The Value of SMS Communications in Complaint Resolution

As you well know, when it comes to customer complaints, communication is key. Communicating with customers via their preferred channel is critical if you’re to deliver customer experience (CX) excellence, as well as optimum outcomes, throughout the customer complaint journey. As we see a rise in complaints across all sectors, it’s never been more important for you to keep customers both satisfied and engaged.

In an increasingly digital landscape, more and more businesses are choosing digital methods, such as online forms and email, as the primary tools for customer communication. Confirmations, acknowledgements and updates can all be delivered via email, leading to more reassured customers, confident that they’re being taken seriously and listened to. But, is email the most effective tool in every instance?

Fast, Effective Communications

Sometimes overlooked as an effective communications tool, SMS messages actually have a crucial role to play in keeping your customers engaged and updated. With SMS open rates as high as 98%, compared to just 20% of all emails, you’re almost guaranteed that your customer will read the information you send out. Additionally, most people immediately read a text message when they get the initial notification, unlike email accounts, which are usually checked less frequently.

In terms of facilitating further communication, on average it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text and 90 minutes to respond to an email. Considering that shortening the time taken to resolve complaints is a key priority, anything that will serve to expedite your complaints process is surely a major bonus?

Reassuring Customers

SMS messages can help to speed-up your complaint function by paving the way for further communication via other methods. For example, by sending a text message ahead of a call, you can let customers know that your call is legitimate. In an age where people are loath to answer unknown numbers, and when phone scams are sadly all-too-common, providing reassurance to customers that a phone call is genuine goes a long way to speeding up your customer communications and ultimately shortens resolution timescales.

SMS messages can be personalized too, including the recipient’s name and relevant details, again helping you to build trust with the customer. And, with the right processes in place, your SMS messages can be automated too. This not only saves you the time and resource required to manually send such messages, but mitigates against human error, underpinning a consistency of tone and message that’s so important when it comes to protecting your reputation and brand. That’s not to say that automation is right every time, with the option to send manual messages just as valuable, allowing you to send specific messages to suit the individual circumstances of customers as and when required.

For updates and acknowledgements in particular, SMS messages have a key role to play. With the right systems in place, they can be automatically triggered at specific milestones in a complaint journey, preventing customers from having to chase for updates. When you consider that customers are 19% more likely to remain as customers if they don’t have to chase for an update, then this ability to automatically update customers at certain points in the complaint resolution process is definitely not to be sniffed at.

Speedier Resolutions and More Satisfied Customers

As more of us seem to be moving away from SMS messaging in our everyday lives, choosing alternative messaging services instead, there’s perhaps a niche to be carved out for businesses when it comes to outbound SMS communications? By making the most of this useful tool, you can improve and enhance your customer communications and your complaint management processes, speeding-up time to resolution and boosting customer satisfaction in the process.

To optimize your use of SMS messaging, the right technology is key, with a robust complaint management system putting in place the infrastructure you need to reap the benefits. The right solution can lay the foundations of a truly integrated network of customer communications tools, including advanced outbound SMS functionality, giving you the flexibility to communicate with customers in a variety of ways, underpinning CX excellence and quality outcomes every time.

For more information on how our complaints management software, Aptean Respond, can boost the effectiveness of your outbound SMS communications, get in touch with our team of complaints management experts today.