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Improving Your eCommerce Experience with SMS Marketing
SMS marketing can give you a winning advantage in today’s tough eCommerce world. Why? Simply because today’s consumer is more demanding than ever. They want their shopping experience to be smooth, hassle free and able to provide prompt resolutions to their problems. SMS services help you meet these expectations and deliver exceptional experiences that keep your consumers coming back for more.
We’ve compiled five different ways why you should incorporate SMS into your eCommerce arsenal this year.
1. SMS gives your eCommerce store edge
The world of eCommerce is always evolving and getting tougher each day. Old barriers are falling fast and buying power and distribution are no longer decisive advantages they once were. New technologies and opportunities are making price and product commoditized.
SMS can give you the edge over your competitors and improve the customer’s experience making buying from you a pleasure. Offering additional services such as tracking updates, on the spot customer service, promotions and even surveys helps build tribal loyalty among your following and ensures a long term relationship.
2. Satisfy your customer’s experience today
In order to keep your customers coming back to you, you’re going to need to offer them more than a slick e-commerce platform and an interesting blog.
Your customers demand an exceptional experience, so why not give it to them?
Did you know a customer is four times more likely to buy from a competitor if the problem is service related vs. price or product related. 55% of consumers would pay more for a better customer experience. 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated.
Prompt SMS updates and support can help build the smooth purchasing journey customers now demand and will look forward to taking again.
3. Much higher open rates than email
Typically, the customer experience is handled by email. It’s low cost and can be run on autopilot. But there’s a problem. Most of the emails aren’t being opened, let alone read or responded to.
According to MailChimp, a mere 22% of e-commerce emails get opened and just 3% are clicked through.
So while it may be cheap, email’s success at delivering a superior customer experience is thwarted by saturated inboxes, over zealous junk filters and apathy among today’s buyers. You need to find a better way of communicating with them that’s more practical on a mobile device.
Thanks to the delivery ping, SMS has a near perfect open rate of 98%.
Messages are opened on average within 90 seconds, compared to 90 minutes with email. This makes SMS ideal for sending time sensitive notifications about delivery and near instantaneous answers to customers questions. SMS provides problem resolution at speeds email just can’t compete with.
4. SMS if multifunctional and lower cost
Along with sky high open rates, SMS offers many more benefits to your consumers:
Customer Service – 2-way SMS messaging allows customers to have conversations with your customer service team in a similar way to live chat but without the need for internet coverage.
Automated – Customers can update their preferences and account information with a single text
Fewer Delivery Problems – The high open rates for SMS ensures your customers know exactly when their order will arrive unlike easily missed emails, slashing the cost of non-deliveries.
Always On – There will often be times when your customers don’t have internet coverage or they have switched it off to conserve battery life. SMS sidesteps these problems as it doesn’t require WiFi, 4G or even 3G to deliver your messages.
Follow Up Sales – Having gained their approval with helpful and timely updates on delivery, customers are open to receiving coupons and promotional messages by SMS which they’ll more likely use thanks to higher open rates.
Feedback and Competitions – SMS is a great way to survey your customers and run contests at live events that increase overall engagement and interaction.
More than a third of visits to eCommerce sites are now done via mobile devices (phones and tablets). This is another reason why SMS fits the eCommerce experience.
5. Your competitors may already be utilizing it
Organizations are still finding clever new ways of using SMS marketing to enhance their eCommerce experience.
Security – With its near perfect open rate, SMS is the perfect channel for sending over one time pin codes. Already used by many banks, using SMS for the first time or unusual logins reassures customers and provides an additional layer of security against hackers. SMS is also perfect for sending security alerts to customers and requesting them to change their password if there’s ever a breach.
Promotions – Brands including McDonalds and BestBuy have had huge success running SMS contests. Brands can engage their customers using SMS as a call to action (time limited promotion) to drive people to their website with discounts on merchandise, surveys, etc.
Just look how Bohemian Guitarsutilized SMS and took control of their customer engagement.
Product Information – SMS is the ideal channel for sending wishlist price drop alerts and on the spot instructions to your consumers. These messages of course can be automated or routed via customer services for fast two way conversations with high resolution rates.
How to begin utilizing the power of SMS with your customer experience
As you can see, SMS is a cost effective and multifunctional tool that can give your business the edge it needs to provide the exceptional service your customers demand and deserve.
So consider how you can begin using SMS to deliver prompt responses to questions, timely notifications, surveys and even run promotions that take advantage of its near perfect open rates and convenience on people’s mobile devices.
