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Mobile Learnings for 2021 to Increase Customer Loyalty

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By Pinder Takhar​, Director of Marketing, mGage

2020 was a significant year for business messaging as we saw an upward trend in its usage. It quickly became an indispensable communication channel for brands to stay connected with their customers, keeping them engaged, informed and updated.

Along with an increase in two-way messaging, more businesses started to deploy mobile chat services and automation in line with consumer demands. It proved vital for enterprises to send key and relevant messages to their audience, enabling them to provide a better customer experience during the pandemic.

Taking our learnings from both business communications and consumer behaviours, we found that there were three significant areas of change that are likely to stick in 2021 and something all organisations need to think about.

  • People shopping online (no surprise here)
  • More cost-conscious consumers
  • Digital product discovery

Thinking about the changes, it raises the question what should brands consider in 2021?

  1. Being multi-channel

We know that the use of mobile messaging for one-way and two-way interaction has increased, however there are many more channels out there like Rich Messaging (RCS), WhatsApp for Business and Apple Business Chat, that brands can adopt to make themselves more available to their customers. Allowing consumers to easily reach them or engage in a two-way dialogue, its increasingly important to be where your customers are. According to Edelman, 65 percent of consumers will base their future purchasing decisions on the ways in which a brand communicates with them at this current time. This highlights that customer needs and requirements are more important than ever before.

  1. Use mobile messaging for customer service

Consumers are looking for convenient ways to engage with brands, as 69 percent[i] of consumers prefer communicating with brands over text messaging rather than traditional phone calls. Many businesses have had to adjust over the last year and adopt mobile chat services, however this is an area that is still largely underutilized for customer support. Enabling mobile messaging channels presents various routes for consumers to effortlessly connect with brands: whether it is to receive product support, request information or to resolve an issue. It empowers mobile users to easily initiate a conversation with businesses and provides a customer first approach.

  1. Consumer reach – best time to send messages

It is important to highlight that people’s routines have changed significantly and they are not the same as they were a year ago. Working patterns have changed considerably, flexible hours are more of a norm, socializing has shifted online and many of us are no longer commuting. Before the pandemic, the best times to engage were typical commuting hours and lunch times. However, recent research has shown that there are now spikes around 9am, after lunch between 2-6pm, with engagement then seeming to decrease until the following day. So, it’s important for businesses to review data and try different times if you have not already done so.

  1. Convenience and transparency

Make it simpler for your customers to engage with you, to navigate and find information. With services such as click and collect provide customers with clear instructions, as to where they can collect this from. Set expectations, if there will be delays, be open and honest and make it effortless to change appointments or delivery times. Customers today expect fast and timely responses to their enquiries and a delayed response can often be the basis for a negative review or cancelled service. A report from Forrester Research found that 63 percent of customers will leave a company after just one poor experience and almost two-thirds will wait no more than two minutes for assistance.

To learn more about the emerging new technologies and use cases for mobile messaging, watch our webinar recording to pick up some key insights.

Watch Recording

To find out more information about mGage’s Mobile Messaging solution please contact us.

[i] consumers-prefer-communicating-brands-over-text

Why Mobile Chat Services are Key to Boosting Customer Experience

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By Pinder Takhar, Director, Marketing, mGage

This year businesses have had to adjust the way they operate and communicate with their customers. Not only has it been vital in keeping customers informed it has also been just as important to ensure customers can easily reach the brand. With the increase in customer engagement, this has meant many businesses have had to utilise existing and embrace new technologies to cope with the demand.

According to Edelman, 65 percent of consumers will base their future purchasing decisions on the ways in which a brand communicates with them. This highlights customer needs and requirements are more important than ever before.

It’s apparent that today’s consumers are looking for simple and convenient ways to engage with brands as 69%[i] of consumers prefer communicating with brands over mobile messaging rather than traditional calls. Furthermore, a study by mGage revealed that 61 percent of consumers aged 25-34 years and 56 percent aged between 18-24 favour a messaging service over picking up the phone to contact a business.

Many brands are facing challenges with call centre resourcing, customer loyalty, retention and struggling to quickly implement the latest technologies. Therefore, for many businesses, mobile messaging has become a crucial part of their customer service function to deliver an advanced customer experience.

Mobile Chat Services Enable Operational Efficiency

Customer service centres are an essential but costly function for businesses.

By implementing a mobile chat service, this enables businesses to easily answer routine customer service enquiries swiftly and deflect traffic from its call center to improve the customer service. With agent driven applications businesses can become more efficient as you can have multiple mobile chat sessions. Most importantly it helps save costs and in fact, it is reported by IBM that integration of chatbots can lead to a 30% decrease in operational costs.

