In this insightful piece, I’ve explored the multifaceted role of SMS in enhancing customer experience, especially focusing on the Shopify platform. I’ve shared how SMS can be utilized for various customer interactions, such as offering support, collecting feedback, providing shopping assistance, sending personalized product recommendations, dispatching transactional alerts, and conducting surveys. I’ve also included practical SMS templates and tips to ensure a positive customer experience through SMS. Join me to discover how to leverage SMS to elevate your customer experience and navigate through different customer engagement scenarios effectively.”
Are you an eCommerce marketer? If yes, you know the importance of SMS. You might be using SMS to run promotions, to send transactional alerts, all kinds of marketing messages, and more to improve customer experience.
But even though SMS has many plus points, if not done well, it can harm your customers’ experience. And that can backfire on your marketing strategy.
And that’s why you need to keep customer experience at the center of your strategy.
If you want to understand how you can improve customer experience with the help of SMS, this article is for you. Read on!
6 ways to use SMS to improve customer experience + templates
1. Use SMS to offer customer support
56% of customers say a brand’s customer service often doesn’t match its image. And that harms the customers’ experience.
Imagine your customers have an unpleasant experience with your customer support. What do you think they’d do?
They’d probably not return to your store—59% of customers don’t transact with businesses with which they’ve had a bad experience. Besides, they’ll tell others about their bad experience—customers tell an average 16 people about a negative experience.
But you can ensure your customers always feel good about your brand by making SMS a key channel for customer support. Here’s how:
- Provide customer support via SMS. It’s an instant communication channel with a 98% open rate, so your customers won’t miss your messages
- Enable two-way conversation, which allows customers to converse with you quickly
- Run a text campaign to inform them they can avail of customer support via SMS
Here’s a template you can use for the same:
| Hi (customer name),It’s (executive name) from (company name). Did your free trial on the first day go well? Please reply to this message if there’s anything I can help with.Thank you |
To enable two-way SMS conversation, install the TxtCart SMS marketing automation app on your Shopify store.
2. Use SMS to collect customer feedback
9 out of 10 customers read reviews before buying a product.
And 83% of customers say reviews should be relevant and recent to be trustworthy.
This makes feedback collection critical for eCommerce stores that want to improve customer experience. Now, you’d say your Shopify store already does it, like most eCommerce stores do.
But the thing is, requesting feedback is easy; the real challenge is getting customers to respond and share their feedback.
And that’s where SMS wins over other channels such as email, phone call, etc.
SMS is an instant medium, has a high open rate, and enables you to time your message correctly.
For example, when customers have just interacted/engaged on your eCommerce store, you can send them an SMS in real time.
The customers’ experience is fresh in their minds. That’s the best time to send them a message requesting feedback. Getting them to respond to this message is easier. Here’s why:
- SMS is a short text medium; customers can grasp the message in a few words
- People always have their phones with them, and hence, it’s improbable they’ll miss your message
- Two-way SMS makes it much easier for customers to share feedback, as they don’t have to click on links or fill out lengthy forms
- Whether customers have had a negative or positive experience, they’re more likely to respond to your feedback request on SMS than any other medium
- Moreover, two-way conversation makes it easy to interact with customers and encourage them to share feedback. For example, offer them an incentive to share feedback
Here’s a template you can use to seek feedback:
| Hi (Customer name),We’re thrilled you’ve made your first purchase from our store.We’d love to know how you’d rate your experience.
Reply with a number: 0 – 1- 2- 3 – 4 – 5 (0 not satisfied, 5 very delighted) To opt out, reply STOP |
3. Use SMS to offer shopping assistance
Another way to use SMS for customer experience improvement is to offer shopping assistance.
Think about it; there might be hundreds of products on your site. And for customers landing on your website, it would be nothing less than navigating the ocean alone.
While it’s easy for customers to get shopping assistance at physical stores, receiving help for shopping online can get tricky.
For instance, making phone calls to the brand may get time-consuming. Automated chatbots can only help up to a certain point. And email conversations can slow down the shopping process.
Versus a quick, short SMS!
You can easily provide shopping assistance via SMS. Here’s how:
- Let customers know you can help them while they’re shopping, via text messaging
- Take a two-way SMS approach so that shoppers can freely reach out to you
- Offer assistance in real time. For example, if you see shoppers exploring the sizes of a particular product, reach out to them via SMS to ask if they need your help
- Offer assistance for different aspects such as discovering product variants, picking sizes, colors, better alternative products, etc.
