Countless industries are using text messaging to fortify
their customer service, marketing, and other aspects
of their brands in the 21st century. Financial companies
are no exception, reaping great gain from the powerful,
economical, and environmentally-friendly advent of text
messaging.
Texting offers a boost to customer service by allowing
financial companies to rapidly text alerts to customers.
It hardly needs to be said that texting is, for many
modern people, the most effective and quick way to get
in touch. Companies can use text messaging to get important
alerts such as notices about changes to accounts as
well as upcoming or past-due payments to customers as
quickly as possible.
The increased, and growing, comfort of our population
with text messaging also makes it an often preferred
medium even for less urgent notices. Customers of financial
service companies can receive general financial news
or news of new opportunities, as well as of company
changes such as interest rate or policy changes, as
well as general financial advice, all over text message.
This is not only a boon to customers, but to companies;
automated text messaging is not only a rapid and easy
way to contact customers, but it is very cost-effective.
Additionally, text messaging is much more environmentally
friendly than wasteful traditional paper mail, for which
financial companies are notorious.
Customers also appreciate the ease text messaging affords
them when they need to reach out to their financial
service provider. Two-way text message communication
allows customers to text in questions or request information
from financial companies. This is an easier medium for
companies than time-consuming phone calls or more formal
emails, especially where automated texts can be used.
And customers will appreciate the speed and convenience
of being able to engage their financial companies via
SMS.
Incorporating text messaging also affords financial
companies' marketing a boost. Using SMS as a channel
for people who encounter financial companies' advertisements
to reach out to the company holds the potential to draw
new customers and expand the company's market. And it
gets even better: the average SMS user makes more transactions
and spends more than those who do not use SMS. So, the
customers SMS marketing is inclined to attract are customers
that are more likely to garner the most income for financial
companies.
This tactic also creates a strong base for future marketing
endeavors. Those who text companies tend to be more
inclined to keep using text messaging to communicate
with those companies, making them an ideal target audience
for text message marketing. Financial companies can
send offers and promotions via text to phone numbers
gathered from SMS marketing campaigns, which belong
to customers who are most inclined to appreciate contact
via SMS and pursue offers they receive by text.
Clearly, finance and SMS pair well together; the benefits
of incorporating text messaging into the motions of
financial companies are immense for both the companies
and their customers.
About the Author -
Sharon Housley is the VP of Marketing for NotePage,
Inc. a software company for communication software solutions.
http://www.notepage.net
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