3 Tools to Ease Customer Communication
February 27, 2019 (0 comments)
With more ways than ever to reach your customers in 2019, finding the best communication tools can be difficult. Fortunately, we know of 3 that consistently stand out above the rest: Facebook Messenger, website chat, and SMS messages. In this article, we’re going to walk you through how each can be used to improve the connection between you and your customers online.
Before we dive into the individual tools, it’s important to note the overall consumer trends. The main one jewelers should be aware of is that, according to Business Chief, 60% of millennials prefer texting businesses over calling them. What that means is that jewelers need to make it easy for customers to communicate with them online. Just placing your phone number on your website could alienate the 60% of millennials who avoid phones like the plague. An additional statistic from the same source that supports building a digital communication strategy is that a call-to-action sent to a millenial via text is 40 times more likely to be answered versus a similar call-to-action sent over email. Keeping that in mind, the three tools mentioned above will help you take advantage of this consumer trend.
Facebook Messenger
If you’re a jeweler and you aren’t on Facebook, you’re missing out on a huge aspect of growing your brand in the digital age. If you are on Facebook but aren’t using Facebook Messenger to connect with your audience, then you are missing a very effective piece of the Facebook puzzle.
As of January 2019, Facebook Messenger had 1.5 billion monthly active users. In a Facebook survey of users, 69% of US users said that being able to message a business makes them feel more confident about the brand. If you want to reach your customers and engage them like you would if they walked into your store, you need to be on Facebook Messenger.
Simply being on Messenger, however, isn’t enough. In our experience, we have seen jewelers ignore dozens of messages from potential customers with questions about certain products. It’s precisely these interactions with customers that have the highest potential of turning into sales so make sure you’re being as responsive as possible.
Website Chat Bots
Implementing a chatbot on your website is a simple way to improve your digital customer service. You wouldn’t want customers to walk into your physical store only to find no one around to help them. Your website is your digital storefront, so a chatbot is like a digital store associate who can welcome and assist customers 24/7.
Chatbots are cheaper to implement on a website than a live person who answers chats. Additionally, chatbots are polite 100% of the time because that’s how they were programmed to be. Their algorithms allow them to learn from previous interactions with customers and provide better customer service each time.
SMS Messages
72% of millennials say they text 10 or more times a day. 31% of millennials text 50 or more times a day (Business Chief). This market segment is comfortable with receiving text communications from businesses like appointment reminders, sales that pertain to them, delivery notifications, and more.
It’s also very easy to collect customer phone numbers at checkout. You can use their number to send them important information about their purchase, provide them with information about repairs, and also send them details about relevant sales.
The main goal in implementing these three different tools is to ease the communication between your business and your customers. If you use them correctly, you can improve your customer satisfaction and grow your business in the digital space.
