More people use phones than laptops or desktop computers. And texting—which is a lower commitment than a phone call and more efficient than an email—is the most popular activity on smartphones. With the growth of mobile apps and the on-demand economy, consumers now expect to have the ability to text companies for support. In fact, 52% of consumers would prefer text support over their current form of communication.
To help companies meet the demands of their increasingly mobile consumers, Zendesk is announcing the general availability of Text, a feature of Zendesk Talk that makes it easy for customer service teams to support their customers via SMS, right from the Zendesk customer support ticketing system.
Since announcing our Early Access program earlier this year, hundreds of Zendesk customers have adopted Text to engage their customers over SMS, including Favor Delivery, a rapidly-growing on-demand delivery business based out of Austin, Texas. Favor’s personal assistants, or “Runners”, provide fast, friendly delivery from any store or restaurant in over 18 cities across the US and Canada. Favor uses the Zendesk family of products to provide email, phone, and text service. However, text—a convenient way for their busy mobile customers to get help—has quickly become Favor’s most popular support channel.
As Evan Aldrich, head of customer support at Favor, explains, “One of the things that makes Favor unique from other delivery services is that your Runner is like your personal assistant. You work with them directly and can text or call with questions or order modifications. Texting is an important part of the customer-Runner experience, and we match that experience on our support team, too. It’s an absolutely indispensable part of our support strategy.”
With Zendesk Support for email and Zendesk Talk for phone and text support, Aldrich and his team have all their communication channels in one place. “Our agents don’t need to check multiple screens, and we have consistent reporting for all our support channels. It’s so great to have it all in one place.”
Text support at scale
With Text, teams can support customers over SMS with the same ease and confidence as any other support channel. Inbound texts automatically create tickets, and agent responses are sent as texts. Teams can apply time-saving tools like macros, triggers, and other business automations to scale up text support easily, and manage text support with views and ticket-level reporting.
Since introducing text support in June, Shinesty, an e-commerce clothing company that makes “outrageous clothing for theme parties, costume parties, and general ridiculousness,” has seen text grow to nearly 8% of their ticket volume, delivering quick resolution for certain ticket categories, like shipping, that lend themselves to the quick back-and-forth of text.
As Antonio King, Director of Customer Experience, explains, “our customers—mainly millennials—love reaching us via text for quick, easy support. Because it’s part of the Zendesk support platform, our agents can be super responsive and provide the same personal support we provide across all other channels.”
Automate reassuring updates to your customers
Companies that provide on-demand or time sensitive services can use Text to let their customers know when an order or service is underway. Ordermate, Australia’s leading point of sale provider to the hospitality industry, uses triggers and text notifications to automatically update customers on the progress of their support cases.
As Scott Fox, operations manager at OrderMate, explains, “Our customers in the hospitality industry depend on us to keep their businesses running. Text from Zendesk is the perfect complement to our current email and phone support offerings. With Text, our busy customers can contact our support technicians right from their phones, without writing an email or making a call, and we can keep them updated as we work to solve their mission critical cases and ensure our agents deliver quick resolution.”
Start a proactive support conversation
Companies can engage their customers on a personal level with proactive text messages. For example, one retailer’s concierge team can create proactive text tickets to send SMS to VIP customers who haven’t made a recent purchase, informing them of upcoming promotions or discounts. Their customers appreciate the personal touch, and agents can help drive repeat purchases.
Help your team deliver timely service
Companies with on-call agents or service-level agreements can send Text alerts to agents or technicians when a customer requires service. For emergency cases, Ordermate offers a promised response time. To ensure that their agents respond to customers’ cases within these promised SLAs, Ordermate notifies agents via text to ensure SLA adherence.
Get started
Teams can get started with Text in minutes—no coding or additional software required. Text, a feature of Zendesk Talk (available on the Talk Basic and Advanced plans), allows companies to provide customers with one phone number for both phone and text support. Learn more about starting a free trial.
