Conversational Messaging: Next-Level Customer Engagement

Conversations are powerful for businesses – more powerful thank you’d think. Every interaction you have with a customer or stakeholder is an opportunity to gather insights, deepen relationships, and even increase sales. But you need to talking with your customers on the channels they prefer. Enter: conversational messaging. 

A conversational messaging strategy gives your business the opportunity to connect with customers through every stage of their journey with your brand, across convenient channels. You can engage customers on social media, follow-up with SMS, answer questions on live chat, and send order confirmation messages on WhatsApp. 

So, what makes this strategy so powerful? Simply put, customers want to have real, human discussions with businesses, and they want those interactions to be as pain-free, contextualized, and simple as possible. According to recent research, consumers will send and receive more than 480 billion messages with businesses each year by 2026.

If you’re not getting involved already – now’s the time to dive in.

What is Conversational Messaging? 

The easiest way to describe conversational messaging is as two-way interactions between businesses and consumers. Just like all kinds of messaging, these conversations can happen on various channels – WhatsApp, RCS, SMS, live chat, social media, and so on.

Some discussions are initiated by customers – such as when someone reaches out to your team on WhatsApp to ask why a package is delayed, or request pricing information. Others are launched by businesses, such as when you send a survey to a customer via RCS to collect feedback about their latest service interaction.

Either way, the defining factor of conversational messaging is that both parties have a voice. You’re not just broadcasting information, and your customer isn’t sharing feedback with no expectation of a response. You’re engaging in a genuine dialogue. 

The Growing Demand for Conversational Messaging

The way human beings prefer to communicate has changed a lot over the years. These days, most people would rather talk to a company through text. It’s less stressful, it’s convenient, and its asynchronous. Customers don’t have to wait on hold for an agent, they can send a text, put down their phone, and do other things while waiting for a response.

But a few things have made conversational messaging more popular lately. First, customers are demanding more meaningful interactions with companies. Around 7 out of 10 customers say they want to have conversations with companies. 

Secondly, there are more channels available for messaging than ever before. We have social media options like Facebook Messenger, OTT apps like WhatsApp and Viber, SMS, MMS, and RCS, even branded chatbots built into mobile apps. 

On top of all that, companies have more of the tools they need to manage messaging at scale. With conversational messaging platforms, companies can create and send omnichannel campaigns, gather insights, respond to messages from a unified inbox and more. Some platforms even make it easy to automate campaigns with AI.

The Real-World Benefits of Conversational Messaging

Investing in conversational messaging isn’t just a good idea because it’s easier to implement these days, or even because your customers expect it. There are real benefits for both businesses and consumers, such as:

Faster Response Times
Today’s consumers aren’t patient. Many expect immediate service, and more than half are willing to spend more with a company that resolves issues quickly. Messaging is quick and convenient, particularly if you’re using AI tools that can respond to customer queries instantly, on a 24/7 basis. 

Improved Personalization
Speaking to your customer on their channel of choice automatically makes them feel like the interaction is more tailored to them. But you can also take personalization to the next level, customizing interactions based on customer preferences and behaviors. Some conversational messaging platforms even integrate with CRM software to make this easy.

Enhanced Customer Loyalty
Conversational messaging gives companies an incredible way to keep customers informed and engaged, throughout the purchasing journey. It helps foster genuine relationships through constant and transparent communication. Over time, that leads to greater loyalty, higher retention rates, and stronger customer lifetime value. 

Greater Insights
There’s only so much you can learn about a customer by checking whether they opened your latest mass marketing email. Conversations with buyers, on the other hand, can reveal deeper insights into their preferences, pain points and goals. This can pave the way to better sales and marketing strategies, and stronger ROI. 

Higher Conversion Rates
Engaging customers through their preferred channels can lead to higher conversion rates – particularly if you’re sharing information that they need to make a decision. Conversational messaging facilitates seamless interactions, guiding customers through the purchasing journey and addressing concerns in real-time, ultimately driving sales.​

Ways Companies Use Conversational Messaging

One of the best things about two-way messaging is how adaptable it is. As mentioned above, you can have valuable discussions with your customers all the way through their lifecycle with your company. Here are just a few use cases to consider.