Invest in Mobile Chat to Enhance Customer Loyalty

Customers today expect fast and timely responses to their enquiries and a delayed response can often be the basis for a negative review or cancelled service. A report from Forrester Research found that 63% of customers will leave a company after just one poor experience and almost two-thirds will no longer wait more than two minutes for assistance.

By incorporating an automated chat service a brand can provide the immediate and time sensitive responses consumers expect, therefore improving the customer experience and average call handling time. This is reflected in research by Chatbot Magazine that shows 69% of consumers prefer chatbots because of their ability to provide quick replies to simple questions.

Businesses can also reallocate agent resources for more complex and delicate services that may not be suited for automation.

Lead with Smarter Messaging to Increase Customer Satisfaction

Smartphone users have access to a range of channels including SMS, RCS, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp and more. In the digital era, businesses no longer operate on a set time as websites and social apps are always available 24/7, meaning that customer engagement is a constant. This is where mobile messaging technologies become essential to support this level of customer/brand engagement.

The implementation of new technologies such as RCS (Rich Communication Services), will allow brands to build interactive and engaging chatbot flows for different stages of the customer journey. Whether that is to amend a delivery, track an order or request customer feedback, by combining the rich media and interactive chat features it offers a unique capability for consumers to engage with organisations like never before. It’s also a strong incentive for brands to deliver exceptional customer service and loyalty reward programmes.

Final thoughts

As consumer attitudes shift and technology advances further, companies that incorporate mobile chat services will be able to offer a far more personalised experience that fits in better with the ever-changing demands of consumers.

We know that mobile chat services have been around for a while, however, given the technological advances in making this a more “human” experience by using A.I technology, it will continue to be a vital part of any business looking to better their customer engagement.

To find out more information on mGage’s Mobile Messaging solution please contact us.

[i] consumers-prefer-communicating-brands-over-text

SMS Surveys – Vital to gathering valuable customer feedback

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By mGage

For businesses looking to continually improve their customer service and experience, the need for thorough feedback cannot be underestimated. Without a true indicator or picture of the consumer experience, there is no way organisations can ensure that they are supplying the best service possible. Hence, SMS surveys are a vital tool in the ongoing relationships between brands and consumers to further develop and enhance services or products.

With Gartner predicting that 89 percent of businesses are facing competitive points based primarily on customer experience, it is imperative that brands make customer satisfaction their priority to remain engaging and relevant.

By initiating surveys brands can have access to a continual feedback loop to make the necessary changes to their business. Therefore, it is important that they listen to customer comments and learn from their suggestions to ensure the continual upgrade of products or services are in line with customer expectations. Research by Kolsky found that 70 percent of companies that deliver best-in-class customer experience use customer feedback.

Further research suggests that one happy customer can lead to nine referrals, whereas one unhappy customer can result in 26 other unhappy people; this highlights the implications that negative customer experiences can have on current and potential consumers.

Why use SMS for surveys?

SMS surveys are a quick and efficient tool for any business wishing to gather valuable insights and essential feedback to improve their customers’ experience. As mobile has become an integral part of our connected lifestyle and with people checking their phones 58 times a day on average, it is an easy way to reach your audience. In return it allows your customers to respond any time and from any place. While email may cost less, SMS has proven more beneficial as it has a 7.5 times higher response rate than email, an average 90 second reply time, and a 98 percent open rate.

By launching SMS surveys, the sender can look forward to receiving higher response rates and increased customer engagement. Here are some great examples of how you can collect feedback from your audience:

  • Customer service feedback – when a phone call has ended you can send an SMS survey to your customer asking them to rate their experience and the advisor
  • Delivery feedback – ask your customers to rate a recent delivery to see if the service met their expectations
  • New purchases feedback – find out how a customer got on with a recent purchase and how they found the overall experience.
  • Update contact details – allows a customer to update these to ensure your records are up to date

How to integrate SMS surveys

Using a mobile campaign management tool like Communicate Pro, brands have the ability to quickly and easily launch a SMS survey campaign. Brands can create interactive surveys using decision tree functionality and receive open ended responses to collect the most useful data for them. All messages can be personalised and automated and can include features like emojis.

It is important for brands to use tailored questions to ensure that they ask the right questions to the right people to increase engagement and ensure that the questions are relevant. With the data collected through SMS surveys, brands can quickly understand what their customers want and allow them to take on board any constructive feedback in order to grow as an organisation and curate better satisfaction in the future.

Final thoughts

To continue to enhance customer loyalty and satisfaction it is critical to collect consumer feedback via SMS surveys. By incorporating it into your multi-channel communication strategy it offers your audience a choice of response.  With more people now on their mobile phones for longer you can expect high response rates via SMS – highlighting its capability as a highly engaged channel and a great way to connect with customers to gather valuable insights for your business.

