By Rob Hammond, Syniverse
Mobile’s effect on both marketing and customer relationship management, has been as disruptive as the Internet was to brick-and-mortar businesses nearly two decades ago. And, in the same way that their brick-and-mortar predecessors initially struggled with the Internet, many experienced digital marketers continue to struggle to understand how to use mobile to its maximum effect today.
Yet how a company takes advantage of mobile for customer engagement is not a matter of technology, but one of a wider discussion on how, when and why it engages with a customer as part of its business. New mobile technologies and lifestyle patterns have precipitated a new mobile era of enterprise and consumer engagement, which has positioned the mobile user at the center of the mobile world. Today’s mobile consumer has gained — and come to expect — communication with her or his favorite brands and service providers, in a richer and more rewarding way than ever before.
To be effective, brands must engage mobile consumers with contextual real-time data. Increasingly consumer are initiating these interactions by the taking an action in one channel and completing the interaction on another. Imagine for a moment, a consumer ordering online and having the order delivered to her or his home. The purchase transaction creates the need for subsequent shipping notifications and purchase alerts. These notifications are important to the consumer, thus need to be personalized and relevant. It’s somewhat surprising that one of the oldest (but also one of the most versatile and underappreciated) mobile technologies offers the ideal bedrock of a foundation for enabling these interactions — text messaging.
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Understanding Different Mobile Engagement Needs
In understanding a strategy to engage customers through mobile, the first thing to consider is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Different companies have different business requirements. Each looking for different actions from their customers, which means that they need to understand where mobile fits, and enhances, an integrated customer engagement strategy.
Companies are also at varying stages in their adoption and use of mobile. Some are completely new to mobile, while others have optimized their website for mobile; and the most advanced have a mature, branded app that integrates their loyalty program along with offers from third parties.
Determining what mobile technology investments to make and how to use those mobile technologies for optimal effect is complicated. If brands rush to invest in new technologies without first understanding customer’s needs, actions, and what devices they use; they risk losing time, money, and failure in reaching their core customer base.
The Post-App World
Even with all the clutter created by the slew of apps that have flooded the mobile consumer marketplace, and with today’s focus on smartphones, it’s tempting for companies to invest in an expensive branded app to use to interact with customers. An app can indeed be the canvas for delivering a compelling, feature-rich experience on mobile, which a customer engages with frequently. But it can also be costly and time-consuming to set up and maintain. In fact, fewer than 5% of consumers have retailer’s apps installed on their devices, and 30% of U.S. consumers don’t use apps because offers aren’t contextual.
Apps are also expensive because both the maintenance and cost of acquiring new customers are rising. There are a limited number of companies that can justify the level of investment that an app requires. Most notable are brands that have a large number of customers who interact with the brand regularly as part of the consumer’s daily routine. For other companies that don’t have the resources or business justification for an app, the alternative is text messaging.
Getting The Message Across
Social messaging apps are another interesting option. The challenges with social messaging applications like WhatsApp, are the restrictions that these social networks place on messaging and the overall fickle nature of consumers. Consumers use multiple social networks and are quick to switch to the next hot thing.
With all of the headlines and hype about social messaging, it’s easy to dismiss text messaging as simple and outdated. This however is a mistake. In a mobile world of multiple devices, operating systems, and service providers, messaging remains the one common denominator that spans devices, networks, and geographies.
Text messaging is universally accessible, easy to use, and is often the medium consumers respond to first. It is also flexible enough for companies to use as a launch pad for more advanced engagement, including alerts directing them to a website, a video; or offers to support downloads or engagement with an app.
A Critical Caveat
With great access comes great responsibility. Text messaging is the most personal and highest-priority interaction medium for consumers, and for this reason a brand must place the consumer at the center of the communication. Opt-ins are regulatory requirements in many regions and are best practice everywhere. Real-time relevant notifications that are requested by consumers are required to gain access to this highly effective channel.
From a technical perspective, text-messaging mobile engagement needs a properly built and continually updated database of recipients who have agreed to receive notifications. This database must include all relevant details to allow the company to personalize messages for users with particular preferences. When possible, implementing a two-way API integration between the mobile engagement platform and the brand’s data warehouse or CRM system, can simplify efforts and improve engagement visibility.
A Long-Term Strategy
New technologies have opened a new world of opportunities for reaching consumers with contextually relevant messages and content. As a result it’s imperative that companies assess how they can make better use of mobile, and strategically plan how to incorporate all of their mobile channels. Yet as mentioned earlier, every company is different, and each will be at different stages in how they use mobile and what assets they have available.Text messaging offers singular reliability and flexibility with which to develop a mobile strategy.
Text messaging enables ubiquitous access and provides versatility by providing a bridge to rich Web content. Consequently, in a mobile world inundated with apps and fragmented by competing operating systems and service providers, text messaging is proving itself to be the ideal bedrock on which to form a strategy to engage today’s mobile consumers.
Rob Hammond has more than 28 years of global leadership experience in enterprise strategy, product management, sales and engineering, with a special focus in mobile and enterprise applications. As Senior Director of Mobile Engagement, Hammond is one of the leaders in Syniverse’s Enterprise and Intelligence Solutions, the business unit that enables brands and mobile service providers to better engage mobile users. During his tenure at Syniverse, Hammond has helped lead the development of products from inception to launch for such areas as A2P messaging, campaign management and fraud prevention.
