Automation giving businesses the upper hand

Every business has competition, and each business wants to come out on top and be victorious. To do that, you need all the pieces of the puzzle to be working effectively and efficiently, from marketing and sales, to operations and support.

In this fast paced modern world, everyone and every customer wants things instantly, no longer do customers expect to sit on hold for hours waiting to speak to an advisor, no longer do customers expect to wait for their documents in the post, or to go into a bank to do their banking – they want to be able to get answers instantly from the comfort of their home or office using their mobile devices.

When it comes to things like customer support, customer service or communicating with your customers, you really cannot spare any expense, as how you treat your customers and how happy they are, will reflect your businesses performance and success.

The majority (66%) of adults feel that valuing their time is the most important thing a company can do to provide them with good online customer experience.
Source: Forrester

Trying to take on this challenge without compromising your business’s efficiency, at first glance it may sound like a need to grow your workforce to deal with an increasing customer demand and expectation. Realistically, this is a costly solution and many businesses haven’t got the luxury and money to be able to build a huge workforce that can react to customers’ needs instantly.

That’s where an SMS automation and transactional SMS can help.

Reducing the number of simple but time-consuming tasks for a workforce but automating notifications with SMS, will not only free-up your staff to concentrate on more pressing activities, but may even get you bigger response rates. People want to communicate via their mobile phone and they want limited disruption to their everyday lives, which is why communication methods like SMS and online website chat, are now becoming even more popular amongst customers – after all 98% of all text messages are read.

As for automation improving business services, one in five medium-sized businesses believe that automation will help them compete with their larger competitors. A research study from Centtrip found that 74% of UK businesses are currently using automation in some areas of their business, with 33% stating that new technologies will save them significant sums of money.

Missed appointments costs businesses billions every year, so automated SMS appointment reminders are a great way to remind customers of their upcoming appointments, meetings or consultations.

Similarly, missed payments and small debts can be difficult to recuperate with traditional methods often proving unsuccessful. Automated text messages that contain a link to your payment portal, enabling customers to quickly access and manage payments is benefiting both customers and businesses. 

SMS automation is not just about saving your business money, but also delivering an instant service and a great customer experience that can help businesses retain customers, whilst also creating a fantastic reputation of excellent customer service.