Over the past few years, instant messengers have transformed from apps for just staying in touch with friends and families into multifunctional tools used by content creators and companies of various sizes. Studies show that the open rate for WhatsApp messages is five times higher compared to emails. This, obviously, makes this app, along with Telegram, Viber, and others, useful tools for brands to connect with their clients on every stage of their customer journey, from brand discovery to shopping advice, and, ultimately, post-purchase support. In the article, we’ll go over several tested and proven practices of communicating with customers via messengers that can help increase sales and conversion.

Respond quickly

In terms of response time, messenger communication sits somewhere between live chat and email — clients expect to have an answer to an inquiry within an hour or less. Aim to respond in such a time frame or faster, and this will help to build trust and loyalty with clients, making them more inclined to buy from you in the future. Here, using an omnichannel messaging platform can help, as it allows the integration of multiple messengers and the setting up of customizable notifications for new messages, which further decreases the chances of missing an incoming one. Remember that the goal is to make brand-client conversation in messenger similar to a dialogue with a friend, and nobody likes to wait for their response for a whole day.

Use chatbots to automate workflow

The developers of popular messaging apps provide extensive tools for creating chatbots — solutions that can chat with customers without human interaction. Chatbots can provide answers to frequently asked questions, shipment tracking information and tell more about particular products. Using them can effectively reduce the workload of human agents and decrease initial response time. Just don’t forget to leave clients with an option to switch the conversation to a human employee if needed.

Personalize communication

One of the reasons why interactions with clients via messengers are more effective than emails is that they feel more personal and get ignored less. Enhance this advantage by personalizing your promotional texts and support dialogues by addressing a client by their name and mirroring their conversation style: use emojis if they use them, and keep it more formal if they prefer it that way.

Keep it short

Clients are often busy and do not have the time or patience to read lengthy messages. Aim to make all your communications in messengers brief and straight to the point. This will ensure you can capture their attention and lead them to perform a desired action.

Call to action

Speaking of the desired action, make sure that your communication always includes a call to action. Usually, this is done in a form of a web link: if it’s a suggestion to read a new article in a blog it should include a link to it, if it’s a special discount there must be a direct link to a page with products eligible for it.

Use all-in-one messenger platforms

With so many messaging apps available, it might be hard for employees to maintain conversations in them all, switching between multiple tabs, looking up previous dialogues in different places, and so on. This can be solved by using all-in-one messengers — apps that connect various instant messengers and allow agents to work with them all via a single convenient interface. One of such omnichannel messaging platforms, Umnico, also allows users to set up a free live chat, making it possible to resume a conversation started in a live chat widget on a website in a messenger convenient for a customer.

Set up guidelines for employees

If clients have repeated conversations with a company, they might interact with different employees. If each of them maintains their style of conversation, uses different names for the same products, and so on, this might appear unprofessional at best. Establish clear guidelines for your sales and support teams on how to communicate and present products and services to a client. But always leave some room for improvisation, so that an agent can adjust the conversation’s tone to a particular client or find a creative way out of an unusual situation and make that sale!

Summing this up

Keep your messages brief and personal, don’t shy away from automation technologies, and use omnichannel messaging platforms to streamline your workflow. Implementing these practices of messenger marketing will help you to successfully communicate with clients and enhance sales.