Consider this scenario in the offline world, you walk into a store and the sales people start following you around, immediately. Every aisle you enter there’s a new person trying to sell something that you don’t even need in the first place.They don’t let you shop in peace. You get frustrated trying to locate the product you actually came for. You try to tell them what you need help with but they are not able to hear you over their loud elevator pitch on why need to buy something. You lose your patience and walk out of the store, empty handed. They lost a customer.
How nice would it be to walk into a store with sales people who don’t constantly follow you around trying to get you to buy something you don’t even need just to meet their sales target for the month?
Now let me tell you another scenario, you want to buy something and you go to a shop. A sales person greets you with a warm smile and says “Hello, let me know if you need help with anything”. You immediately feel better knowing there’s someone around to help you out if needed. Or, you don’t know what you want to buy, you are just there looking at items randomly and suddenly you are interested in buying something, but you want to know more about the product before buying it, you spot a salesperson lingering in the vicinity, smiling at you, they see the confused look on your face and come up to you and ask if you require any assistance, you nod your head already feeling a bit relieved and they help you figure out the best option for you. You are very happy with their customer service and you decide to add frequent this store.
How good does it feel to have the right kind of salesperson around? To get help when you need it the most, and to get it immediately?
The above scenarios are applicable to the online world too.
The visitors who come to your website can be classified into 3 types:
- People who want to buy.
- People who are just looking but will buy if something interests them.
- People who are there to kill time.
The sales people in the above scenarios act as facilitators who convert potential leads or make a purchase happen. It is so much easier to persuade and assist people in buying something in the real world – in person, where you can charm them with your beautiful smile or warm personality. But how can you do it in the virtual world, on your website? If you’re not online all the time to help them when needed. When you can’t be present physically next to your potential customer and explain why your product or service is the best option they could opt for?
That’s where campaigns/visitor auto messages come into play. They can be the sales enablers of your website. Of course it’s not the same as building a connection face-to-face, but you can start building a good rapport with your customers right from their first interaction with your product or website with these campaign messages. When you reach out to the right people and engage them at the right moment, you can get customers for a lifetime!
As a customer how many times have you added items to your cart but never checked out? How many times have you wanted help with something but couldn’t get it? I’m sure we all have tried to find a support email or phone number or even a live chat option of any website or service at least a few times but ended up at a dead-end!
In Freshchat, with triggered messages and in-app campaigns you can support your customers at the right moment. You can engage them when it is most important. You can make a purchase happen.
Campaigns can be a very powerful tool to convert more, sell more, support and engage better. It can make your customers happy, if used properly.
Companies that offer proactive customer support have a 92% customer retention rate.
You also have to keep in mind that too many campaigns could be akin to the overwhelming sales folks at the convenience store that you hate!
Why you should use campaign messages
You can use targeted messages to welcome visitors, onboard new customers, determine customer needs, announce feature updates, deliver useful content, help them if they’re stuck with something and ask them for feedback. Lets see how.
1. Engage with the right welcome message
With a right welcome message, you can achieve three things – first you can greet your customer and set a friendly tone for your product or service, second you can provide a touchpoint if they have any questions, third you can point them towards the next step in the customer journey.
When a visitor comes to your website for the first time, they can be confused or lost. By setting up welcome messages you can let your visitors know that you are around if they need any help. You get their attention when a triggered message pops up on your website. There are more chances for them to initiate a chat and you can make a sale happen. If not, they’ll at least know you’re around if needed.
Sample messages
Hi there, welcome to <xyz>, happy browsing!
Hello, I’m Mia from customer support, let me know if you need any assistance!
Hi, let me know if you need your resume to be reviewed.
Hi there, I see you are interested in applying to xyz college. I’d be happy to answer any questions.
Hello, I see that you are looking at a travel package to Spain, let me know if you need any assistance with the planning!
