The omnichannel approach has gained a lot of support in the last decade or so. By offering multiple interconnected channels, brands can appeal to as many customers as possible. Regardless, it’s the nature of any business to want to know which channels perform well.
When a company knows which channels perform best for which tasks, then they can make better informed decisions about where to redirect budgets and employees. For example, if brands determine that their business text messaging teams resolve customer queries twice as quickly as the phone call teams do, they may want to implement call deflection strategies.
The only way to know for sure which channel has the highest performance is to measure and compare the performance of both. But when you’re dealing with a traditional channel and a new channel like business text messaging, it can be a little more difficult to figure out how to track and analyze the appropriate metrics.
Read on to learn how to measure the effectiveness of business text messaging versus phone calls.
Choose a Main Objective
Before you decide which exact aspects of business text messaging and phone calls to compare, you’ll need to identify your main objective. Why is it that you want to compare your channels? Do you want to see which channel produces the fastest results? Or do you want to see which channel produces the highest customer satisfaction? Or do you want to see which channel encourages the most efficient team performance?
Your main objective will most likely align with your department’s KPIs. For example, one of your department’s KPIs might be high customer satisfaction. In that case, your objective will be to see which channel achieves the most customer satisfaction.
Once you identify or choose your KPIs, you can track channel performance and make improvements to achieve your objective.
Determine Cross-Channel Metrics
Once you determine your department’s KPI or KPIs, you’ll want to review the channel-specific metrics your teams are tracking. If you aren’t tracking any metrics—which can be a common situation with new channels like business text messaging—you’ll want to start by determining channel-specific KPIs.
Both business text messaging and voice communications channels have their own unique metrics, but they do have some that are similar. Once you’ve gathered a list of the metrics your teams are currently tracking, identify those that appear in both lists.
These might include:
- First response time
- CSAT (Customer Satisfaction)
- Customer response time
- NPS (Net Promoter Score)
- Resolution time
Find Reliable Measurement Tools 
If your team is manually measuring KPIs or not measuring them at all, this is your opportunity to create an accurate KPI tracking method. The more accurate the measurements from both channels are, the more accurate your determination of the effectiveness of both channels will be. Both business text messaging and voice communication channels offer two key ways to measure your chosen KPIs:
Automatic Tracking
Any business text messaging channel should offer automatic tracking capabilities. These channels will track critical KPIs and depict that data in a clear format, providing a quantified overview of customer engagement as well as team member engagement. Customer interactions should be tracked by intent—i.e. separated by entry point or department—to most accurately compare voice performance to business text messaging.
Surveys
Another way to track KPIs is by directly appealing to customers for feedback. Key surveys, like CSAT and NPS surveys, can be sent through any channel, but business text messaging is a particularly effective channel for sending feedback requests.
Compare Both Cross-Channel KPIs
Once you have substantial data collected for both your business text messaging and voice communication channels, you can successfully compare the two.
When comparing the two channels, you should keep the context in mind. For example, if you only offer business text messaging for customers who want to schedule appointments, those resolution times will be far shorter that the resolution time for a complaint hotline.
Otherwise, since you chose comparable KPIs, it should be relatively easy to determine which channel has performed the best. And with that knowledge, your team can hone your overall communications strategy, pushing resources to the channel that is bringing your business closer to its goals.
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