SMS & CX: Broadening the Conversation
In 2020, the playing field for e-commerce was forever changed. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, e-commerce was gaining momentum and rapid popularity versus in-store shopping for a plethora of reasons. Namely, convenience and saving time (and for that matter, gas). Once the pandemic hit, e-commerce went from being a luxury to a necessity. In-store shopping was restricted and seen as a danger. Online shopping became paramount not only for everyday items, but also for impulse shopping. With this rise of e-commerce, many small startups and established online shopping sites had a sharp influx of customers. With those new shoppers, these companies saw a sharp demand for CX specific issues. Issues range from everything from all sorts of questions — from return policies to help navigating their websites.
In e-commerce, recognizing what is important to individual customers and how to go about satisfying these demands in a timely manner always results in higher revenue and an overall better experience. With this in mind, at Horatio, we rely on tech-forward solutions combined with old-fashioned human interactions, to result in customer satisfaction. One of these tech-forward solutions is personalized SMS messages to consumers. SMS or text messaging may seem impersonal, but in fact these messages help advance customer interactions and allow us to have “ 1:1 conversations at scale.”
This often means leveraging tools like Attentive to help with up-selling and retention. A common scenario during the online shopping experience is when a customer browses, adds products and then abandons their cart — maybe they were interrupted by a child or were waffling on whether to buy the product. This is where Horatio steps in — we set up an automation that will send clients a personalized text to remind them of their cart after a given period of time and offer additional incentives. It’s a non-pushy and personalized way to remind them of the product. In fact, this is our highest performing upselling tool from a revenue and ROI perspective. Attentive also integrates with another tech enabled helpdesk that most of our clients use called Gorgias. This platform helps us so that we can seamlessly respond back to all customer inquiries after the initial text triggers a response. In essence, these technologies are all a way to further the conversation.
A recent mobile marketing study (from our partner Attentive) showed that over 70% of consumers want to ask brands questions via text — and they expect to get answers in real-time. SMS is vital in this process and will continue to be as the world becomes more digital and remote. We are excited to be on the forefront of this messaging revolution and see where these capabilities take Horatio’s clients next.
