SMS follow ups can help you increase customer engagement, reinvigorating their interest in your brand. But if you haven’t revisited or revamped your SMS customer engagement content in a while, there’s a good chance that your follow up response rates aren’t as high as you’d like.
What Is SMS Customer Engagement Content?
Before you revamp your content, let’s revisit a foundational question. What does it mean to engage customers through business text messaging?
In essence, SMS customer engagement content encourages customers to connect with your team and explore your brand further. (It’s nearly synonymous with conversational customer engagement.)
SMS customer engagement content can include everything from polls to event announcements. In this blog post, we’ll focus on follow ups. Your team may send follow ups after ticket resolutions, purchases, returns, or other customer activities.
Read on to learn 5 ways to increase responses to SMS customer engagement follow ups.
Want a step-by-step look at building strong customer relationships through texting? Read our Beginner’s Guide to SMS Customer Engagement.
Get the guideTip #1: Ensure Your Content Is Service-Centric
There’s a time and place for marketing (particularly conversational marketing), but customer follow ups aren’t it. These are opportunities to let customers know you prioritize their experience—not to share your latest marketing campaign.
Customers are more likely to reach out if they truly think you want them to enjoy their purchase. A customer-centric follow up may look like this example:
Hi {{customer name}}, Anna from Furniture Express here. I saw that your white-glove delivery arrived last Friday! Anything I can do to help you enjoy your new furniture, or are you all set? Text STOP to stop receiving texts.
A follow up that seems earnest and helpful is more likely to receive responses—even if it’s just a customer letting you know that they enjoyed their experience.
Tip #2: Personalize, Personalize, Personalize
Today’s customers want to know that your team cares about each and every one of them on an individual level. They expect your team to know whether they ordered from your brand before, and whether they recently spoke with one of your agents.
It’s easy to personalize mass-texted follow ups with help from custom fields and lists. A personalized follow up may look like this example:
Hi {{customer name}}, Pet Fun here. We have confirmed order #(order #). We hope {{pet name}} enjoys their treats! Please text us if you have any questions about your order. Text STOP to unsubscribe.
SMS customer engagement content is all about writing texts that resonate with customers. Personalizing each message is an easy way to attract customers’ attention and encourage them to reply.
Tip #3: Make Simple Requests
Your customers are busy people. Most of them don’t have time to decipher difficult or long-winded requests. Make sure your follow ups include only the simplest of requests that will take them only a moment.
Consider this rule of thumb: a text should include only one request. A simple request may look like this example:
Hiya {{client name}}, this is Sandy from Apply Creative. How do you feel about the design you recently downloaded? Text a number 1-5 to let us know. 5 is great, 1 is not so great. Text STOP to unsubscribe.
Using simple requests in your SMS customer engagement content increases the chances that customers will have the bandwidth to reply.
Tip #4: Write Snappy Texts
In a similar vein, customers are also too busy to read long-winded texts. Your SMS customer engagement content should be short enough for them to read in under a minute—or even under 30 seconds.
You may want to consider limiting texts to 2-6 sentences. An especially short and snappy text may look like this example:
Hi {{client name}}, we saw you received your Paper and Ink order# {{order #}}. Let us know if you have questions! Text STOP to unsubscribe.
Customers can quickly read this text all the way through. If they get to the end, they’ll see your request for questions and may reply.
Tip #5: Add Warmth
Modern customers want to make authentic connections with businesses. That’s why they like texting as opposed to messaging with a bot or listening to a voice menu. They want to make person-to-person connections.
Add warmth to your texts to ensure customers know they’re texting with another human. A warm, personable text may look like this example:
Hi {{client name}}, Tammy from Florists United here! Do you have any questions since we spoke last week about {{topic of last conversation}}? Happy to answer if so! 🌸 Text STOP to unsubscribe.
When customers feel like texts are sent from a real person, they’re more likely to reply and start conversations.
Ready to boost your customer engagement strategy with business SMS? Read our Beginner’s Guide to SMS Customer Engagement.
