Mastering Messaging: 6 Keys to Exceptional Customer Communication

The writing on the wall – messaging is the communication medium of choice for today’s consumers. The average person spends a whopping 2 hours and 25 minutes per day tapping away on social media apps via their smartphone. This reality hasn’t been lost on savvy businesses, who are pivoting toward integrating customer messaging platforms as a central pillar of their support strategies.

Offering live chat has proven to be a winner for boosting customer satisfaction scores while simultaneously serving as a cost-effective solution for companies. By meeting customers on the digital channels they’re already living on – website live chat, messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, social media, and more – organisations provide real-time assistance at the precise moment customers need it most.

Messaging isn’t just a passing trend; it’s the future of how customers want to communicate with brands. Deloitte research found that live chat generates the highest satisfaction levels of any digital customer service channel. As consumer preferences continue evolving, those who fail to adapt risk being left behind.

To unlock messaging’s full potential and elevate your customer’s experience, adhering to industry best practices is critical. Here are six essential tips to master messaging in 2024:

1. Choose the Right Platform(s) The messaging landscape is fragmented, with different apps and channels favoured across audiences. Do your research to discover where your particular customer base spends their time online. While behemoths like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are universal, some industries may find their customers congregating more on messaging channels like Apple Business Chat, Twitter DMs, or SMS/Text. Prioritise implementing live chat and support on the handful of platforms preferred by your target segments.
2. Define Clear Goals and Metrics Don’t just implement messaging support haphazardly. Determine the key objectives you’re trying to achieve – whether it’s reducing support costs, increasing agent productivity and efficiency, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty, or others. Then establish specific quantitative metrics to consistently track progress towards those goals. This focus will optimise both the customer experience and employee performance. Common metrics include contact deflection rates, average handle times, first-contact resolution rates, customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, and agent utilisation.
3. Leverage Automation Intelligently While human interaction is invaluable for many customer service scenarios, customers are remarkably receptive to chatbot assistance for simple, routine inquiries. Gartner estimates that by 2025, proactive and conversational AI will handle a staggering 75% of routine queries and tasks. Deploying AI intelligently can boost efficiency by knocking out easy issues, allowing live agents to focus on more complex cases requiring a personal touch. The key is striking the right balance of automation and human engagement.
4. Contextualise with Customer Data
   Don’t treat each customer conversation like it’s happening in a vacuum. Capturing relevant details like customer names, contact information, product info, and distilling the crux of the issue provides agents with vital context. This enables them to deliver faster, more personalised service resolutions. Maintaining unified conversation histories across all channels and touchpoints is also crucial for ensuring a seamless, informed experience.
5. Measure and Refine Continuously You defined your goals and metrics – now it’s time to live by them. Consistently measuring and analysing KPIs like contact volumes, handle times, resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores, and others is critical. These performance insights will illuminate areas for improvement in both customer service delivery and agent performance. Concentrate investments and coaching efforts where they’ll drive the greatest bottom-line impact.
6. Adapt Your Communication Style Energetic, effective communication via live chat differs from other support channels like voice and email. The back-and-forth is more rapid-fire, requiring mastery of a new skill set. Ensure your agents are coached on providing clear, concise, conversational responses tailored to real-time digital messaging. Long-winded, formal explanations will only frustrate customers seeking swift resolutions via chat. Guide agents on leveraging tools like shortcut responses and multi-tasking across conversations.

Cirrus provides the premier solution to implement messaging and live chat support seamlessly across your organisation. With AI-powered automation, unified cross-channel conversation management, and comprehensive analytics, Cirrus enables businesses to deliver best-in-class messaging experiences that delight customers while driving operational efficiency.