Chances are you might be using text message (or email) to handle all your client interactions. Customer interactions can range from new client onboarding, to back-and-forth logistics, to appointment follow-ups, to monthly check-ins, to even running campaigns or announcements to client lists.
For all you business owners who use regular text message as your client messenger, one of the main issues you probably run into is organization.
You’ve got a list of all your customer conversations intermixed with chats with family and friends. To boot, organizing what needs to be prioritized and who needs to be responded to in what order becomes a problem. The speed of back-and-forth is great, however maintaining an organized customer list becomes exponentially painful as your business grows.
For those who use email as your primary customer communication method, speed might be your biggest issue.
The filtering and searching through clients and records is more manageable with email (vs. text), however what you gain in organization you lose in responsiveness and speed…the loading of email and the digging through spam. This also impacts your customer’s happiness — 56% of customers prefer texting a business than any other method because of the brevity, easy of use, and speediness of the communication method. So pushing clients to email you won’t necessarily start your relationship off on the right foot.
There needs to be a happy medium. And there is…
A messenger for businesses that has the same organization benefits while also maintaining the speed your business needs to compete, all the while keeping customers happy.
That’s why PocketSuite exists – messenger for your business.
We set out on a mission to make texting better…better than your normal messenger.
Unlike standard text message, email, or even Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp, business messaging requires a few unique building blocks to ensure it can help your business succeed.
1. Client conversations – organized
Without your clients, your business would not exist. Thus, giving you the quickest and most direct path to access your clients is crucial.
In PocketSuite you maintain your entire client conversation list on a single, main thread. This gives you a simple and straight forward way to view all your customer chats separate from your personal chats. You have the freedom to keep SMS text with friends & family, and a separate Messenger to handle all your customer conversations.
Within each customer chat thread in PocketSuite you have detailed access to the entire history of interactions with that client…and that doesn’t mean just text. That means messages, photos shared, call logs (missed calls and connected calls), notes, contact details, and even appointment & payment history (we discuss these features below).So if it’s a responsible and timely business a client wants to hire, having PocketSuite Messenger at your disposal for quick customer access and record keeping is a win.
2. More than just texting
Simple texts and emojis are great for friends, but with clients you might need more than that.
That’s why PocketSuite comes with the ability for you to communicate with clients in more ways that just a simple back-and-forth. Messaging features for businesses include:
- Scheduled Messages: Set a date/time in the future for any type of message to be sent out to a client. Schedule a message to be delivered in the morning, after an appointment, or to wish a client happy birthday.
- Text Campaigns: Send text message blasts to groups of clients. Create & save customers lists, and send messages like company announcements, service deals, happy holidays and more.
- Group Messaging: If you want clients to interact with one another (say, for those signed up for a group class), you can create a group message, have your clients download PocketSuite, and chat altogether as a group. Clients can meet each other and engage as a group!
- Saved Message Templates: Create & save any common messages you send clients — like out-of-office messages, answers to commonly asked questions, or general instructions you typically sent clients ahead of appointments. 1-touch “grab & send” makes taking a saved message and shooting it off to any client easy as pie.
- Appointment Reminder Texts: We talk about scheduling further below, but an integrated calendar makes setting up reminders texts to go out to scheduled clients incredible simple and powerful.
TO BE 100% TRANSPARENT, YOUR CLIENTS DON’T NEED TO DOWNLOAD THE POCKETSUITE APP TO COMMUNICATE WITH YOU. THEY SIMPLY REPLY TO YOU JUST LIKE NORMAL TEXT MESSAGE.
3. A dedicated business #
With each PocketSuite account comes a dedicated business line that is assigned to you, in the area code of your choosing.
Why is that important?
Protect your personal number from customers – old and new. Give your business a professional new # for clients to text and call any time. Instead of customer messages syncing directly to normal text message feed which is intermixed with friends and not easily trackable, have all customer reach-outs be funneled to a single, organized feed in your PocketSuite app.
Know who is is calling – a client calling your business line or a friend calling your personal number – with smart caller ID, so you’re always prepared when a client is calling you. Outbound calling also makes it 100% certain that your personal # will be shielded whenever you are calling a customer from within PocketSuite.
4. Integrated + complementary tools
Customer communication and relationships are far and away the most important parts of your business. But they are not the ONLY part…
That’s why your PocketSuite account comes with an integrated calendar and payments feature.
Within the thread of every client conversation, add them to your calendar, send them a payment request, or charge a credit card you have on file for them.
Online integration (like bookings and forms), contract e-signing, recurring payments, packages and more are also available depending on how many additional workflows your particular business needs.
Do more with your Messenger
The days of thinking customer communication is merely a “necessity” are over.
Think of it more as a tool that you can leverage to make your business stand out from the crowd…by delighting more clients. Keeping you organized and speeding up your customer responsiveness can do a world of good for your business.
We will leave you with the below chart calling out where an awesome messaging tool can actually make you MORE money from the clients you deal with every single day. Whether it’s PocketSuite or Facebook Messenger or text message, make sure the communication building blocks are set for your business, so you can grow your business into something your customers absolutely love…
