Conversational text messaging: benefits and differences with SMS

Conversational messaging is the future of customer communications. But, what exactly does it mean? It allows for fast, asynchronous, personal one-to-one communication between a business and its customers. Not only is it an opportunity to be where your customers already are, but these chats are modelled on human behaviour so are designed to feel familiar and comfortable. It builds trust over time and makes your business more efficient, accessible and personable. Using a conversational messaging platform, you can create a seamless user experience – one that combines visual content with two-way dialogue in a messaging app setting that mimics a website. So, is conversational text messaging better than traditional SMS?

Conversational text messaging VS SMS messaging

Conversational messaging is a one-to-one conversation between a business and a customer and has the potential to drive customer engagement, improve the overall experience and drive business growth.

SMS messaging is still a formidable communication channel, with 91% of customers saying they’d opt-in for texts from businesses and SMS open rates being an average of 98%. So what are the differences?

How do they differ?

The most significant difference between regular SMS and conversational text messaging is that the latter offers two-way communication. In other words, you give your customers the ability to respond. 

Being able to respond to business messages may not sound like much. But for customers, it mimics the natural, spontaneous conversations customers have with their friends and family. These are conversations they want to have with their favourite brands too.

Customers can interact with businesses in a variety of ways – on social media, via email, through customer support channels and so on. But the majority of this tends to be one-way. With SMS, you can connect with your customers more directly and if you use a virtual mobile number (VMN), which is an 11 digit number, you can receive SMS messages directly back to your SMS account. In other words, a VMN lets your customers reply to you, thus allowing you to have natural conversations with customers. As an alternative you can also create two-way conversations with WhatsApp Business Platform.

But what are the benefits of using conversational text messaging to interact with customers?

Conversational text messaging: 7 benefits

Here are some top benefits a conversational messaging platform can offer your business.

1. Helps to bridge the gap between customers and businesses
2. Offers experiences tailored to individual customers
3. Improves the overall customer experience
4. Boosts internal productivity
5. Allows businesses to scale with automation
6. Makes omnichannel experiences possible
7. Fosters cross-departmental collaboration

1. Helps to bridge the gap between customers and businesses

Today’s ‘always-on’ culture means that customers may seek advice and support at any hour of the day or night. By being available on the messaging platform your customers are already using, you’re creating a more intuitive and convenient customer experience, to better cater to their needs. In other words, you make sure your business is in the right place at the right time. Moreover, by using the same platform your customers are already using, you don’t force them to download another app or create a new account. You are there for them, when they need you. You give customers the chance to choose the communication channel most convenient for them. 

For many, it’s likely to be text messaging. Not only do customers like the immediacy of messaging (no need to wait on hold!) but it’s also asynchronous. So, they can come back to messages whenever they have time. Conversations won’t disappear, so the customer can pick up the conversations when they’re ready. The same applies for your customer service agents. This is extremely important because customers won’t have to repeat their problem or question and customer service team won’t have to waste time in understanding what has been said before, saving time and money.

2. Offers experiences tailored to individual customers

Everyone appreciates a personalised experience – it makes you feel special! But to create such an experience, businesses need access to customer data. A conversational messaging platform can integrate with your CRM system and analytics software, giving you easy access to the customer data you need to personalise experiences.

Think beyond greeting customers by their first name. These integrations allow your customer service team to easily view and use information such as purchase history, case details and preferences to:

• Personalise recommendations (this could be around products/services that may be of interest to customers or potential solutions to problems)
• Quickly pick up conversations even if the agent isn’t familiar with the case. This prevents customers from having to repeat the same things if their issue moves through triage and allows for cases to be resolved more efficiently

3. Improves the overall customer experience, trust and loyalty

Conversational messaging (with the help of the right platform) helps you ensure every customer interaction is engaging, every touchpoint is relevant and every experience is personalised.  In fact, via conversational messaging, businesses and consumers can engage with text messages, photos, voice memos, buttons, carousel images and plenty more, creating a richer buying journey. This engaging, interactive experience can help capture your customers’ attention, boost engagement metrics, drive purchasing decisions and more.

This creates a purchasing experience that your customers will remember. It helps to drive a deeper level of engagement that should see them become staunch brand supporters and lifelong purchasers.

4. Boosts internal productivity

Conversational messaging platforms can easily integrate with other software. This can help to centralise your processes and data, making it easier for your staff to access the right information at the right time.

By reducing the amount of time spent searching for data, your agents can focus on higher-value tasks, such as developing customer relationships, personalising experiences and building your brand.

As well as this, you can help free up employees’ time by allowing bots to manage frequently asked questions such as order status, or payment status. Your chatbot can always escalate to a human agent if needed.

5. Allows businesses to scale with automation

Considering that conversational can and should be used at every stage of the customer journey, it’s easy to think of the resourcing implications. Luckily, your staff don’t have to manage the entire process – thanks to automation. 

If you find that there are certain queries that customers tend to ask (e.g. order status, payment status), why not allow a bot to manage them? Your chatbot can always escalate to a human agent if needed. This will help free up your employees’ time, allowing them to focus on more complex customer issues, while still giving customers the kind of one-to-one interaction they want.

6. Makes omnichannel experiences possible

If a customer has to switch between your company’s website, app and other channels to find a solution to their problems, this can cause friction. An omnichannel experience, where all of these points are consolidated into one, makes for a much better, more seamless overall customer experience.

With a conversational messaging platform, browsing and purchasing become far more effortless. In other words, the right platform will make it easy for your customers to complete a goal. 

7. Fosters cross-departmental collaboration

Customer service is no longer solely about helping customers as and when they need it. Instead, it’s about guiding customers through their buying journeys, preemptively resolving issues before they occur. 

For your customer service teams to take on a more proactive stance rather than reactive, they need easy access to key customer information. Not only from integrations but knowledge shared from sales and marketing. 

The right conversational messaging app can make it easier for salespeople and marketers to add and update customer preferences and market trends, helping customer service agents view a more detailed picture of the customer. Thus, breaking down siloes between the three teams.

Is conversational text messaging better than SMS?

Conversational SMS isn’t necessarily better than regular SMS or vice versa. In fact, regular SMS is better option if you’re sending out something that doesn’t require a response – such as:

• Appointment reminders
• Booking confirmations
• Payment reminders
• Order and delivery updates

On the other hand, conversational SMS is better if you want your audience to actively engage with you, whether that’s with a response or you want to send them media, such as an image or a video.

Best practice would be to use a mixture of both messaging strategies and you can benefit from:

• Maximised resource usage
• Cost efficiency
• A complete audit trail
• A constant connection to your customers
• An excellent customer experience

Learn more about conversational messaging and how you can adapt it for your business

Customer expectations are at an all-time high. It’s clear that product/service and price are no longer the top differentiators; the real competitive advantage lies in the quality of your customer experience. Conversational messaging and its one-to-one, asynchronous nature can be just the thing you need to stay ahead of the game.

In our ultimate guide to conversational messaging, we discuss the do’s and don’ts of this approach.

Discover best practices and how you can make conversational messaging work for your business by downloading the guide below.