Medusa

Getting Social With SMS

Your 160 characters can say so much to your customers, and vice versa

<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Human beings are social creatures&comma; and the mobile communications age has opened up more opportunities than ever for people to chat with each other&period; However&comma; it seems that some forms of communication are dominating the hearts and minds of the people&period; For instance&comma; recent polls show that roughly half of smartphone users out there prefer texting people to calling them&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">This fact should be seen by businesses as an opportunity to build good customer relations via SMS&period; Here&&num;8217&semi;s why making it easy for customers to send feedback via text is a darn good idea&comma; as well as how businesses can implement it&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b style&equals;"line-height&colon; 1&period;5em&semi;">SMS Summed Up<&sol;b><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">SMS is an abbreviation for Short Message Service&comma; and also referred to as &&num;8220&semi;text messaging&&num;8221&semi;&period; By using SMS&comma; you can send messages of up to 160 characters&comma; and if the message is somehow longer&comma; it will automatically be split up into several parts&period; Just about every smart phone supports this format&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Unfortunately&comma; not only is it 160 characters as opposed to 160 words&comma; the actual working character count is 140&comma; which is how Tweets are sent&comma; with those first 20 characters saved for including the sender&&num;8217&semi;s name&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>SMS Feedback Is A Valuable Tool<&sol;b><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">In order for a business to keep growing&comma; it needs to not only get new customers&comma; it must retain the older ones&period; Businesses need to adapt to the changing climate&comma; or perish&period; Text messaging is a great way of ascertaining which way the wind is blowing because it presents a convenient&comma; fast way for customers to give you their feedback in real-time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">By giving customers the means of providing maximum engagement with minimal effort&comma; your business can get a good idea of what&&num;8217&semi;s working and what&&num;8217&semi;s not&comma; and making changes accordingly&period; Besides&comma; sending texts is eco-friendly&comma; replacing those useless comment cards that more often than not end up either as trash or doubling as ninja throwing stars&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>Ways To Use SMS To Get Customer Feedback<&sol;b><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Here are four ways that you can use text messaging to solicit feedback from your customers&period; If you find this useful&comma; why not read &&num;8220&semi;SMS Surveys To Satisfy Customers&&num;8221&semi; for more information&quest;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>Product Preference&period;<&sol;b> This is a simple one&comma; but in the long run&comma; it can spare you the grief &lpar;and expense&excl;&rpar; of stocking up on something that people don&&num;8217&semi;t want&period; This can be a simple text question like &&num;8220&semi;Which of the two running shoe brands would you be most likely to buy&quest;&&num;8221&semi;&comma; and provide them with two or three answers&period; After all&comma; you don&&num;8217&semi;t want to make it too elaborate&excl;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>Support Follow-Up&period;<&sol;b> This one&&num;8217&semi;s good to use on customers who use your services&comma; and you want to know how much they liked your company&&num;8217&semi;s efforts&period; A simple query for feedback using a scale from 1 to 5 can give you a good idea of how effective your customer service is&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>Contests&comma; Prizes&comma; And Giveaways<&sol;b><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Who doesn&&num;8217&semi;t like these things&quest; Offer free passes&comma; exclusive deep discounts&comma; or brand merchandising if the customer responds with the correct answer to a question of the day&comma; or something like that&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<h2 style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;"><b>Outright Asking For Product Feedback<&sol;b><&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">This one&&num;8217&semi;s a bit more of a risk&comma; since it requires a little more involvement on the part of the customer&comma; and they may not want to bother&period; Ask the customer to click on a provided link to a new product or service&comma; and ask that they send you their impressions of it&period; Who knows&comma; maybe you sweeten the pot a little by offering a discount to the item in question if the customer responds&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">There are more methods out there&comma; but the above constitute a good start&period; Once you get SMS down pat&comma; check out the article &&num;8220&semi;Creating Cross Channel Synergy With Social Media&comma; Text And Email&&num;8221&semi; to incorporate it into other forms of customer outreach&period;<&excl;-- End Media Shower Content Reporting code --><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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