Best Practices Series: Using two-way texting for outreach

Did you know that 73% of people consider customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions?¹ This is why you should optimize the opportunity to shape your customers’ buying experience by being proactive with outreach, rather than waiting for customers to come to you. In this article, we’ll demystify the concept of customer outreach over texting and show you how you can master this two-way communication channel by using TextKit. 

With mobile messaging becoming an increasingly preferred channel of communication, people are more likely to read, reply, and engage over text more than ever before. SMS messages have an open rate of 98%² and people typically reply within 90 seconds of receiving it³.

In comparison, email marketing has a much lower open rate of 21%⁴ and longer response time with an average of 90 minutes³.

With TextKit, you have the power to create positive, engaging customer experiences through 1:1 conversations via two-way texting. 

A better way to engage your customers

What exactly is two-way texting? What makes it the best way to communicate with customers? 

Simply put, it’s when you, on behalf of your business, send and receive messages in an ongoing conversation with a customer. This is very different from mass promotional messages or marketing blasts that are often one-way, since customers can’t respond or engage in a conversation with you. 

Two-way texting involves a unique personal touch, allows you to have 1:1 conversations, and enables you to foster positive customer relationships. Customers  want to talk to real humans who can address their questions and provide tailored advice rather than automated chatbots that send generic responses. 

At Statflo, our users have seen up to 40% response rates from their customers and up to 10% conversion on replies. There’s no doubt that two-way texting drives engagement, builds loyalty, retains your base, and grows sales.

Examples of two-way texting

Let’s start with a few examples of how you can use text messaging at your business. You can come up with your own use cases based on your business’ needs and unique offerings to your customers. 

Welcome 

Send a friendly greeting to a new customer, make sure to introduce yourself and let them know where they can reach you if they have questions.

Check-in

Did a customer just upgrade a product with you recently? Check in on them shortly after a purchase or transaction to see how they feel about it, offer tips on how to maximize their product, and answer any questions that may have come up.

Follow-up

Did a customer show interest or ask questions about a product and then go silent? Following up with them with a quick message can often re-engage them and lead to a new sale.

Use TextKit as part of your everyday customer outreach

Get familiar with TextKit features and learn how to best use them.

Reach out at the right times

Customers are much more likely to respond when you reach out to them and share useful or interesting information at the right times. Make sure you have a productive workflow that organizes your customers into strategic, well-timed campaigns. You should also check out our best performing message templates and utilize them to start each conversation off right! 

TextKit helps your workflow by organizing which customers you need to start a conversation with or who to follow up with, so you always know who to reach out to next.

List of conversation categories: 

• To Answer
• To Contact
• Open
• Others - Closed, Opt-out

Learn about how to start a conversation, use message templates, and what each messenger category means.

Full context in a single place

In order to have informed conversations with your customers, you need to know the full details of their account. On the sidebar of the TextKit window, you will be able to see important details related to the customer’s account all in one place, eliminating the need to switch between other windows or systems to find the information you need.

Depending on your business’ custom set-up, you will be able to see a complete picture of your customer’s past interactions, transactions, opportunities, eligible offers, and much more. 

Learn more about viewing customer context here.

Tailor the experience 

Engage your customers further by sending tailored content such as an appointment booking link, , a video call invite, a request an e-signature, an information package, and more. Sendable content allows you to be even more productive over text messaging. 

Check what sendable content and apps your business has enabled by clicking the “+” button on the left side of the message field. 

Learn more about content sharing here.

Stay compliant at all times 

TextKit does the heavy lifting for you with built-in compliance filters and coaching tips as you write your messages. However, it’s still important to be aware of your responsibilities in staying compliant when you are engaging with customers. 

We’ll let you know when a better word or phrase should be used (and why) as you’re crafting your  messages. We also enforce a cooldown period between text messages (so that you don’t “spam” your customer with too many messages in a short period of time). 

We also help you keep track of opt-out requests from your customers - more details about how in this article.

Read up on how smart filtering works to keep conversations compliant.

Ready to get started?

• Log in to TextKit and start exploring
• View our Getting Started guide on our help centre to learn more
• Reach out to us at support@statflo.com at any time if you have questions