the reasons why you should do the same:
5 Reasons Why You Should Be Using Messaging in Your Marketing Strategy
These Are Platforms Your Customers Are Already Familiar With
Messaging platforms are communication channels that are globally adopted. Therefore, you don’t have to build or teach our customers how to use them. People are already familiar with them and spend a lot of time on them, which turns out to be a significant advantage.
This conventional messaging facilitates communication with your customers.
Large Scale Personalized Service
Messaging platforms enable the use of your customer data to personalize customer service messages on a large scale. Therefore, you can customize and add automation to bots to handle a large volume of repetitive requests with a friendly and familiar tone.
Being One Step Ahead
Another powerful feature of communicating through automated messaging platforms is anticipating and answering questions without customers even needing to ask.
These tools allow you to streamline your customer service operations by automatically responding to customer requests for information. From your customer service hours, product stock information, or even the ability to automatically schedule a meeting or call back if the agent does not respond within a specific time frame.
In the long run, this will translate into more free time for operators that can be used for more complex tasks that require more attention.
More Data = Better Service
Data collected from social media can help you understand how the customer feels about the brand. You can broaden the picture of your customers’ needs and where you can improve or optimize your service.
In addition to bridging the gap between you and your customers, this first-hand communication can provide enriching insights that you can integrate into your content strategy.
If you understand your audience, you’ll be committed to creating better products for them.
More Tools For Your Team
Some brands consider customer service a branch of their business that does not produce a return on investment. And they couldn’t be more wrong. This front line of your business is where you earn customer trust, handle crises, and secure customers for life.
Almost everything is or should be quantifiable in a business, and messaging applications are no exception. From this interaction, we can obtain key performance indicators like first contact resolution (FCR), average handle time (AHT), and customer satisfaction (CSAT).
As the massiveness of messaging apps continues to increase, brands must find an efficient and effective way to stay close to customers. Messaging apps pose interesting communication possibilities that brands should test and integrate into their digital marketing strategy.