How To Leverage Voice And SMS Messaging For Customer Engagement

These days, businesses are seeking innovative ways to reach out to customers. New technologies have transformed how business owners and marketers communicate or engage with clients. They provide efficient ways to reach a wide audience quickly.  

When adopting new ways to connect with customers, many businesses forget about a communication method that has been there for decades but provides a better return on investment. Investing in voice and short message service (SMS) messaging is necessary for customer engagement and, ultimately, the growth of your business. 

If you plan to invest in voice and SMS messaging and improve customer responses, you may want to check out Drop Cowboy Ringless Voicemail software or similar programs. This article provides you with more details on how to leverage these methods for customer engagement.

An Overview Of Voice And SMS Messaging 

Voice messaging is a communication method by which recorded messages are transmitted to recipients via voice media. In simple terms, it’s a technology that uses the sender’s voice to deliver messages and serves as an alternative form of communication for voice calls.  

When utilizing voice messaging technology, you’ll record a message with information. The recorded message is then received by the user over voice interment protocol. Upon receiving the recorded message, the receiver will play the note to listen to it.  

SMS messaging is a protocol for sending short texts over wireless networks. It involves sending only text messages, which means there are no recorded voicers, videos, or pictures. SMS messaging is one of the oldest texting technologies, having been invented in the 1980s. 

And the good thing about SMS messaging is that it’s one of the widely used forms of communication despite the development of other new forms of communication. But it’s limited to 160 characters. 

You can partner with a company like Call Cowboy to learn more about what voice and SMS messaging are and how to establish an effective strategy for your business.  

Benefits Of Automated Voice And SMS Messaging 

There are several benefits of automating your voice and SMS messaging system. They include the following: 

• Saves Time And Money

One of the biggest benefits of an automated voice and SMS messaging system is saving time and money. When you save time, you can complete more tasks daily. This may also translate to increased company productivity. And when you save money, you can improve your business cash flow and increase profits. 

With an automated voice and SMS messaging system, you won’t waste time training all your employees on how to communicate with customers. You may even notice that you don’t need to hire many customer service agents, just a core team who’ll handle the implementation of the strategy.  

In addition, automating your voice and SMS messaging system enables you to engage with several customers within a short period. You can simply record voice messages or create text messages to send to many customers and use them multiple times.

• Increases Your Outreach

One of the practical ways to grow a business is to expand your reach. This way, you can connect with an enormous audience, generate many leads, and increase sales. 

If you want to reach thousands or even millions of customers, an automated voice and SMS messaging system will help you achieve that. This is true since it can simultaneously send a message to everyone on your contact list.  

• Enhances Efficiency

Another great benefit of an automated voice and SMS messaging system is enhanced efficiency. With information architecture, prospects and existing clients can find answers to their queries by themselves. 

This self-service feature provided by voice messaging technology promotes not only the brand’s engagement but also employees’ productivity. Both increase operational efficiencies.  

• Improves Responses

Your customers will be happy if you don’t disturb them, and this includes not annoying them with your messages. Voice and SMS messaging technology is a great way to improve response rates. It allows you to drop pre-recorded voice and text messages to a client’s phone inboxes without involving phone ringing.  

When you disturb customers with messages, many get irritated. And some may even block your line from sending messages to them. This means losing potential clients.  

With the right software, you can deliver ringless voicemails to customers without notifying them. They’ll later open them when they aren’t busy or at a time they deem fit them. As such, your customers won’t get irritated, and many will likely respond to your messages. 

• Enables Customer Retention

Attracting new customers is good because it shows your company is growing. However, taking care of existing ones is necessary for your company’s long-term growth. It enhances your retention, which is a great way to reduce your marketing budget. You also need to know that retained customers likely add more to their shopping carts with time. This goes a long way in boosting your sales. 

Investing in automated voice and SMS messaging systems is a tried-and-tested method to enable customer retention. Chances are you know firsthand how frustrating it can be to be kept on hold or when no one answers your messages. You can lose customers if that happens in your company.  

An automated voice and SMS messaging system ensures customers’ calls go through. And if you can’t answer clients’ calls for one reason or another, they’ll receive a message indicating that you’ll call them back and address their issues. As such, many customers will be happy and remain engaged with your brand.  

Tips To Leverage Voice And SMS Messaging For Customer Engagement 

Customer engagement can benefit your business in many ways. It boosts brand experience, improves the sales funnel, and provides you with the means to obtain customer feedback. It also enhances customer experience, enabling you to build a loyal customer base. All these ensure your business grows quickly.  

Here are important tips for leveraging voice and SMS messaging for customer engagement.  

