Why We Need Customer Communication Tools?
Communication is one of the most important elements in human-beings. When there is communication and a matter is communicated well, things will eventually take its steps smoothly, most of the time.
This applies very largely between businesses and their clients. Communication is essential when you start a business, or want to build a successful business.
Reaching out to your clients may seem to be a challenging hurdle, but in this day and age, there are plenty of Customer Communication Tools that a business can use to reach and connect with their customers.
What is the Best Communication Tool?
Here are 6 Useful Customer Communication Tools you can use to reach out to your customers:
1. Helpdesk Software – Freshdesk
Are you still using emails to handle customer enquiries or support requests? Using email for customer support can come as tedious and later on, confusing. It is manageable using emails to handle customers’ enquiries initially.
As your business grows, you will find that your mailbox will start to be filled up, with unread messages piled up. Colour codes and separate folders will then have to come into place, but this too will start to clock up, creating confusions for your staff.
As the volume of your enquiries increases, you will find that emails are being missed out, leaving customers to not get a response. You will start running into issues, and find that it gets harder to keep track of your inquiries and their statuses.
This can immediately jeopardise your company’s image as not being responsive, causing you to lose potential sales. These factors contribute to a long and frustrating experience for your customers.
To solve a chaotic email inbox, one of the Customer Communication Tools, helpdesk software will help in making email at scale manageable.
You will be able to streamline all your customers’ conversations in one place, automate repetitive work to save time, and collaborate with other teams to resolve customers’ issues faster.
With a helpdesk software, you can also keep track of your emails with features like setting priorities and assigning tickets to the right agents.
2. Email Marketing
It isn’t a problem when you’re just starting out and have yet to accumulate a large customer base. Sending 5 to 10 emails, or even 10 to 20 emails at once ain’t such a big issue.
It is when your list of customers grows and you need or want to reach out to them that an Email Marketing Software comes as vital. It is a very useful software to have, especially when you want to keep in touch with your customers, or update them with the latest news or promotions.
Newsletters are great for maintaining regular contact with your customers, but having to manage thousands of contacts on your email account can be tedious, overwhelming, and very often confusing.
An Email Marketing Software has the capacity to manage a huge contact list and have them put into segments. You will be able to send your emails and newsletters in bulk, but have each and everyone of them personalised.
Delays and miss-outs are no longer a worry. A feature to schedule all your emails and newsletter is now possible.
The process of reaching out to your customers by email is now much easier and more efficient.
With an Email Marketing Software, you will also be able to analyse each campaign by its KPIs, such as open and click rate, as well as the links clicked into from each newsletter.
3. Messaging – Bulk SMS
A big advantage to customer messaging is that it comes across as more friendly, and it aligns perfectly with our always-in-contact lifestyle. Opening and responding to a message on our mobile phones happen way more often than checking and replying to emails.
A good and quick way to reach out to your customers is to send them a message. The Bulk SMS Marketing solution lets you reach out to your potential clients instantly and conveniently.
It has a record of getting up to 98% open rate, with increased conversion rates of 112.6%. On top of these, be rest assured that your messages will reach your customers promptly, according to the date and time you wish to.
Scheduling and personalisation of your messages is also possible.
4. Instant Chat – Live Chat
When operating an online store, one of the elements usually lacking would be to have a personal touch or immediate communications between the store and your customers.
Operating online means we do not meet our customers physically, but it is of utmost importance for us to be available for questions and be responsive when our customers need more information on our products before purchasing.
Being responsive to our customers is vital for online business survival. When we are always “around” to help and attend to our customers, they will tend to have a sense of trust and satisfaction, which more than often will lead to customers completing the purchase after they’ve gotten the answers to their questions.
When customers are left unattended for a long time, and they do not get the answer to their questions, it is very likely that they will move on and opt for alternatives.
This will then cause you to lose out on sales which you could’ve closed easily just by being responsive.
The instantaneous and casual nature of live chat makes it more approachable and convenient for customers and businesses alike to communicate with each other. When it is easily accessible on your website, it makes it a perfect tool for raising conversion and generating leads.
With an instant response, you can guide the user throughout their website experience all from one place.
5. Instant Messaging – Chatbot
Responding instantly to your customers is important but it is not always possible for us human beings to operate physically 24/7. To be able to operate physically responding to customers’ enquiries 24/7 will come as costly as more manpower will be involved.
The AI Chatbot is a customer communication tools / software program that is able to mimic conversations with your customers using artificial intelligence (AI). For example, Chatbots can automate the best possible Facebook messaging experience for your customers.
The Chatbot can help automate support to your visitors so that they can get help and a response at any time of the day. When the Chatbot is done right, it can eventually take over repetitive tasks of your service and your agents can then be concentrating more on issues that need greater attention.
6. Sales CRM – (Customer Relationship Management)
Freshsales is a sales customer relationship management software that helps with keeping track of communications, ensuring follow-ups are done and an easy way to manage your leads and deals. A sales CRM promotes a simpler way to close a deal.
The software will help you manage leads minus the clutter you have, dive deep into deals and eventually have them closed faster. It will also analyse and forecast your sales activities, and generate in-depth reports for you to understand its status better.
While the features of helpdesk software typically focuses on support, a CRM software will mainly focus on sales. You will be able to track opportunities in the pipeline and guide them to closure.
With the software, you can also set reminders for follow-up emails and view a timeline of your communication threads with each of your contacts in one place.
We hope this article has helped you find the best customer communication tools to build long-lasting relationships.
