In all likelihood, most business professionals think of automated Simple Message Service programs as a way to get a marketing message out. While they can be used this way, they’re also a perfect choice for anyone who wants to streamline their customer service workflows by sending out answers to client queries even when there isn’t a human on call. They’re most often used for sharing tracking and shipping information, but they can be applied to any number of tasks.
Answering Customer Questions Automatically
Small business owners who want to implement a solution like this will want to come up with between five and ten different types of questions they get asked all of the time. They’ll then want to assign a single word to each of them and invest in technology that can blast out information whenever prompted.
For instance, say there’s a company with clients that regularly ask about the estimated arrival time for products that they order. These users could text the acronym ETA to a predetermined SMS short code and automatically get information about their latest order. Regular customers who’ve placed multiple orders could add a product number to the mix to disambiguate their query.
Brands that already have a dedicated short code can attach their new automated texting service directly to it, making it easier for clients to get information without remembering a long number. Nevertheless, speed dial exists for a reason, so even those with conventional 10-digit numbers can tell their customers to add them to their address book and text whenever it’s convenient.
This kind of technology is so flexible that any such combination should be feasible without refuting any portion of the underlying code. Some enterprising developers have devised innovative ways to deploy automatic text apps that would surprise even their original designers.
Finding New Ways to Use Texting Solutions
Accessibility is the number one area that texting solutions are rapidly expanding into. Customers with any sort of accessibility-related issue should be able to find a way to communicate with the companies they do business with. Some firms have written text automation scripts that work well with screen readers. Others have cut down on the number of emoji and other non-standard Unicode characters they use to avoid confusing specialty software. The exact combination of techniques that works for any organization depends on its client base.
Computer scientists have been working on context-aware cobot technology, which consists of humans and software robots working cooperatively. This paradigm sees texting solutions try to answer client queries as quickly as possible. Clients are then asked to respond to their answers, thus letting the bot know if it correctly supplied the information the user sought.
If there’s any discrepancy, then a human sales assistant is immediately notified to help the client. Preliminary tests show that around four out of every five questions can be easily solved using purely automated technology. This leaves much more time for human technologists to address the remaining problems, leading to higher levels of customer satisfaction.
Keeping Clients in the Loop
Simple Syndication, Atom or some other XML-based stream is usually the best way to keep automatic solutions updated at all times. Customers who text a bot expect to get current and accurate information. By pointing the data inputs of an application programming interface to the outputs of any standard XML database, customer service representatives can be certain that they’re always giving clients what they expect.
This is especially important when customer questions are tied to something time-sensitive, like shipping or inventory data. Providing users with regular updates can help dramatically improve both sanctification rates and the amount of trust that clients place in a particular brand they do business with.
Regardless of the chosen solutions, it’s important to remember that the people themselves are at the other end of the line. Those who keep this in mind when implementing automatic solutions will enjoy the best outcomes.
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