• Get To Know Your Target Audience

Knowing your target audience is the first strategy to enhance customer engagement through voice and SMS messaging. This is important since only by knowing who your customers are can you create helpful and engaging content. If you fail to know your customers, you won’t create valuable messages, so many recipients may not respond to them. 

Collecting data is a necessary step to getting to know your target audience. This way, you can define their needs, interests, and preferences. Once you do that, create messages with content that addresses customer concerns so that they can develop emotional connections with your brand. 

You can implement several strategies to collect data regarding your target clients. These include conducting surveys, creating buyer personas, having people fill out questionnaires, and studying your competitors. Use a method that’ll allow you to collect enough data to have a solid idea of who your target audience is.  

• Get Permission First

Before implementing your voice and SMS messaging strategy for customer engagement, ensure you get permission first. This involves requesting your prospects to allow you to deliver messages to them. 

You can achieve that by requesting prospects to fill out a form with their details. Once you get customers’ consent, you can now implement your strategy. This not only improves client experience but also promotes brand engagement.  

• Provide Tips And Advice

The primary reason you’re investing in voice and SMS messaging technology is to enhance your marketing strategy. However, most people won’t respond to your messages or engage with you if they notice all your texts are about promotions and sales. 

Create a balance between promotional and informative content. So, apart from selling your products or services, some of your messages should contain helpful tips and advice on how to deal with the problems customers are facing.  

• Send Messages At The Right Time

The timely delivery of your voice and SMS texts is crucial to the growth of your business. You should be very careful with transaction messages since a delay in delivery of such texts may mean poor customer service and lost opportunities.  

You should deliver messages to customers on time to help them prepare. For instance, if you want them to come and pick up an order on a certain date, you can inform them a few days before. This enables them to adjust their schedules and find time to visit your stores. And if you offer home deliveries, informing a customer about when you intend to reach their premises ensures they stay home or have someone there to receive the delivery.  

Apart from that, the time of the day you send voice and SMSs matters. You should avoid sending texts to customers when they’re busy or asleep. For many customers, you’ll have to deliver your messages when they aren’t busy. This could be during lunch hour or on weekends.  

• Include A Call To Action 

Like any other marketing campaign, include a call to action in your messages. It clarifies which steps you want customers to take and helps streamline the process of moving a customer down the sales funnel. 

With a call to action, for instance, a link, the user can simply click it to find more information about your products or services instead of instructing them to visit your website. 

And remember, SMS messaging limits you only to 160 characters. So, you might be unable to provide more information about your product or service. With a clear call to action, you can direct customers to your online store to find more information about your brand.  

• Ask For Feedback

Voice and SMS messaging shouldn’t be only about promotions and company updates. You can also use them to collect feedback from customers. You can use the feedback to make changes or improve your marketing strategy. For instance, it can help you to create more engaging content. 

There are various ways to gather feedback through voice and SMS messaging. You can add a link to your messages where users can put their comments. You can also collect feedback through a direct reply option to your messages.  

• Personalize Your Messages

You can’t ignore the power of personalization when it comes to customer engagement. It helps promote customer experience and makes customers feel like your business is putting a lot of effort into connecting with them. 

To achieve this, you can request prospects to fill out official forms. With those details, you can tailor every message to specific customer needs. And for better personalization, you can segment your audiences, for example, according to age brackets and locations.  

• Hire Dedicated Customer Care Agents

You’ll need dedicated personnel to manage your voice and SMS messaging strategy. You can have a few internal employees for the task, but you can make it better by hiring customer care agents. First, these people are trained in customer service, so they’ll professionally handle your clients.  

Second, customer service agents can serve your business 24/7. Internal employees will barely provide continuous services. They’ll need a break at some point, and in most cases, they won’t work outside business hours. And that may harm your business and customer engagement.  

Many customer service firms provide services 24/7. They’ve got several staff members who work in shifts for clients. Hiring them will ensure continued engagement with customers.  

Takeaway

Investing in voice and SMS messaging technology can be a great way to enhance the growth of your company. It provides a seamless way to engage with prospects and current customers. Including it in your marketing strategy can help you generate more sales. You can implement the strategies in this article to promote customer engagement through voice and SMS messaging. 

Utilizing the right software is equally important. You should automate the process to get better results from your voice and SMS messaging strategy. But you must find the best automation tool. 

You can achieve that by researching online or asking for recommendations from friends and relatives. Once you find your preferred software, ensure you test it before installing it fully into your business systems. That way, you can know whether it’s the right solution for your voice and SMS messaging strategy.