Chapter 3: How to Adopt a Real-Time Communication Strategy

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Before digging into how you can add text messaging to your communication strategy, it’s important to take a look at how your customers interact with your business. No matter your company’s size, industry, or target audience, the conversation with your customer will have a journey that follows this path: Connect > Engage > Delight.

1. Connect with your contacts for the first time.
2. Engage your contact and determine how you can help.
3. Delight your new customer and keep them coming back.

At each stage of this journey, your contacts need something different from their communication with you. Take these main factors into consideration when planning outreach throughout the journey:

• Type of information
• Tone of communication
• Frequency of contact
• The dangers of spamming
• The importance of timing

Type of information

The content of your messages is going to vary depending on where your contacts are in their journey. For example, someone in the Connect stage will be drawn to information that provides value to help them overcome a challenge they are facing. A customer you recently closed will be more attracted to news about feature updates or a new discount offer.

Tone of communication

The way you convey your information will also change throughout a prospect’s journey. As you learn more about your contacts’ personalities and preferences, you will likely grow more personal and specific in your messages.

Frequency of contact

While you’re establishing a relationship with a prospect, you want to contact them often enough to keep your service top of mind without being a nuisance or hurting trust. Later, you’ll have less business need to reach out, but it’s good to nurture your established customers so they don’t feel forgotten.

The dangers of spamming

With the power and speed of real-time communication comes added responsibility. No one likes to receive a spam phone call or email — and the same is true with text. When you’re sending a message right to someone’s pocket, a misstep could damage your personal or brand reputation at any point throughout the customer’s journey.

Real-Time Communication Code of Conduct:

• Don’t be a spammer
• Avoid repetitive messaging
• Stay aware of your contacts’ needs
• Use personalization
• Avoid long messages
• Encourage a response
• Be human

The importance of timing

By sending the right text at the right time, your communication becomes relevant, not interruptive. The key to getting a response is combining a timely text message with a modern multichannel communication approach throughout the customer’s journey. Because text has such high open and response rates, it can boost engagement, increase the power of other channels of communication, and help you close deals faster.

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