Improving Contact Centre Performance with Mobile Messaging

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By mGage

With 89% of consumers willing to switch to a competitor after a bad customer service experience[1], the importance of good customer service cannot be overstated. In the recent climate, increasing pressure has been placed on contact centres across various industries. Contact centres are costly, not just because of the resources required to operate them but also because of the impact they have on the customer experience. Therefore, it is crucial that businesses explore new channels that can help improve the contact centre performance – which is where mobile messaging solutions come in.

Why Mobile Messaging for Contact Centres?

There are currently 5.2 billion[2] mobile subscribers across the globe and with increasing time spent on mobile phones – the average person’s screen time is 3 hours 15 minutes a day[3],   messaging has become the leading form of communication. Public affinity for mobile messaging has led to 9 out of 10 consumers[4] preferring to message businesses as opposed to calling or emailing them.

Businesses are already seeing the benefits of mobile messaging such as increased customer loyalty and a reduction in operational costs, with 97% of companies finding they communicated more efficiently with consumers after launching texting initiatives[5].

Different Mobile Messaging Channels to Consider

SMS (or texting) Messaging

SMS, often deemed a more traditional form of messaging, is still a widely used and valuable tool in customer engagement, consisting of 160 basic characters ideal for a variety of uses. In fact, SMS has a 20x higher engagement rate than Email, Voice & Facebook[6].

With 98% of SMS messages being read in less than two minutes [7], SMS can be a very effective way of providing customers with the timely customer service updates they want. They can also utilise the SMS chat feature for two-way engagement where a consumer can ask a brand a question. A text can also be sent alerting the customer of when they are experiencing high call volumes with a call-back option. This helps alleviate some of the pressure on contact centres.

Rich Communication Service (RCS) Messaging

RCS is the next generation of SMS messaging. It brings the familiarity of SMS and adds rich media and interactive functionality which has led to RCS having a 14x higher engagement rate and 13x With the added interactive features such as suggested responses and actions, images, carousels and more, RCS creates a conversational and seamless experience for end-users, similar to that of an app.  Rather than the user having to text back a response to the brand they can tap a button from the suggested responses to navigate to the information much quicker.

Push Messaging

Push Messaging are notifications that can be delivered to the mobile device. The app does not need to be open for messages to be received therefore the message will be displayed on the smartphone’s ‘homepage’ until the user taps or deletes the notification, maximizing the messages visibility. With a 90% deliverability rate and a 7x higher click rate than email [9], push notifications are proven to improve engagement and customer retention.

How Mobile Messaging can help Contact Centres  

Streamline post-purchase customer service

72% of customers blame their bad customer service experience on having to explain their problem to multiple people[10]. This highlights the importance of gathering as much information as quickly as possible regarding the customer query prior to a call with a live agent to ensure that the query is directed to the right team with the required knowledge.

An SMS chatbot can act as the first point of contact by using a pre-programmed list of questions that the customer service team can gather before the call. Using SMS allows customers to send quick messages with the key details.

Another way to improve engagement and reduce contact centre strain is by offering call-back requests via SMS. This reduces the number of customers being left on hold which directly affects the overall customer satisfaction with the service.

Offer viable alternative calls

As we know, customer service is essential but can be a very costly function for businesses. Mobile messaging has now become a more viable option to replace the need for calling contact centres with the introduction of more interactive messaging solutions as well as helping reduce the strain on contact centres due to the high volumes of incoming calls.

A messaging option like RCS can use suggested options and image carousels to automate simple inquiries that would be costly for contact centres to process instead. The image below shows how RCS can be used to make changes to a scheduled delivery in seconds.

Increase engagement, reduce wasted time  

The most significant benefit of mobile messaging solutions is the ability to send messages in an instant, providing real time updates and resolutions to customer inquiries. This reduces the number of customers calling contact centres for updates on existing cases and allows customer care agents to better prioritise and manage queries.

Push messaging is a great way to provide updates and reminders to customers, as they appear as notifications immediately visible on phone screens, making customers feel informed and valued.

Final thoughts

Messaging solutions can be a cost-effective alternative that can support contact centres and improve the overall customer experience. These are just a few of the options available to businesses today. To learn more about messaging solutions you can use in your customer engagement strategy, get in-touch today with mGage.

References

[1] Customer thermometer

[2] GSMA Mobile Economy

[3] Rescue time blog

[4] Agility PR

[5] mGage.com

[6] Mobile xco

[7] adobeblog.com

[8] mGage.com

[9] e-goi

[10] Salesforce

 

EE brings 1,000 jobs to UK & Ireland

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100% of EE customer service calls will now be answered within the UK and Ireland as the company has created over 1,000 jobs in the last year.

The announcement follows parent company BT’s announcement of introducing 500 more positions to tackle increased customer demand.

Unlike its parent company, EE is among the least complained about mobile companies in the UK according to OFCOM, having received just five complaints in every 100,000 last quarter compared to BT’s 36.

