A good product is not enough to make a successful business. It takes efficient customer care, post-sales services, and effective nurturing to make customers happy and retain them for a long time. Now that we live in a digital world, traditional customer interactions have been taken over by chatbots for automated response, text messages, and social media interactions.
Customer interaction through digital means allows businesses to provide more efficient and fast services. WhatsApp is one such digital means which is proving to be an effective CRM tool and helps businesses stay in touch with their customers 24×7. But for large businesses, receiving hundreds and thousands of customer messages and queries is normal. In such situations, replying to each of the customer’s queries can be quite a task and lead to long delays in responses.
End result, bad reputation, and loss of valuable customers. WhatsApp Automated response can save the day and help businesses manage large customer bases easily.
What is WhatsApp Automated Response?
WhatsApp automated response is a feature that allows a user to automatically reply to an incoming message with a pre-curated message every time it receives a particular text. Automated response features help businesses in more than one way and can really help boost relationships between businesses and customers.
5 instances where WhatsApp automated response can be used:
1. After-hours communicationNot every customer may be aware of your working hours or may not be willing to wait until you open. For such customers, sending an acknowledgment message and letting them know when you can get back to them can help build a positive impact.
Here is an example:
Hi there, we’re so happy you texted Lakeland Bakery’s sales team about a bulk order! We’re out of the office right now, but we’ll be able to chat when we get in tomorrow morning at 8 am CT. Please expect a reply within 24 hours.
2. Greetings
Sending greetings to your customers when they reach out to you or on seasonal occasions can make them feel special and acknowledged. In many cases, humane acts like these can build a positive relationship with your customers. For many businesses, sending seasonal greetings as an automated response can be a great way to make their customers feel special and promote their latest offers and products at the same time without being too obvious about it.
3. Service help desk
Making a customer in distress wait for long hours before you reply to them can cause a lot of damage to your brand reputation and in many cases can make you lose valuable customers. An automated response feature can be used to instantly respond to any customer query addressed to the customer help desk. It assures your customers that you are listening to their problems/ grievances and will be addressing them soon.
4. Product/ Service update
Certain types of customer queries may be redundant and investing time in responding to each one of them manually can be a time-consuming process. Instead, using the automated response feature to respond to such queries can save you a lot of time and effort can help close a deal faster.
For example, you run a bakery and on a daily basis, receive customer queries asking about the price of black forest cake. You can set an automated response template for each cake type and each time you received a message with the keywords “black forest cake”, the automated response feature can send the price details to your customers automatically.
5. Redirection or service update messages
At times, some changes in the organization takes place, which may be a part of a growing growth process. Like an exclusive department or helpline number being added to handle a particular query. Or it may be an unforeseen circumstance that may disrupt your normal services like a calamity or a pandemic.
In such cases, an automated response can be used to redirect customers to a solution or give them an alternative. The latter case may affect your sales but will definitely help build a strong customer rapport for your business.
For example:
Hello, you’ve reached Sam’s Real Estate. We are sorry to inform you that currently, all our services are on hold due to the current floods. We assure you that we will get back to you as soon as possible!
8 Best Practices of Automated Response
1 . Use appropriate tone. Each business has its own specific tone and it is necessary to reflect the same with your automated messages as well.
2 . Set clear customer expectations. Most automated response lack a specification about the estimated wait time to get answers for their queries. Clearly mention when your customers can expect a response. It is crucial for delivering excellent service.
3 . To the point response. Avoid beating around the bush and keep your responses to the point. Send long text responses with unnecessary fillers and unclear solutions can put your customers off.
4 . Specify alternate solutions. Some customer queries may require urgent attention. So if you are away from the office, point your customers to someone who can handle emergencies or provide appropriate solutions.
5 . Sound human. No customer you like to share their issues with a bot. To make your customers trust you, make your messages sound more human-like rather than a robot.
6 . Personalize your messages. Customers hate it when their responses sound generic and are not personalized. Personalizing your messages will make your customers feel special and help in building a strong bond.
7 . Give your messages a visual appeal. Your automated messages do not always have to be boring text responses. You can add a little element of fun or share an appropriate visual which may make your automated response more helpful.
8 . Be realistic. Do not make false commitments in your responses as it can create serious trust issues with your customers. Be as realistic with your responses about what solution that you can provide and when.
Customer interaction is a big part of any business and having a healthy customer relationship can be a major contributor to a business’s success. WhatsApp Automated Response which is a feature of SocialEpoch is one such opportunity where businesses score large at building a strong and reliable customer relationship and lead to lifetime retention and higher customer lifetime value. To learn more about its features click here.
