Increasing customer loyalty and boosting sales depend heavily on your ability to interact and connect with clients, regardless of the industry you work in or the kind of goods or services you offer. But most small companies struggle to encourage customers to engage—and remain interested.

First of all, your consumers have access to a wide range of communication channels. Employees may not receive a response even if they use the same methods to get in touch.

However, maintaining the current level of client involvement is not the answer. You risk paying a heavy price if you ignore your problems with consumer engagement. Actually, a customer’s share of profitability, revenue, and relationship growth is 23% higher when they are completely engaged.

Here are six ways text messaging may boost your consumer engagement.

Consumers reply to messages

Reaching out to clients through the channels and types of communication they like is the greatest approach to get them involved. And what do you know? Not only do 89% of consumers state that they would rather text firms, but texting is also 3–8 times more popular than traditional forms of contact throughout all age groups.

The fact that most businesses don’t interact with their consumers via SMS is what’s keeping them behind. Just 20% of firms send appointment reminders by text, even though 83% of customers prefer this method.

And if you’re wondering if clients would reply to your text messages, even though they prefer text? Without a doubt, the answer is yes!

What the study reveals is as follows:

Sixty percent of customers desire the ability to reply to SMS texts they receive.

About customer service difficulties, 60% of customers want to actively text firms back.

Text messages have a 134% higher response rate from customers than emails.

The statistics about texting and local companies in particular are much more persuasive. Compared to before the epidemic began, almost 40% of customers are now more interested in messaging with a local business. And 85% of customers predict that local companies will offer more convenient communication options—like texting—than they did before COVID-19. Not only is real-time communication a benefit, but it is now expected.

Texting seems more personal

Compared to many other media, texting feels much more personal to clients, which makes it an extremely engaging medium. The fact that there is frequently someone reading those text messages is a major contributing factor to this.

74% of customers said they would be more inclined to text a local business if they knew a human person would receive and react to their message, despite 41% of consumers saying they would unsubscribe if they received texts that were automated or impersonal.

Chatbots are less interesting than text-based chat boxes

Chat boxes are swiftly taking over as a regular feature for websites across all sizes. They offer a quick and easy approach to get visitors to interact with your website. But not every conversation is made equal. Numerous employ shortcode, bots, or other impersonal and non-conversational methods. Additionally, a lot of them demand that the user remain on the website for the whole discussion. But, clients may turn the chat into a text message thread and continue interacting with you while on the road with a text-based web chat, which provides greater ease.

Text-based chat windows on websites provide users with a preferable option and a lot more convenient way to engage with chatbots, while just 13% of consumers choose to use them over other channels.

Text-to-pay offers a touch-free way to interact with clients

Prior to COVID-19, mobile payment trends were growing; now, as more customers explore for touchless payment options, they have accelerated even further. Moreover, they intend to remain. After the outbreak, almost 80% of customers say they want establishments to keep accepting contactless payments.

Security concerns are increasing interest in digital payment methods like messaging, even among consumers who do not make in-person payments. And that makes sense, given that just 3 out of 10 American consumers are at ease making phone payments to small businesses.

Including your text platform increases interaction across several channels

Customers are looking for and connecting with local companies via many channels such as Google, Facebook, your website, and their phone. This implies that you must converse with them through the same channels as well. In fact, a recent research by Adobe discovered that businesses with the best multi-channel customer interaction strategy see increases in average order value of 10%, closure rates of 25%, and year-over-year growth of 10%.

Customers may text your business from extra channels when you integrate Bulk SMS marketing software with social media and other internet channels. You may also handle all of your communications from all communication channels in one text-based mailbox at the same time. Customers may now freely contact you on whichever channel they want, and your staff will have an easier time managing, tracking, routing, and promptly responding to leads as a result.

To automate recurrent communications, such as reminding people to schedule appointments and sending personalized follow-up messages, integrate your SMS program with Facebook Messenger.

Encourage more evaluations and requests for client surveys

Reviews are becoming a major factor in customers’ decisions about which companies to utilize or what products to purchase. In addition to the fact that 88% of customers use internet evaluations to get an opinion about the caliber of a nearby company, 72% of consumers claim that reading favorable reviews increases their level of trust in the company. Additionally, consumers are inclined to spend 31% more at companies with stellar evaluations.

Reviews are essential for local companies to boost sales. For all companies, over 80% of local searches will lead to an offline purchase, and 88% of customers who look for a local business will get in touch with them right away.