1. Marketing Campaigns
Conversational marketing is a powerful strategy that countless companies are using to boost sales. Customers might not be ready to make a purchase the instant they receive a message about your latest sale. They might have questions, about your return policies, how long the promotion lasts, and so on. 

With two-way messaging, they can get back in touch, and get extra guidance for their purchasing journey. They could even ask for a recommendation – like which version of a shampoo you recommend based on their hair’s condition.

2. Sales Strategies
In sales, timing and relevance are everything. Conversational messaging platforms help reps respond instantly, address objections, and guide buyers in the moment.

For instance, a B2B software company could automate responses to pricing queries from its landing page chatbot, then loop in a human rep to book a demo, without the customer ever leaving the chat.

Or in ecommerce: a shopper browsing sneakers can receive a prompt via Instagram DM, encouraging them to complete a purchase with a discount code. 

3. Customer Support
Messaging is a fantastic channel for customer support – for both customers and employees. Support teams can avoid long, complex email chains and phone calls, and invest in quick, two-way chats instead. 

Since messaging is asynchronous, there’s less pressure on both sides, and companies can even automate customer support tasks with conversational AI bots, ensuring users can access assistance 24/7 – anywhere. 

4. Collecting Feedback and Insights
Filling out surveys feels like a chore for most consumers. However, people are a lot more likely to respond to a message. After a customer buys something, you could simply send them a quick text asking them to rate their experience.

If responding is simple, such as tapping a button, or sending a “number rating”, most customers will be happy to share feedback. Plus, since all of your responses are collected in the same conversational messaging platform, it’s easy to analyze data for trends.

5. Re-engagement & Loyalty
Most companies already know that it’s easier and cheaper to keep hold of an existing customer than it is to find a new one. Conversational messaging is a great way to preserve healthy relationships with your buyers. 

You can use messages to send out reorder reminders, product restock notifications, invites to loyalty campaigns, and even birthday discounts. All of these notifications help to keep customers engaged, and reduce the risk of churn. 

How to Get Started with Conversational Messaging

If you decide to take advantage of conversational messaging, whether it’s for marketing, sales, or customer support, you’re going to need a strategy. 

Here’s your step-by-step guide to getting started. 

Step 1: Start with Clear, Measurable Goals
Don’t just jump into a two-way texting campaign because your competitors are doing it. You need a clear idea of what you really want to do. Think of a problem that you need to solve right now. For instance, do you need to:

• Reduce support wait times?
• Increase ecommerce conversions?
• Improve post-sale follow-up?
• Gather more feedback?

Once you know what you want to fix, decide on the metrics you’re going to monitor, and benchmark your current performance. For example, if your goal is to reduce support wait times, find out how long customers currently wait on hold. 

Step 2: Find Your Messaging Channels
Messaging conversations don’t just happen via SMS anymore. Both SMS and MMS are still great options if you’re looking for extensive reach, and you don’t want to be reliant on an internet connection every time you want to connect with customers.

However, it’s worth looking at other channels too, such as:

• Social media messaging: Instagram and Facebook Messenger
• OTT messaging apps: Like WhatsApp or Viber
• Rich Media Channels: Such as RCS

You might even look into opportunities on channels like Slack, or think about building your own messaging “live chat” option into your website or mobile app. 

Step 3: Choose Your Conversational Messaging Platform
Now you need a solution that’s going to help you manage your messaging strategy. There are quite a few options out there, but we recommend looking for an all-in-one solution, like FC Messenger, that comes with features like:

• Omnichannel Capabilities: Make sure you can message customers on a range of channels: SMS, MMS, RCS, WhatsApp.
• AI and Automation: Intelligent automation is extremely valuable. The best platforms let you blend AI agents and humans seamlessly with templates and a variety of example use cases. 
• Compliance and Security: Messaging comes with rules: 10DLC, TCPA, opt-ins, data retention guidelines, and so on. Find a platform that keeps you compliant.
• Insights: Find a platform with reporting features and dashboards that allow you to track all kinds of performance metrics across messaging, calling, and campaigns.
• Integrations: Check that your platform integrates with your CRM solution, as well as the tools you use for ticketing, archiving, and even ecommerce management. 

Step 4: Train Teams on Messaging Strategies
Make sure your teams know how to use your messaging tools effectively. They should be comfortable using CRM integrations to personalize campaigns, or accessing templates to save time on creative work.

