Automated messaging is an incredibly important and impactful tool for communicating – not just for your business, but for your customers, employees, and stakeholders too.
That’s because automation has the power to save you significant time and money (and your sanity!), whilst also delivering an exceptional experience to the people you’re sending messages to.
Automated messaging can turn lengthy, manual, and confusing communication processes into automatic ones. And it can ensure opportunities – such as boosting sales through re-engaging leads, creating stellar customer journeys, and retaining top talent in your workforce – aren’t missed out on.
Read on to discover how automated messaging works, and real ways you can use it to save time, money, and your sanity.
What is automated messaging?
Automated messaging works by turning manual communications into automatic ones. In other words, rather than having to remember to send a certain message on a certain day, or when a particular event occurs (such as someone completing a purchase), you can pre-design communications to be automatically sent out at the right time, to the right people, via the right channels.
Naturally, there are a lot of incredible and handy things you can do with automation that not only works to your advantage but also creates an elevated experience for the people you’re sending your communications to.
We’ve put together some of the top ways that you can use automation for your business. These are only some of the solutions though – really, the options for automated messaging are as endless as your imagination!
Ways you can use automation for your communication
Re-engage leads with automated follow-ups
On average, only 2% of sales are made at first contact. That means there are potentially 98% more would-be customers who are clicking away from your website, walking away from your shopfront, or hanging up from a consultation call never to be seen again. Unless, of course, you’re able to entice them back, through the power of following up.
One of the main barriers to being able to effectively follow up with potential customers is having the time to do so. By automating this process, you create a time-efficient process that doesn’t rely on your sales or marketing team (or whoever looks after your communications) to ‘remember’ to chase up potential leads.
Automate text messages to remind shoppers about abandoned shopping carts, cue emails to be sent out after people interact with your brand (such as enquiring about a service or attending an event), and so much more.
Make important and engaging announcements
When you’ve got a new product or service you want to promote, an exciting offer to spruik, or just a general announcement that deserves attention, getting the message out in the right way is important. Automation makes it possible to set up and schedule communications so they get sent at the optimal time, maximizing engagement.
With the right platform, you can take this automation even further and segment your audiences. This means that you can ensure the right people are getting the right messages. For example, you might want to let customers know about a new product you think they’ll like, based on their previous interactions with your business. Or, you may want to send out customized offers to a group of people, based on certain criteria. With smart segmentation, you can quickly group your contacts and then design your messaging to work specifically for that audience.
Map out and deliver exceptional customer experience journeys
Though it varies across different industries, most businesses have multiple touchpoints with their customers. From attracting and acquiring customers to onboarding them to use your service, and from confirming their purchases to remarketing and re-engaging them to improve retention rates, there are countless opportunities to create exceptional experiences within the buyer lifecycle.
Mapping out the ideal customer journey for how people interact with your business is a great foundation for creating a great experience. It helps you to better understand potential pain points, identify areas where people are dropping off, and ultimately design more seamless, integrated experiences.
From there, you can decide when the best times to communicate are, and create automated messages accordingly. Design workflows that are triggered based on certain events within your buyer journey – such as someone making an initial inquiry or signing up to your service – and make sure that customers are getting the information they need as they need it.
Create appointment reminders
For service-based businesses, having the ability to confirm and remind your audience about upcoming appointments can be incredibly beneficial. Not only can it save you time on manual administration, but it can significantly reduce costly ‘no-shows’ to appointments.
Through two-way automated messaging, you can elevate this experience even further. This could look like sending out an SMS reminder about an upcoming appointment and requiring a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ response. Then, you can set up an appropriate automatic response based on whether they confirm their appointment or not.
If you don’t receive a response at all, you can design an automated follow-up text that’s sent out after a certain amount of time, or even an escalation so that a member of your team is alerted and can reach out manually.
Elevate your employee engagement with automated internal communications
Automated messaging doesn’t just save you time, money, and your sanity when it comes to customer outreach and external engagement. It can be a great tool for engaging employees as well, which is crucial for ensuring you retain your top talent.
