Digital Customer Service with SMS, Secure Messaging, and Voice Improve Collections
From simple missed payments to seriously overdue debt, collections conversations often cause anxiety for both customers/members and service representatives. This is where providing a seamless engagement experience can keep a conversation productive and on-track. Digital outreach is an effective way to engage debtors unless you make them break their journey to switch channels, forcing them to re-verify identity and re-explain the situation creating further stress and anxiety for a situation that is typically challenging to begin with.
Consider that a difficult situation often presents an opportunity to enhance the experience. Helping a customer/member find a solution to a problem in a pleasant and effortless engagement could actually turn a dreaded collections call into a positive experience.
Seamlessly Reach Customers with SMS
The first step to a productive conversation is to engage customers where they are most comfortable. Since collections conversations can be sensitive, proactively reaching out via SMS text messaging is often better received. In fact, SMS is one of the most effective communication options today. Gartner writes: “In “Tap Into The Marketing Power of SMS,” Chris Pemberton notes that “SMS open and response rates as high as 98% and 45%, respectively — in contrast to corresponding figures of 20% and 6% for email.”
Sending a SMS message can help customers collect their thoughts and respond on their time and at their convenience. To leverage SMS as part of a seamless experience, it needs to be conversational. SMS doesn’t have to be a 1-way communication. Glia’s Digital Customer Service (DCS) platform provides a 2-way SMS solution that allows customers to directly reply to texts and connect with virtual assistants or live representatives. SMS messages can be conversational, allowing customers to easily respond while enabling businesses to manage SMS communications as part of the overall seamless digital customer engagement.
Seamlessly moving from SMS to chat, video, or secure messaging opportunities improves the customer and employee experience. Employees are equipped with the information that they require to assist the customer. Further, details follow a user from one property to the next – from SMS to your apps, website, or online banking – so reps have a full view of the customer experience.
Proactively Engage Customers OnScreen
When consumers visit your digital properties, you can use business rules to prompt representatives to connect. In the case of collections, if a customer with a past due account visits one of your sites, Glia’s business rules would prompt your collections team to proactively send a message to chat about their payment options. As the interaction progresses, the representative can offer to CoBrowse so that they can navigate the consumer to appropriate payment details, or they can progress the interaction to a phone or video call.
Effortless Engagement
Handling sensitive conversations like collections doesn’t have to be daunting. Engaging customers in the format that they are most comfortable can be the first step to a smooth interaction. With Glia’s end-to-end Digital Customer Service platform, you can proactively engage customers and help resolve sensitive situations in the format that best suits the conversation. Whether you use SMS, secure messaging, chat, phone, or video, your customers and employees can rest easy that the interaction will be seamless.