The mobile giant has made a lot of progress since 2014, when the operator was receiving 12 complaints per 100,000, although its second quarter 2016 was the lowest record according to OFCOM, with just four.

EE was beaten to the top spot by O2, Three and Tesco Mobile, with Tesco receiving on average just a single complaint in every 100,000.

“2016 was a landmark year in the service that we provided to our customers,” said EE CEO Marc Allera, “We’re passionate about making our service the best in the industry, so you can expect more to come soon.”

On the horizon for EE is expanding its 4G coverage. By 2020 the company is hoping to have covered 95% of the UK’s landmass.

 

Guest Blog, Steve Ball: The 8 things millennials really want from customer service

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Struggling to understand what makes your millennial customers tick? Here’s what they really want from your contact centre.

It can sometimes be difficult to understand what constitutes a great customer experience for the millennial generation. We know about their lofty expectations, their habitual use of technology and their willingness to vote with their feet if a brand disappoints them. But what really drives them, and what do they really want from customer service?

A lot of brands still seem to lack the answers to these questions. According to Aspect research from last month, some 42 per cent of millennials would rather clean a toilet than reach out to a contact centre – an increase of ten percentage points on 2015’s figure.

Millennials are clearly unhappy with the current state of customer service, and it won’t be long before this translates into lost business for brands that fail to accommodate their expectations.

So what is it that millennials really want from customer service? At Aspect, we’ve come up with a list of requirements – the “now consumer” expectations – that we think shed light on the matter. These are as follows:

1. Know me

Millennials want their interactions with brands to be not just convenient, but personal. This could be as simple as not having to repeat themselves when switching from one channel to another, such as a web chat conversation to a phone call, or being able to pick up on an incomplete transaction at a later date via whatever method makes sense at the time.

2. Make it mobile

A simple one: millennials expect customer service to be accessible via mobile. According to Ofcom, nine in ten Britons between the ages of 16 and 24 own smartphones, and 61 per cent describe themselves as “hooked” on their handsets. Mobile has become a more common means of getting online than the laptop, making it an important touchpoint for brand interactions.

3. Let me do it

Millennials have an appetite for self-service, too. According to our 2015 research, almost three in four consumers (73 per cent) believe they should have the ability to solve most product and service issues on their own. Reaching out to an agent should be a last resort.

4. Make it social

Millennials are fluent in social media, and expect brands to be the same. They also like to use Facebook, Twitter et al to vent when something doesn’t go their way. It’s vital that brands are able to assist and guide customers via these channels, and to do so at the time it matters most.

5. Fit into my life

One of the consequences of the rise in mobile, self-service and social media-based customer service is that millennials no longer want to suffer lengthy call queues or phone a contact centre at a particular time of day to solve a simple problem. Convenience is key – if a solution can’t be accessed at any time via any channel that counts against the brand’s customer experience.

6. Save me time

Speed is equally important. Millennials don’t want to repeat themselves or sit through a long-winded process on the phone that would be quicker to complete with a self-service or co-browsing solution.

7. Make me smarter

Millennials like their brand interactions to be empowering. Rather than just solve simple problems, a contact centre should be able to furnish customers with information that will improve their experience of the brand’s services in the long run. In turn, these customers will be able to use their newfound knowledge to support and empower their peers.

8. Help me discover

Along the same lines, a contact centre should be able to create value for customers outside of their immediate wants and needs. So, for example, it could deliver personalised advice and recommendations to an individual based on its knowledge of their purchases, queries and pain-points. This step, along with the one above, will turn millennials into committed brand advocates who discuss their positive experiences with peers and in social media.

 

Learn about customer experience solutions from Aspect

Outsourced contact centre launches digital division…

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With a dedication to provide a ‘new type and range’ of customised and results-driven social management services to UK companies, the Southend-based contact centre, Ventrica, has announced the launch of Ventrica Digital, its sister company that will allow businesses to generate new business leads through monitoring and engagement.

Furthermore, businesses will also be able to take full advantage of additional benefits which includes: creating up-sell opportunities; effective crisis management; boost web traffic, conversions and sales; guaranteed quality control and response times; and enhancing retention and service levels across all channels.

Founder and managing director at Ventrica, Dino Forte, said: “There are plenty of digital agencies out there, but very few come from an award-winning customer services background or have the resources to provide a 24/7 service with the option of multi-lingual capabilities. With more and more businesses operating internationally, and more consumers wanting to buy online at any time of the day, it is now essential to offer expertise around the clock with response services across all popular media, whether via webchat, social, mobile, email or review moderation.”

He continued, “The Ventrica Digital model is perfect for those companies that don’t have the specialist expertise or resources in-house, but still want to take advantage of the huge returns of harnessing social media and digital, that if used intelligently, can have a direct and measurable return on investment in the shape of sales, enhanced service levels and customer retention.”

Find out more about Ventrica Digital here