I’ve periodically written about the changing contact center, from speech analytics to WebRTC, multiple times. Another interesting trend emerging is the use of text messaging within the contact center. It is a bit of an old-school method, but text is an efficient and direct way to deliver information to customers. In fact, a widely quoted statistic from a 2014 Harris Poll survey indicates that 64 percent of consumers with texting capabilities would prefer to use texting over voice as a customer service channel.

When I read this, a few things went through my mind. For starters, I thought about whether I had used texting or not for customer service. Yes, I actually use it regularly for conducting online banking, managing credit card activity and for receiving airline flight updates.  

In addition to this, some companies have asked me if I wanted to receive order statuses via text (yes sometimes), refill prescriptions (yes) and confirm reservations (yes). While I can and do choose email for these as well, I also choose texting since I know I will read it.  And that’s why many people are choosing text as a way to interact with the contact center.

I’m not sure what contributing factors make up that widely quoted Harris Poll statistic, such as not having to wait on a phone line to get your call answered. But certainly texting back and forth when needing to change a reservation is, in my opinion, more effective than doing so using the phone. But like my activity above indicates—yes, I like text since it represents a way for me to easily access certain information.  Email would also work, but I choose to get a text if I want to get the information in real-time. 

This method of text messaging, however, could easily get overdone. For example, if I were to receive 50 texts a day for customer service I would likely want to request that no more texts are sent to me—at least from that company. If I want to send information to a company, texting also won’t be suitable for me personally. It may work for some who are simply used to texting and tweeting and posting things all day from a smartphone, but this simply isn’t me.

And in this capacity, texting means messaging as well, such as WhatsApp and other so-called over-the-top (OTT) messaging avenues.

Next week I will write about my thoughts on using text for even more customer service purposes.