Best practices: 6 Things to “Be” When Texting Your Customers

1. Be Personal

Tailor Your Communications to Each Customer and Invite Conversation

Your customers’ text message inboxes are sacred! This is where they have intimate conversations with their friends, their families and colleagues. Differentiate yourselves from the appointment reminder robots (or marketing messages), and engage in the types of conversations that customers want to have. How to do this, you’re wondering? It’s pretty simple, and a little personalization can go a long way. Your text messages should feel like they’re coming from a person and invite the customer on the receiving end to participate. Use template variables in your messages to stand out from the crowd (and any Spam – yuck!) to impress your customers with some personal attention. Suggested variables include:

customer name
user (sender) name
business name

2. Be Human

Show Your Personality

Your messaging should be an extension of your brand and the personal hands-on service that you already provide. How can interacting with customers by text message make your service even more personal? By building a bridge to your customers and making it even easier for them to reach you! A few ways to do this:

include a personal sign-off on all messages (i.e. Cheers, Mallory)
reference and recall past customer experiences
use emojis (because they’re fun!)

3. Be Succinct

Use Your Words (But *Maybe* Not All of Them)

Texting is the perfect way to ask a quick question or to send reminders, but it might not be the best medium to have complex conversations or send paragraphs of information. We encourage you to keep your customer messages short, sweet and to-the-point. That’s a communication style that we can all appreciate. Many cell phone carriers today even split or truncate messages over 160 characters. Here are tips to keep messages brief and succinct when communicating to customers via text message:

use conversational verbiage whenever appropriate – such as contractions (can’t vs. cannot) and abbreviations (St. vs. Street)
break it up: multiple shorter messages may be better than one novella-length message
sometimes a 5 minute phone call is easier than a 20-message back and forth (and that’s okay)

4. Be Responsive

Respond Quickly + Set Response Expectations Internally and Externally

You’re already enhancing your customer service by opening up a more-instant communication line with your customers. Giving your customers an easy way to reach you generates more happy customers. Create an operational game plan for your team so that they’re ready to respond. Here are some steps to add to the plan to ensure customers are taken care of:

set business hours: let your customers know when you’re available (or more importantly when you’re not – provide escalation alternative)
assign shift-specific responsibility: who is responsible at different points through out the day
create saved replies for frequently asked questions (FAQs)
turn on desktop and audio notifications
bookmark TrustYou Messaging on your desktops and mobile devices

5. Be Respectful

Send Messages to Add Value to the Customer Experience

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again — texting is a super personal experience for you and for your customers. Unlike mass marketing channels (email marketing, robo calls, etc.), when you text your customers you have a real chance of building a one-to-one relationship. While it’s okay to promote a personalized service to your customers, your customers should want to receive the messages you’re sending. We know it’s tempting to blast out the latest promotion or sale, but it’s more important to respect your customers’ desires. Some questions to consider before sending a message:

Did my customer agree to receive this type of message?
Does this feel personal?
What’s the benefit for my customer?
Does this help strengthen the customer relationship?

6. Be Proactive

Collect Feedback and Anticipate Needs

You’ll learn a lot about your customers through text message interactions. You’ll be able track your entire conversation history with your customer and see their history with your business. Additionally, texting is great way to receive feedback from guests. Don’t play the guessing game when it comes to customer satisfaction, or even worse – find out on Yelp or TripAdvisor when someone had a bad experience. Use messaging to connect the dots (or find gaps) in your customer experience. Here’s what we suggest:

send an automated (but personalized) follow up text message asking for feedback; create response game plan for both positive and negative feedback
answer the question they’ve asked plus the one you know they’re going to ask next (ex: for a question about happy hour hours, including drink specials in your reply)
review customer conversation history before you respond; make sure you understand what your customer has already communicated to you
share tips and tricks with customers that will enrich customer experience + position you and your team as industry experts (ex: Gyms might send out a monthly health tip)