How to Implement Business Messaging Tools with Your Team

Recognizing new and innovative ways to improve customer engagement and provide the best service can be a challenge. If you’ve looked into improving customer communication, you’ve most likely stumbled across business messaging apps or instant messaging apps.

Here you’ll find some great ways to get your team on board with the right collaboration tools to improve customer communication and your online reputation management.

Explain why the tools will help them.

From starting conversations with new leads via text to sending review invites, some team members need to understand the value of texting tools.

It's important to show team members how business messaging tools will benefit their day-to-day and save them time and energy.

A great way is to take examples of tasks that may be frustrating, such as playing phone tag with customers when making audio calls, and explain why these tools will help. Text messages have a 98% open rate, as opposed to emails, which only have a 23% open rate.

With business text messaging, customers won’t have to dig through their inbox to find your email, only to have your response get lost in their pile of emails again.

Instead, your message will be front and center on their phone and will only take a few seconds to respond to in real time. Ultimately, when you text your customers, your team will get responses, bookings and confirmations much faster.

For business owners, to understand the importance of boosting Google Reviews, remember that every positive review is crucial for a business to be the #1 choice in their area. More customers will choose your business if it's the first option that shows up on Google Maps, allowing you to outrank your competitors.

Text messaging for businesses is not only convenient for customers, but when combined with Web Chat or live chat tools, it decreases the chance of losing potential leads to your competitors.

The web visitor will leave their number for you to text back. When someone provides their cell number, they’re likely to be an interested shopper that is seriously considering becoming a customer.

Incentivize your team’s progress and use of the new software.

Creating goals or milestones for your team to use business messaging and sms tools will help motivate them to adapt to the change. Give team members a measurable way to track progress and get them motivated to hit specific numbers. For example, team members can get more reviews for your business.

Blue Mountain Chrysler’s Digital Coordinator, Lisa H., uses Google reviews to congratulate team members who went above and beyond for their customers. Every week at their team meeting, she shares specific reviews customers have left online. Many of them mention the names of employees that have helped them. “It’s a great morale booster,” says Lisa. “Our team loves getting feedback and it pushes them to offer even better service.”

Learning new tools is an ongoing process - keep the conversation going!

Before implementing the new tools, internally communicate to your team about potential new integrations for the workspace. Some people always want to learn more, while others may need more encouragement. Make sure to offer training for everyone or look for a company that can provide on-going support, training, and can collaborate with you and your team.

Remember to keep the conversation on-going and let your team know that any feedback is helpful and that you’re interested to hear how they feel about the interface, certain capabilities like automation and file sharing, or any new software integration ideas.

By keeping open team communication, everyone feels heard -you’re letting your employees know they're a valued member of the team. This not only alleviates potential concerns about learning how to use a new messaging platform, but promotes the importance of feedback and both internal and external communication.

Finding a new tool to streamline customer communication is exciting, and you might come across obstacles when trying to implement new products.

Remember to bring on new systems that can improve the day-to-day of your team and better the experience for your customers at the same time!

Ready to Grow Your Business?

At DemandHub, our goal is to help local businesses grow by making it easier to communicate with customers. With modern messaging technology, your business can implement text messaging, Web Chat, and Team Chat all on one platform. We want to help you build relationships, take control of your online reputation, and win more business today.

We offer a free version of DemandHub's software for your business to test run. DemandHub also offers a free mobile app for iOS and android devices, making it easier for you to communicate with your customers on the go.

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