No matter how well your business SMS channel is performing, there’s always room for improvement. Creating a strategy for the new year (or honing your old one) is a great opportunity to identify room for growth and make a success plan.
Like with your other communication channels, business SMS offers extensive reporting capabilities. Your business SMS platform should automatically collect data and organize it into intuitive charts. This data can help you identify places in your current strategy that you can level up for the new year.
But what business SMS KPIs should you focus on? And what will they tell you? And how can you improve those numbers in the future?
Let’s dive in.
Business SMS KPI #1: Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is one of the most well-known KPIs in the business world. Measuring business SMS customer satisfaction is similar to measuring it for any other communication channel. It’s one of the most important KPIs to review before setting up your new year’s strategy.
What the KPI Means
Customer satisfaction measures how satisfied customers are with your customer service, products, and overarching brand experience.
How to Track This KPI
Unlike other KPIs, you have to collect customer satisfaction data outside your business SMS platform. For example, a web form poll or CSAT survey can help you collect data on how customers felt about a recent interaction with your company. You can text customers with links to these surveys. You can also ask customers to text your team with customer satisfaction feedback, like a rating 1-5, but you would need to organize that data manually. CSAT surveys are often initiated shortly after resolution of a customer service ticket.
What You’re Aiming For
You want high customer satisfaction ratings. Typically, you’ll ask customers to rate themselves as either “satisfied” or “unsatisfied.” You can also ask them for a scaled rating.
What to Do if This KPI is Low
If your SMS customer satisfaction number is low, it’s time to re-evaluate your message-answering process. There’s a small chance that your customer service team needs retraining; consider spot-checking SMS conversations to determine whether that’s the case. However, it may be more likely that your team is struggling to respond quickly to texts. Review your resolution time to figure out how to identify and remedy that problem. Customer satisfaction could also be low because of the type and frequency of the content you send; review your unsubscription rate to determine whether that may be the case.
Business SMS KPI #2: Resolution Time
Customers want their queries answered quickly. They know that email has a slow resolution time. That’s why many of them turn to messaging and texting. For business SMS, resolution time is one of the most important KPIs out there. In many cases, it’s the key to boosting your customer satisfaction.
What the KPI Means
Resolution time is how long chats are in your shared inbox before they are closed or resolved.
How to Track This KPI
Your business SMS platform should track this KPI through built-in reports. Ideally, you should be able to segment resolution time by agent, location, and inbox.
What You’re Aiming For
You don’t want a high resolution time. A short resolution time is correlated to higher CSAT scores. In general, your team’s SMS resolution times will be shorter than email resolution times. Often, they are slightly longer than web chat resolution times, since web chats must be completed in one sitting on the lead’s or customer’s part.
What to Do If This KPI Is High
If you’re worried about your SMS resolution time, there are a few things you can do to lower it. First, set up an auto reply during business hours and after hours so customers know what kind of response time to expect. Ensure team members are using efficiency tools like templates and lists to speed up response times. Finally, make sure all team members are collaborating by using team tools like private comments. Collaboration makes it easier to find answers and close out conversations quickly.
Business SMS KPI #3: Unsubscription Rate
Unsubscription rate is well-known among marketing teams. It’s commonly used to measure the success of email newsletters. It works well for measuring the success of your business SMS efforts, too.
What the KPI Means
Unsubscription rate is the percent of leads or customers who choose to unsubscribe from your SMS list.
How to Track This KPI
You need to do a little bit of math to determine your unsubscription rate. Your business SMS platform should support all standard unsubscribe keywords. It will automatically track the number of people who have unsubscribed in a certain amount of time within its built-in reports. You can narrow the data down by list and campaign. To find the unsubscription rate, divide the number of people who unsubscribed by the number of people in the list. Then multiply that by 100. For example, if 25 people unsubscribed from a 1,000-person list from January through March, you have a 2.5% unsubscription rate for that quarter.
What You’re Aiming For
You want to have as low of an unsubscription rate as possible.
What to Do If This KPI is High
There are two main culprits for a high unsubscription rate: sending content too frequently and sending content that doesn’t offer value to your recipients. Re-evaluate your SMS content schedule. Then, take another look at the content you send. You need to determine whether customers consider it valuable content or not. Is it customer-centric? (Think: query follow-ups, polls, and product tips.) Is it relevant? Is it short and snappy? If your content isn’t ticking those boxes, consider revamping it.
Want more tips for the new year? Check out our blog.
