We all know that effective communication is crucial since the beginning of time. A business that commutes effectively always has an edge over its competitors. For an eCommerce business that is striving to retain customers through their service, the older timer “SMS” is the best way to communicate. With a high open rate of over 98% and the lowest possible cost SMS fits the bill of all sorts of eCommerce businesses.
Regardless of the evolution of other communication channels, SMS is still the most extensively used form of communication that is growing at a pace of 4% each year. Be it an eCommerce Market leader or a new eCommerce Start up SMS notification is one crucial thing they cannot afford to miss on. Let me share the reasons behind this.
1. SMS notification enhances customer loyalty
SMS notification is a great way to engage and build loyal customers. Life is busy, a brief and informative SMS notifying the status of an order fits it. SMS order notifications like order confirmation, order dispatched, order out for delivery, order delivered and so on keeps the customer engaged and satisfied.
Sending real-time SMS notification to customers about each stage of an order not only delivers superior customer experience but also helps an eCommerce business reduce inbound queries. Whenever a customer gets extra pampering and good service from a seller their loyalty tends to increase along with the customer return rate and chances of recommendation to others.
2. SMS notification allows an eCommerce to communicate faster
The reason why people like SMS over any other source of communication is that it updates them without any extra effort and without disturbing their daily routine. A simple click and the 160-character SMS notification delivers the much-needed information in a jiffy.
Because of its less time-consuming nature, 90% of SMS are read within 3 minutes of delivery and 94% are read within 5 minutes of delivery. This is precisely why eCommerce giants like eBay, amazon, Snap Deal, Flipkart etc. use SMS notification plugin widely on their website.
3. SMS notification allows future marketing opportunities
Today’s service-oriented customer appreciates a well-informed order delivery. Once you have scored well on order delivery adding a loyalty or discount code in the order delivery SMS can help you make the customer come back for more. This strategy not only doubles the smile of a happy customer but also neutralize an unhappy customer.
Note: always provide an opt-out option because some customers dislike too many SMS notification.
4. SMS has higher open rates
Compared to email notification, SMS has a staggeringly high open rate. It has 98% open rate and outperforms its nearest competitors email (20% open rate) and twitter (29% open rate). This is mainly because on an average, a person looks at his or her mobile 150 times a day especially when they feel that buzz or hear the tone of received SMS.
5. SMS notification is reliable
Like emails, SMS notification does not need to battle against spam or filters thus ensuring a 100% delivery to active mobiles. Thus, an SMS is more like a direct link to your customer with no barriers at all. Nothing more exciting for a customer than getting his or her hands on the purchase and each uninterruptedly delivered order notification SMS keeps up that excitement level up.
6. SMS notification is cost and time saving
eCommerce should be thankful to Matti Makkonen the father of SMS for his creation that is saving them all a lot of time and money. Compared to any mode of communication SMS is the cheapest and the most efficient source of communication.
Example, Amazon clocked 600 orders per second during its Prime Day 2016. Imagine the cost, time and infrastructure it would have needed to communicate order status of all the orders at every stage without a technology like SMS.
SMS service bought in bulk may cost you even less than 0.0035$/SMS and thanks to automation by SMS order notification plugins for eCommerce website, it takes less than a second to send SMS notifications to a customer. SMS truly gets the word out to all of your customers with money left in your pockets. Honestly, it is hard for any eCommerce website to survive the competition without using SMS notifications.
7. SMS bridges the changing behaviors
SMS is one channel that has been in existence since the beginning of the mobile era. It has adapted itself to changing mobile platforms and OS better than any other mode or app. Besides being a great standalone channel SMS also has the capability to promote other marketing mediums, such as eCommerce apps, social media, and email.
For Example, You can use order status SMS to promote your eCommerce app as an alternate way to track order by inserting a link that can open or install the app.
8. SMS order notification gives real world feel
Imagine being a customer who did not get any sort of order confirmation after giving his or her hard-earned money online, you might feel cheated for a moment. SMS notification helps eCommerce bridge the gap between the virtual and the real world. A quick order confirmation SMS gives you satisfaction equivalent to holding your purchase physically and consecutive order status SMS ensures that this feeling stays until delivery.
Note: never make your customer eager about order status because it will hurt your eCommerce business through numerous inbound queries (that requires additional staff) plus it hits customer satisfaction.
9. SMS is not internet dependent
Though email and messaging apps like WhatsApp, Wechat, Facebook, etc. have made their way into society but they are limited by internet data cost, mobile hardware requirements, and membership. A customer can turn off the internet on his or her mobile to save battery life or data cost. In contrast, SMS uses the regular mobile network and is not dependent on the internet or any other technical issues thus making anyone in modern society reachable. Because a user usually has his or her mobile device turned on at any given time an SMS always deliver the crucial order related notification and updates to your customer on time.
10. SMS can reduce eCommerce cart abandonment
A study conducted by Baymard Institute shows that 67.45% of eCommerce carts are abandoned which is disheartening. SMS notification can help you counter such situations by setting your SMS Notification Plugin on your eCommerce website to instantly SMS a discount code to a customer who has abandoned a cart. This effort is fruitful in luring a retracting customer to get back to the website and complete the purchase thus reducing the abandon rate.
Conclusion
“A Penny saved is Penny earned”. With the eCommerce world is getting tougher every day one needs to control the expense and yet deliver the best service in the market. Integrating SMS order notification plugin in your website is a necessary and a wise step. To support this, it is worth mentioning that eCommerce giants like Amazon, Ebay, Ali Baba, Flipkart, Snap Deal, etc. are still using SMS as the prime channel for communication to market and service their customers.
Because of its efficient and cost effective nature, SMS not only puts a smile on the face of a customer but also the eCommerce owner. The short yet precise old timer SMS tops the chart of preferred ways of communication when it comes to Return on Investment. At any stage of eCommerce business, there is nothing more satisfying than getting a good return on Investment at a consistent pace.
SMS order notification eCommerce’s most reliable cost control partner!
This article has been prepared and published by nopAccelerate. nopAccelerate is a part of Xcellence-IT which is an India based software company. We are offering professional nopCommerce development services to our customers since 2011, helping them to meet their business goals using flexible architecture of nopCommerce. You can find out more about nopAccelerate here and you can also look for our products and services here.