Conversational marketing is still a trend in marketing. Conversations and their importance in creating customer relationships are nothing new, but with the development of technology and the continuous change in customer behavior, the multi-channel nature of conversations creates new opportunities and challenges for the market.
What is Conversational Marketing?
Hubspot defines conversational marketing as the ability to have personalized conversations with customers across multiple channels – however, wherever, and whenever they want.
Conversational marketing is often confused with chatbots or live chats on websites, but it is much more than that. It is a multi-channel presence that takes each customer into account as an individual: conversations are taken to where each customer is already. The conversation takes place on the customer’s terms and you must be ready to continue it later on through any channel without losing the common thread. You must remember the customer and the conversations you had with them.
The customer appreciates personalization and ease of use
For customers, this all sounds like a lottery win. People are spending more and more of their time on social media and connecting with each other via instant messaging channels. This ease of communication is also being transferred to interactions with companies.
Instead of scrolling through a company’s website or waiting in line at customer service, people now want to get things done faster. Who wouldn’t want to get things done in their own way, as easily as possible and in a familiar channel – be it text message, WhatsApp or social media.
Example:
Consider a situation where a person has just purchased a lamp from an online store. After placing the order, they receive an automatic order confirmation via text message. The customer immediately realizes upon receiving the message that they forgot to add the lamps for the lamp to their order. In such a situation, the customer often has the following options:
1. Find a customer service email address or phone number to edit the order
2. Place a completely new individual order with your own shipping costs
3. Buy the bulbs somewhere else on your next shopping trip
You would imagine that most consumers would choose the latter option because of its ease. When customers have the opportunity to start a free-form conversation by replying directly to the order confirmation, they are given a straightforward way to change their order and ask questions. This allows them to place an additional order in the channel they were already directed to by the order confirmation.
Companies must offer multi-channel connections
Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and other instant messaging channels are emerging as important venues for conversations between companies and customers. This requires companies to be able to be present on different channels and manage countless conversations simultaneously. There are only a handful of instant messaging channels, and in addition, the customer base can be very diverse, including representatives from many different age groups, which brings its own additional challenge to multi-channel conversations.
Cross-channel conversations are possible, but require a significant amount of resources and a constantly updated customer database from companies. Alternatively, conversations can also be conveniently handled with one and the same system. With SmartDialog, you can both respond to your customers’ messages and start conversations with target groups in different instant messaging channels.