Messaging tops all customer service conversation channels when it comes to both customer and employee satisfaction, as well as financial stability. This is according to findings in a recent Aberdeen report.
The report notes: "Modern consumers have an overwhelming number of options when it comes to quick, in the moment, mobile communication."
What started as the basic text message has evolved into a sophisticated communication text network comprised of social media channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, massively adopted third-party messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Messenger and WeChat, and also in-app messaging.
The choice is enormously wide and consumers are likely use the messaging channel that is most familiar to them and also most convenient to use at the time. Best of all, these channels can be accessed 24/7.
Great for the customer - but what is the actual impact on business?
In her blog "Is messaging the key to service success?" Brittany Kelly of our software partner, Aspect, highlights areas of the aforementioned report, and says: "Aberdeen says that messaging provides a level of historical visibility that makes it easier for employees to personalise customer conversations."
This results in improved customer satisfaction, enhanced employee engagement, and real financial results.
She goes on to say: "While some might be sceptical that one single channel could have this type of influence, Aberdeen has the research to support it. Companies that use messaging achieve a 2.9 times greater annual increase in net promoter scores (NPS) compared to those who don't (12.3% versus 4.3%). The research also found that companies using messaging gain a 24.5% year-over-year increase in return on marketing investments (versus the 5.7% who don't use messaging).
In Aberdeen's research, it is very clear those companies that deployed messaging outperformed the others surveyed - and they did these consistently.
Emphasising the factors driving the increase, Kelly draws attention to the fact that employees like to use tools that they are familiar with, and employee engagement increases when employees can communicate using technology they know and are comfortable with.
"While some customer service technologies can be complex, messaging is rather intuitive and you can directly correlate engaged employees with a higher level of productivity and better performance overall. In fact, Aspect's Agent Experience Survey found that too. This is reflected in companies' NPSes, where engaged employees equal a higher NPS score," she continues. "The benefits of messaging don't stop there, according to Aberdeen, as companies using messaging also have significant financial advantages. Aberdeen's research found that companies using messaging achieve 25% greater annual growth in revenue, compared to peers that are not using messaging. They also see 8.6% increase in average profit margin per customer. Overall, messaging can increase the top-line revenue while reducing the cost to serve customers."
While phone and e-mail still have a place in the mix, it is messaging which helps achieve overall business goals.
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