Is conversational two-way texting better than mass texting?
Marketers have been talking about customer experience for decades. As a result some of these terms may sound familiar: customer lifecycle marketing, customer journey, customer interactions, customer relationship marketing, customer experience and if you go way back you’ll find direct marketing, database marketing and direct response marketing.
Each of the above terms is intended to convey much of the same idea – companies want to have a relationship with you, the customer. They have account managers, relationship managers, customer service centers, etc, etc.
And yet, for all the talking that surrounds the idea of customer relationships, the dominant form of text marketing embraced by companies today is one-way, transactional and pretty impersonal. Companies will send a triggered text for a purchase, identity confirmation and of course flight status updates. You know them well from Avis, Amazon, E-Trade, Bank of America, American Airlines, your local DMV and a host of others. You might even have received one from Crumbl, America’s favorite gourmet cookie.
And then of course you have the one way mass texting that companies now embrace as the “new marketing”. Companies like INDOCHINO, Avis and others playing with mass texting but still ignoring personalization. And by personalization I mean a whole lot more than inserting your first name into a batch and blast text message. Impersonal every one of them.
By way of reference, here is a short list of commentaries from those who decry the very impersonal nature of text messaging and how harmful it is to “relationships” and yet companies want us to believe they want to have a “relationship” while embracing the very tactical and impersonal side of text messaging platforms:
This morning while cycling I wondered to myself, is it possible to have too much feedback from your customers? Is it possible to have too many conversations? Can you spend too much time listening to what customers say about your products and/or services? Companies have made it a best practice to regulate, automate and eliminate volumes of mail, phone calls, email and chat sessions all in the name of efficiency, even while they talk about embracing the customer and providing an exceptional customer experience.
I have to say, something doesn’t smell right. It just doesn’t fit.
Years ago, early in my career, the company I worked for sent an email survey to every customer, triggered after every purchase. The answers were compiled and survey results were impressive. 97% of the customers said they were Satisfied or Extremely Satisfied with their purchase. They each had a good experience with the company. 97%! And yet, less than 10% of those same customers came back to make a second purchase. And mind you, the company did not turn a profit on these customers. One purchase was not enough.
So what did we do? We got rid of the customers. They accounted for over 90% of the companies’ customers – over 200,000 buying customers. No matter, we got rid of them. Why? They were the wrong customers for the business. High expense, low revenue and no profit.
Back to the original question: is two-way texting better than batch and blast mass texting? It depends. As much as I want to say that two-way conversational texting is better, there is a place for one-way, triggered, impersonal text messaging. Every text message sent does not need to elicit a response or start a conversation.
However, if you’re dealing with high value, long-term relationships, you might want to consider how you open a channel of communication for your customers when they have something to say. I would argue that two-way conversational texting is a great option. You can send thousands of text messages each day and most customers will not response. However, those that do, they want to talk to a live person. Not a chat bot, not a generative AI engine, but a live, blood pumping, oxygen breathing person.
Clearly there is a place for automation and efficiency, and so far it appears impersonal texting is the early winner. However, marketers need to add that upper layer of text messaging where technology helps people improve relationships instead of only taking the short path to one way texting. If the customer journey is real then companies must embrace two-way conversational texting. Otherwise they are simply paying lip service to a grand idea and customers will give them a deaf ear.