Hearing from your customers is a vital opportunity that every business should embrace. Most professionals predict 2018 to lay a foundation for the era of chatbots and instant messaging with customers. Yes, social media tends to develop into more of a person-to-person communication, and we all can feel that.

Statistics prove that people spend significantly more time on messaging apps than on their social media feeds, messaging apps already win over social networks by their monthly active users’ numbers – and this should be an alarm for businesses. More than 60 billion messages are being sent through Messenger and WhatsApp every day. This is the place where your customers hang out. A huge wave of digital ads and messaging-based customer care is going to attack messaging apps soon. Thus, it’s better to be armed and prepared when it takes over!

So, why spending extra effort and budget on having a solid messaging customer care is an awarding strategy? Here are a few points that should motivate you to improve your text-based customer support.

Customers love being reached out via messaging

Today Millennials are the biggest consumer group in the world, being a major target for big brands and companies. 41% of them says they would prefer messaging over any other channel for connecting with a business. Besides, most of the consumers want a two-way interaction with brands, which means they want not only to receive messages from businesses but also to be able to answer those messages instantly. And, no doubt, that people are more likely to opt-in from a notification on their messaging app rather than on any other place on their device.

Messaging-based customer care is cheaper

The difference in cost of solving a customer’s issue via phone and via texting is around $10: $1 compared to $6-$15 per interaction. Quite big, isn’t it? Moreover, it’s 63% cheaper than phone support. Seems like it’s not only the favorite way of customers to be treated but also the most cost-effective one. Apparently, this is a true lucky ticket for businesses! The number of call centers of large brands is decreasing year over year. Indeed, big call centers, voice and video call agents – all these are a story about the past. Who knows, maybe soon we will be telling that story to millions of consumers around the world who have never interacted with a brand via phone.

Messaging-based customer care is quick

In our fast-paced world of social media and instant messaging time is the most precious value. A couple of decades ago businesses would strive for having an opportunity to receive a quick feedback from their customers. What do we have today? It’s everywhere! People can get in touch with a brand, ask or share a concern at any given moment – neither the location nor the time matters. In fact, 32% of customers expect the brand to answer at least in 30 minutes, while 11% expects the answer from a brand to be immediate.

Messaging-based customer care increases customer advocacy

Okay, this is probably what it is all about. Customers love when you provide a solution to them via their favorite channel and in the shortest time-frames. Once you do it right, be sure – they will be on your side. And here the numbers speak for themselves. People are likely to recommend a brand more by 30% when they get a response to their message. Moreover, customers spend 3%-20% more after getting a solution to their complaint via texting.

Don’t lose a single minute anymore! It’s high time to start automatizing and optimizing your messaging-based customer care now.