Omnichannel Engagement: The Benefits of Messaging Apps for Customer Service
What is omnichannel?
How does it relate to messaging?
How can we create an omnichannel strategy to improve brand communication, service results, business responsiveness, and sales? Are other brands using it?
The difference between Omnichannel and multichannel
Omnichannel is defined as “seamless and effortless, high-quality customer experiences that occur within and between contact channels”. Simply stated, it is a way of engaging customers using multiple points of contact — such as email, text, chat, voice, video, and social media — to create a seamless user experience that builds customer loyalty.
Multichannel on the other hand, refers to “the blending of different distribution and promotional channels for marketing. Distribution channels include a retail storefront, a website, or a mail-order catalog” with each channel sending the same content or message to attract as many responses as possible.
What’s the significant difference? When we think of customer engagement, we often think about it as a chain of conversations — Omnichannel presents a blend of fluid alignment of your communications across channels, it lets your users see both interactions as a continuing conversation/engagement. For example, a prospect clicks an email, confirms a booking/order via text, receives a text with an offer and responds, or reads a paid ad on social media. This way, you can offer a seamless experience for both your users and your sales team.
The Demand for Omnichannel Engagement
“Businesses that adopt Omnichannel strategies see 91% higher year-over-year customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t.”
Today’s customers use mobile devices, smartphones, laptops, social media, chat, email, self-service, and websites and expect their interactions with businesses to flow seamlessly from one channel to the next according to their preferences.
Research also shows that consumers use around 10 sources of information across all channels before making a purchase decision.
The ability of the consumer to use digital technology at convenience to examine products, differentiate between brands, read reviews, check the availability of a product, and pay for items enables the seamless experience many consumers now request before completing their purchases.
The new precondition is for businesses— including retailers, fintech, and others is to provide for coordinating communications by integrating emerging technologies. To consistently provide excellent customer service, brands need to evolve to meet customer expectations and accommodate as many of these preferences as possible.
How to Deliver Outstanding Omnichannel Customer Service with Messaging Apps to Meet Growing Consumer Demand, Boost Revenue and Increase ROI
Omnichannel customer support in messaging apps is the solution smart companies utilize to improve customer retention rates. Brands that provide more communication options are considered as being more customer-centric and trustworthy when there’s a range of ways to connect with your business — the most fundamental of customer preferences is access to messaging platforms.
When we think about good customer service, two important factors are prominent — quick resolutions and personalized service.
Messaging apps, particularly WhatsApp, with more than 2 billion active users, has been hailed as the new SMS — a primary form of communication because of its usability.
In fact, major brands in edutech, e-commerce, et al, are already using messaging apps (WhatsApp Business API) as their main channel for customer support, communication.
At Termii, we’re already seeing an increasing number of businesses opt for WhatsApp integration to support their customer service and sales operations due to the unique benefits WhatsApp Business API provides. You can validate your customers’ identity, receive payments, send invoices, determine your customer’s location, send and receive files, and more. Put simply, it is a flexible and intuitive approach to customer communications.
‘The Termii products (SMS and Whatsapp OTP services) actually facilitated an impressive experience for users signing up on our digital banking app through swift delivery of OTPs via both channels. Being the first part of the signup process, it actually gives a lasting good impression that contributed to high users registration.” — Muyiwa, Head of support at Voguepay
Leveraging an Omnichannel platform, businesses can handle all communications to include service and sales through the WhatsApp Business API, providing a seamless experience for both customers and employees.
The Benefits…
Before integrating to an Omnichannel platform with message integration, you should first identify what your business communication goals are, this will help you tick the boxes as you progress throughout the customer’s journey. Highlighted below are a few benefits you should consider:
- Increased High-value Customer Engagement — Automated notifications for messaging apps enhance customer service and engagement throughout the customer journey. You can offer your customers continuous conversation flow and also empower your support staff to send and receive messages from different platforms like SMS and WhatsApp.
- Increased customer satisfaction and retention — companies are seeking one-on-one conversations with consumers to drive both sales and retention, and WhatsApp is a perfect fit especially with its potential as a low-cost way of engaging with global consumers. Also, a customer is more likely to respond to it as it also enables a 2-way dialogue between the customer and brand.
- Increased personalized customer experiences — businesses can create template messages that reflect their brand with the WhatsApp Business API. This provides a close-knit experience for customers and fosters a better customer experience.
- Increased customer loyalty –
In conclusion, there’s no one way to create an omnichannel strategy. As the demand for Omnichannel engagement grows, new technologies emerge that make more advanced interchange possible. Financial institutions, retailers, eCommerce, and other businesses will need to adapt to the growing presence of digital interactions to stay profitable and satisfy customers over the long term.
Want to get started? You can test different channels and hone them to see what works best for your brand to offer customers the best engagement experience throughout the customer journey. And if you would like to learn how Termii’s communication tools can improve your engagement, send us a mail at sales@termii.com
Cecilia Abegunde
Digital Support Termii Inc.
