Do you use SMS to interact with customers? If yes, be sure to consider these industry-wide best practices! These recommendations are learnings from a number of interactions Ushur has had while working with our customers, as well as industry best practices.
There are various country and state-specific laws that govern enterprises’ interaction with consumers. In the United States, the FCC has standards and laws under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that enterprises and telemarketers must comply with. Additionally, each state may have their own rules in addition to the TCPA, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Please be sure to research how compliance impacts your business, as the below recommendations focus on the aesthetics of SMS communications.
1. Identify Yourself
First and foremost, the customer must be able to recognize the sender. Otherwise customers will hesitate to interact. Personalize your message by addressing the customer by their first name. This fosters trust knowing the message originated from a known source, and is personalized.
[Happy Insurance] Hello Bob, we’d like to remind you of your upcoming appointment with agent Joe on Feb 5th at 3:00 PM
OR:
Hello from Your Insurance! Alice, we’d like to remind you of your upcoming appointment with agent Joe on Feb 5th at 3:00 PM
2. Greet and Keep it Friendly
Take a friendly approach. If the target demographic is known, use a greeting to establish an engaging and friendly tone.
[Happy Insurance] Dear Mrs. Smith…
3. Clear and Unambiguous Message
SMS messages should convey the message in simple and easy to understand language. If abbreviations are used, ensure they are popular and well known. Avoid custom company phraseology that might confuse the customer.
Overall, the content of the SMS must be informative and clearly define the benefit/value to the customer.
4. Call to Action
If you’re expecting a customer response, the message must contain a direct, clearly defined action that the customer should take.
For example, compare these messages:
Hi, we need your driver’s license for your application
Hi Jane, please upload your driver’s license to complete your application using the following link.
The second message clearly states why the person is being contacted, what they need to do, and the resource for them to complete that action.
5. Frequency of Messages
Sending too many messages or sending them too frequently might result in customer fatigue and lead to reduced responses.
SMS marketing experts recommend sending four to five messages a month. That frequency can increase up to ten if there is a really active engagement opportunity. When users sign up to receive text messages, let them know how many messages they might receive in a month.
For example:
[Happy Insurance] Dear Alice, thank you for opting in to receive SMS notifications. You may receive up to 5 messages a month.
Here’s a couple other items to keep in mind:
- This recommendation only applies to marketing-type campaigns. Transactional messages, such as status of claims/orders, appointments, etc., do not fall under this category.
- Information that has already been conveyed in an SMS should not be repeated unless it’s a reminder message.
- Do not send the same messages in quick succession. For example, if there are multiple updates to a customer’s account status within a short span of time, the system might send the same notification multiple times.
- Mobile service providers will not guarantee the order of messages when sent to the same recipient. Additionally their anti-spam and anti-DoS attack safeguards may cause similar messages to be dropped.
- If possible, utilize a delay between messages. (This is available in Ushur by using the ‘Delay’ module.) This provides a better experience, as opposed to receiving multiple messages at once before the customer has had a chance to read the first one.
6. Special Characters and Special Phrases in SMS
Keep an eye on special characters in the SMS. Special characters that need 2 bytes instead of one will cause the message to bloat and may result in fragmentation (message being sent in two incomplete parts) of the SMS. Ensure the text encoding is GSM-7 for full compatibility with mobile operators. Get more information on encoding aspects here: GSM 03.38 Encoding [Wikipedia.org]
Typically 140 characters is the sweet spot for message length. This also allows for URLs or links to be accommodated. If you use Ushur, our short URL API can shorten the URLs so that they may fit within one single SMS message. For longer messages, Ushur’s Invisible App module can be used.
7. Include Disclaimer and Option to Opt Out
Even though most mobile carriers have made unlimited messaging the norm, there are still a few outliers that charge per SMS. Always forewarn users of any potential charges they may incur when interacting via SMS. Industry practice is to to include text such as “Standard SMS rates apply”.
TCPA Regulations require that the customer have the ability to opt out of receiving any further SMS messages. The message should include instructions on how to opt out as well as opt back in. Text such as “To opt out text the word STOP to 25930. Text START to opt back in”.
For those who use Ushur, keep these tools in mind:
- The opt-in/opt-out messages can be customized or personalized in Ushur workflow builder.
- Ushur has robust toolsets and foolproof processes to handle users’ opt-in/opt-out preferences. For opted out users, the Ushur platform ensures that no messages are sent out under any circumstance.
The TCPA laws also stipulate certain times of the day when messages should not be sent to customers. Ushur supports this feature through Do Not Disturb (DND) settings. These settings and other TCPA related features are covered in the TCPA document.
8. Handle Unexpected Customer Responses
Customers sometimes reply with conversational text as though they are communicating to a human at the other end of the line. For example, when customers are sent an option to approve (Press 1) or reject (Press 2), they may end up responding with, “I need more details” or “I never signed up for this”.
Ensure you have a way to capture these unstructured or unexpected texts. If you use Ushur, analyze them by using our AI based Language Intelligence Service Architecture (LISA) and take intelligent actions. Depending on whether the customer is projecting a happy or a frustrated experience, they can be routed to a customer service agent if needed.
9. SMS-Based Survey Campaigns
Be mindful of the number of survey questions, as typing on a mobile phone adds friction and can be tedious. Keep the number of questions as well as open text type answers to a minimum.
The customer experience can be vastly improved by using the Invisible App feature because it provides a richer and easier-to-use interface. Customers can click to select instead of typing, answer multiple choice questions, or select a survey rating with a single click.
10. Utilize Reminder Feature
With SMS interaction becoming more frequent, customers often forget or miss responding to a notification. Re-engage the customer with gentle reminders that can be set in the Ushur workflow builder without resending the entire workflow all over again. If the customer has abandoned a workflow mid-stream, they can be drawn back in with a reminder and pick up where they left off. This helps to maximize completion rates for SMS campaigns.
Do you have tips for SMS best practices? Share them in the comments!
Or, check out some of Ushur’s other resources on SMS best practices.