Customers are the lifeblood for small businesses and communicating effectively with them is paramount for any successful company. For decades, small businesses have relied heavily on the telephone as the primary tool for engaging with customers, suppliers and distributors. Even with the advent of the internet and the ubiquitous availability of email, the vast majority of communications from customers came through the telephone call. Alas, things might be changing for recent surveys are showing that text is usurping voice as the preferred medium for business conversation. Indeed 75% of the millennial generation says they would prefer text to voice if only given one choice on their mobiles. Similarly, mobile telephone operators have seen voice minutes plummeting in recent years as data usage soars due to VoIP and IM apps.
There are several reasons why text is being favored over voice, such as texting is non-intrusive, silent, and doesn’t require the recipient’s immediate attention. Also, many people dislike receiving voice calls from businesses as they feel obliged to listen to what the other person has to say. But what about sending texts in place of making phone calls? Well it appears that people also prefer to text over calling because it allows them to prepare what they want to say and take advantage of revising the message, and including any important information, in the forms of editing or rethinking their position. This way they can be sure to get their message across without forgetting to include some important information which is highly likely in something as unpredictable as a telephone conversation.
So why is text making such a dramatic comeback after it failed so miserably as a business channel with email and SMS?
The answer is down to customer experience and the fact there is now a better understanding of the customer’s expectations when using different communications channels. For instance, email flopped not because it was a poor method of communication, far from it, but simply because businesses in general failed to answer in a timely fashion. The customer was expecting a reply the same day not in a week or so. Similarly, with SMS, this was a fantastic medium for contacting customers and it still is, especially for sending non-reply messages for notification, confirmations, download links or coupons as over 98% are read – in contrast email is only 20% and voicemail barely registers. However, just as businesses used SMS for their benefit due to this high read rate so did customers. Unfortunately, they were often dismayed to find that their messages went unacknowledged or unanswered for weeks on end. This was simply because small businesses didn’t check the business number for inbound SMS in a timely manner, if at all, leaving the customer with a poor experience compared to voice calls.
Nonetheless, despite this inglorious beginning text and digital messaging have bounced back and are now once again the preferred channels for customers contacting businesses. Email is once again making up lost ground and is being treated as an important customer channel. SMS was never a popular channel from a customer’s perspective, but with 86% of the world’s population being accessible by SMS it is an important tool from the business view.
But, it is no longer a straight choice between texts or voice as there are now a plethora of IM applications available and none truly dominate a market. Facebook Messenger boasts 1.6 billion active users globally whereas WhatsApp and Yahoo are huge in the Americas, Europe and Africa while WeChat has over one billion Chinese users and Line is extremely popular in South East Asia. Hence, the choice of app a business goes for is more dependent on the business’s geographical location as much as the technical merits of a particular IM app.
The big temptation is to offer the customer several choices of IM apps to use but that will require more work supporting, monitoring and replying to incoming messages and ensuring none fall through the cracks. After all we must heed the lessons from the past regarding customer experience.
Security is another attribute that may need addressing especially if customers are likely to be passing personal identifiable information within the messages and that again requires that both parties not only share the same IM app but often even the same version. Such has been the media’s focus on privacy and encryption. Virtual PBX evaluated many of the top open source and commercial IM products for their suitability for business where privacy and confidentiality are critical aspects so you may well consider Telegraph, Signal or even WhatsApp.
However, the good news is that IM apps now come with many additional features that are great additions for small businesses. For instance, they will provide support for file and desktop sharing which is a fantastic collaboration and tutoring tool, which can be used to provide technical support to customers. Ironically, they can also provide free VoIP voice or video calls should the conversation require real-time interaction through webRTC, which any customer can access through their browser.
Consequently, IM messaging has become a serious player in the communications market and small businesses are the ones that really benefit from these cloud-based services. By hosting their services in the cloud, providers can deliver rich features and functionality, such as voice, video, security, multi-media sharing, presence and IM messaging at prices suitable for the small or home office business.
Also by adding a facility for messaging it provides the customers with options that will help them to engage with the business quickly, and importantly comfortably using the medium they prefer. By offering easy-to-find email links, IM messenger addresses as well as the usual phone numbers and social media links to business cards and advertising collateral gives customers options to the available points of contact they can use to engage with your company.
