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Cut Through the Retail Madness This Holiday with Text Messaging

Text Messaging Featured Article

Cut Through the Retail Madness This Holiday with Text Messaging

 
December 11, 2014

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By Alisen Downey,
TMCnet Web Editor


With December rushing by, the season for holiday festivities—and shopping—is well underway. In the next few weeks, consumers will be making their final rounds in the retail circuit for holiday gifts, and that means a very busy time for stores.


While consumers are out in droves, businesses do their best to offer enticing deals with greater appeal than the deals of their competitors, but delivering on those promises isn’t always so easy. It can be difficult to keep shelves stocked, particularly with items that are on sale, in high demand or that have limited availability to begin with. So how do retailers ensure that customers will be able to take advantage of deals as advertised, without the risk of major disappointment? The answer lies in text messaging.

Text messaging is already being used by companies around the world as a tool for administering customer outreach, marketing and help services. Companies can even use their preexisting business phone numbers to send and receive text messages, using a text-enabling service like TextGen. But retailers are a little behind the times—and this is surprising, given that retail is one of the biggest industries for flash deals, coupons and sales. Text messaging allows retailers to not only spread the word of great specials to a wide audience using a direct and efficient medium, but the technology also allows them to regulate the process to ensure that customers aren’t promised a deal they won’t be able to receive once they’re in the store—either due to stock issues or misinformation.

Location-based text messaging can pinpoint which customers will be likely to shop at which locations of a retail chain, for instance, so that deals taking place in one store but not another will only be broadcast to relevant shoppers. Additionally, retailers could send promotional offers to customers as a sort of call to action. A store could text customers a deal with the prompt to send a reply text if they are interested. For every customer who responds, the retailer could check the response against stock of that item and provide the interested party with a voucher number guaranteeing them one of the sale items. Based on the number of respondents versus the quantity of the stock, companies could therefore avoid giving out more voucher numbers than there are sale items.

Beyond sharing sales and tracking interested parties, retailers can take advantage of this open line of communication and follow up with these customers at a later date, either about new deals related to their past shopping habits, or to simply ask for feedback. This means retailers are able to continue the conversation, even after the holiday rush has subsided. It lends a personal touch to customer service, and can improve operations on the retail end. 




Edited by Maurice Nagle
Text Messaging Homepage





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