- You can even upsell and cross-sell via SMS
Take a look at this template:
| Hi (customer name),Looking for something specific that you aren’t able to find? Let us know by replying to this message and we’ll help you find what you’re looking for. |
4. Use SMS to send personalized product recommendations
When you send personalized messages to customers, they feel good. One way to personalize and improve customer experience is to send product recommendations that are relevant to them.
91% of consumers say they are more likely to shop with brands that provide offers and recommendations relevant to them.
For example, send customers personalized messages when you have promotions, discounts, and deals on products they’re interested in.
Additionally, as research by Accenture suggests, “Businesses need to humanize the digital experience by moving from marketing communications to digital conversations.”
That’s where SMS comes in.
A two-way SMS strategy can help you humanize the experience—interact with your customers. Automate basic conversations, but shift to human-to-human interaction when needed.
For example, you could communicate with customers to understand their needs/interests and then send personalized product recommendations.
Here’s a template:
| Hi (customer name),We think you’d love this selection we’ve specially put together based on your likes and interests. Check out the items and unlock discounts on each one. Shop: (link) |
5. Use SMS to send transactional alerts
85% of customers feel post-purchase anxiety. And when we humans feel anxious, we instinctively turn to others for help.
Customers feeling post-purchase anxiety might end up calling customer support. Or they get directed to self-service technologies such as a mobile app, etc.
These can cause more anxiety to customers because it involves them taking action and finding solutions on their own.
But a simple solution to reducing post-purchase anxiety is sending timely alerts and notifications—send them the required information before they start panicking.
Making transactional alerts a part of your Shopify SMS marketing strategy is necessary.
Here are some of the transactional alerts you can automate to ease customer anxiety:
- Purchase made
- Order confirmed
- Shipping details
- Delivery updates
- Order delivered
- Reward points earned
- Reward points used
- Payment confirmation
And here’s an example of an order confirmation text:
| Hey (customer name),Your order no. XXX is confirmed. We will share the shipping details shortly.Thank you for purchasing from (brand name). For any queries regarding your order, reply here. |
6. Use SMS to conduct surveys
One of the most effective ways to improve your business is to understand your customers’ feelings about your brand. And there’s no better person to ask than your customers.
How do you do that? Conduct surveys via SMS.
But first, let’s understand how surveys can help:
- Surveys can help you gain insightful feedback
- Help you understand your customers better
- Improve customer experience and loyalty
- Identify areas of your business that need improvement
You can conduct different types of surveys via SMS, depending on your goals, for example,
- Net Promoter Score
- Multi-choice polls
- Text-to-vote
- Customer experience feedback
- Links to web-based surveys
And here’s are a few steps you could follow to conduct surveys via SMS and improve customer experience:
- Determine the survey type
- Create a list or customer segment
- Create the survey questions
- Send the survey via an SMS tool
- Enable two-way SMS conversation
- Track and monitor performance
- Optimize your SMS survey campaigns
Here’s an example of an SMS survey message:
| Hi (customer name),Did our support team help solve your problem?Reply Y or N. To opt out, reply STOP. |
Tips to ensure a good experience through SMS
Personalize the messages
72% of customers only engage with personalized messaging. Customers feel engaged if your messages are relevant to them. Hence, to improve their experience, here are a few ways to personalize messages:
- Write customers’ first names
- Segment customers before sending messages
- Send a message that relates to where they are in the customer journey
- Use data to understand them better and then personalize messages accordingly
Enable two-way SMS
Gone are the days when brands spoke to customers one-sidedly. Today, customers like to ask questions to brands before they transact. That’s why you need two-way SMS, which allows customers to reach out to you, reply to your texts, etc.
Comply with all SMS regulations
If you don’t follow SMS marketing regulations and policies, your contact number could get blocked. So ensure your Shopify SMS marketing app adheres to SMS compliance and policies such as TCPA, CTIA, CCPA, etc.
Pay attention to the frequency and time of sending texts
Sending too many text messages could come across as spam and lead your customers to opt-out.
Similarly, sending untimely messages can annoy them—imagine receiving a discount offer on a product that the customer bought from your store recently.
Hence, always ensure you send only relevant, timely and important text messages. And avoid spamming your entire list.
Make it easy for customers to take the next steps
There’s no point in running SMS campaigns if it’s not getting results. Hence, make sure your campaigns are helping you reach your goals. Here are a few ways to make sure your customers take the desired actions:
- Write clear CTAs in every SMS
- Use the click-to-buy SMS strategy
- Share proper and direct links to products
Have you set up your Shopify store SMS marketing?
If you haven’t set up SMS marketing for your Shopify store, you’re missing out on the power of automation and two-way marketing.
Your customers are expecting SMS updates and messages from you. You shouldn’t disappoint them.
Use TxtCart SMS marketing automation app on your Shopify store.