They should also be familiar with the compliance standards we mentioned above, and the best practices they need to follow to protect data, and your brand’s reputation. Create educational resources for your team and keep them up to date as your strategy evolves.

Step 5: Use Your Data
You might not perfect conversational messaging the first time you use it – but that’s okay. The key to success is constantly learning and improving. Gather information from your messaging platform, customer surveys, and marketing tools. 

Run A/B tests to see what kinds of messaging resonate best with different audiences, and keep segmenting your customers over time. The more you experiment, test, and analyze, the more you’ll be able to upgrade and improve your strategies going forward. 

Quick Tips for Better Conversational Messaging

Feeling uncertain? Here are a few bonus tips to keep in mind when you’re getting started with a new two-way messaging strategy.

1. Make Messages Personalized and Accessible

Don’t rely on one-size-fits-all generic messaging. Although you should be using a similar tone of voice whenever you talk to customers, make sure the conversations feel specific to them. You can do this by creating in-depth segments within your conversational messaging platform, and drawing on data from your CRM. 

As well as making sure messages feel personal – try to make them as accessible as possible too. In other words, if you’re not sure that all of your customers have access to WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or RCS, give them another way to connect. 

Have a back-up in the form of SMS or MMS, and ensure that if customers need more in-depth conversations, they can still get in touch via email or over the phone.

2. Be Truly Omnichannel

If you’re going to be using multiple channels in your conversational messaging strategy (which is usually a good idea) – make sure they’re connected. Your customer doesn’t want to share a concern with a bot on WhatsApp, and then have to repeat themselves when an agent gets back in touch via text. 

The right platform should make it easy to connect all of your conversations within a unified inbox, so you can maintain context as you move from one channel to another. A truly omnichannel strategy will improve your customer’s experience, but it has other benefits too – such as giving you a more comprehensive view of the buyer journey.

When you can track interactions from end to finish across channels, you can learn a lot more about your customers and what they need from you.

3. Use AI and Automation

You might not be able to automate every conversation with your customer fully, but you can use conversational AI platforms to reduce the pressure on your team. Create custom, AI bots that can instantly respond to FAQs 24/7 in your customer’s preferred language.

Build intelligent workflows that allow agents to collect patient data (compliantly), and build reports that help you upgrade your messaging flows. Some solutions can even help you analyze customer sentiment and feedback for deeper insights. 

Plus, you can use AI to help you generate more personalized messages for customers (instantly drawing information from CRMs). You might even be able to deliver a more proactive level of service, by using AI to detect potential customer needs before they reach out to your team. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Conversational messaging is a great way to upgrade your sales, marketing and customer service efforts – but it’s easy to make mistakes. Watch out for:

• One-Way Messages in Disguise: If you’re using two-way messaging, expect to actually respond to your customers. Make sure they can actually get back in touch too – on the channel of their choice. 
• Over-Automation: A chatbot that can’t answer questions is annoying. A chatbot that won’t let you talk to a human is infuriating. Make sure customers can always escalate a conversation to a human being when necessary. 
• Forgotten Best Practices: RCS, WhatsApp and other channels might have higher character limits than SMS, but you should still be making sure your messages are short and snappy. Don’t overwhelm customers with pages of text.
• Skipping Compliance: Always collect consent from customers before you message them, and honor their opt-out requests immediately. If you don’t, you put your company’s reputation and future at risk.
• Refusing to Evolve: Customer expectations change. So should your messaging. Don’t let your flows go stale. Review performance monthly. Test new tones, timings, and formats. Update scripts based on feedback and new FAQs.

Embrace the Era of Conversational Messaging

The way we communicate has changed forever. Customers don’t want to fill out a form and hope someone responds. They don’t want to dig through their inbox or sit on hold for half an hour. They want fast, human, two-way conversations.

Conversational messaging is how you make sure you’re living up to customer expectations. But, even beyond that, it’s also how you can improve your customer service strategies, strengthen sales and marketing, and grow faster than your competitors.

The brands that lead the way tomorrow won’t be the ones who shout at customers the loudest – they’ll be the ones that actually engage in real conversations. Stop relying on one-way broadcasts, and bring your customers into the discussion. They’ll thank you for it, and so will your company’s future.