2. Create a better onboarding experience
Welcome newly signed-up customers with personalized messages through In-App Campaigns. It will put them at ease knowing there are friendly approachable humans at the other end whom they can count on.
Offer proactive and contextual support through Triggered Messages with pro-tips/inputs upon their first interaction with different aspects of your product, or if they seem to be stuck with something, based on their action (events).
In-product messaging is one of the best ways to increase engagement as they are highly targeted. Whenever a user completes an action or misses an opportunity to do so, you can send in-app messages to remind them or give them that nudge to do something.
You can create campaigns for a better onboarding experience.
Sample messages
Welcome to the xyz family. We are excited to have you on board! Thanks for signing up. Drop a line if you need any help! ?
Hi, I’m Amy from customer support. I can help you with getting started and setting up your account.
Hey there, we have launched Product Tours to help you use our product best. Click here.
Hi, I’m Ross, your account manager. Please feel free to reach out to me anytime if you have any queries.
3. Chat more, sell more
Visitors can sometimes be hesitant. Instead of them initiating a chat, you can start proactive conversations with targeted Triggered Message campaigns for various landing pages, product pages, high traffic pages, high value product pages, etc.
You can utilize a user’s information such as their geolocation, their activity on your website or the pages they are visiting to engage them in a conversation.
Did you know that visitors who are invited to chat are 6.3 times more likely to convert into customers than the ones who don’t chat? 61% of those customers convert within the first chat.
4. Develop customer relationships with personalized messages
You can offer personalized support to your customers based on the countries they are coming from, the pages they are looking at or the items they are clicking on. For instance, you can set up different types of personalized messages based on the user’s country. You can greet returning visitors with a message that says “Good to see you back around here, we missed you!” It’ll help build a rapport with them and improve customer satisfaction.
Returning visitors can be more interested in your offer than new visitors. The chance for a successful conversation is therefore higher. You can set up a trigger based on the number of visits, number of visited pages, and time spent on the page.
Customers who feel valued will keep coming back for more and stay with you for long-term.
Sample messages
Hi, can I help you pick the best plan for you?
I see that you are on the pricing page for the past 5 minutes. Still not convinced? Let’s talk!
Hi, I’m Rachel from the customer success team, I handle customers from Canada, let me know if you need help with something. ?
Hi there, I see that you that haven’t checkout out the items in your cart, can I help you find a different size or color?
Thanks for downloading the ebook on reports. Would you like a 30 min demo with our best analyst to understand how to use the feature?
It’s almost Thanksgiving! In the spirit of the holiday season, we are giving 15% discount for first 100 customers. Click here and get yours! ?
Hello, there will be a scheduled downtime this Saturday (20th Oct), due to server maintenance.
5. Keep them updated with contextual messages
You can update your customers about a server downtime, delivery delay or just about anything with campaign messages.
Most people get pitched a lot of generalized content during the course of the day through emails. Chances are your email, though highly useful for your targeted segment of users, can get lost among the multitude of other emails they get in their inbox. You can deliver curated content through campaign messages – product updates, latest blogs that you wrote which can be relevant to them, product newsletters, exclusive ebooks, sign-up link for an upcoming webinar and so much more.
It comes down to customer engagement
As you can see, triggered messages and in-app campaigns can be a very useful feature for your live chat. However, you have to keep in mind that less is more. Give some time to your visitors to look at your website. Don’t be obtrusive by sending a triggered message as soon as they land on your website. Be mindful about the number and frequency of the campaign messages that you set up. Too many triggered messages can overwhelm or annoy your customers which will deteriorate the customer experience and impair customer satisfaction.
Also, make sure that your messages have a human feel to it. Don’t be too robotic. Test, measure, improve, repeat – constantly keep testing and improving your campaign messages.
If you create a delightful end-to-end customer experience, right from the moment they come to your website, and provide real-time support, you can improve customer engagement. Engaged customers are happy customers. And happy customers will stay with you for a lifetime!
