CRM Integration for SMS, Call Centers Recommended, Clickatell Says

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

Clickatell (News - Alert), a vendor of mobile messaging products, announced its work with First National Bank and Santam Insurance has "raised customer satisfaction and reduced costs" through SMS within their respective call centers.

 

According to a 2008 Aberdeen (News - Alert) study surveying 4,500 respondents, concerns over a potential recession is a top-three business challenge for companies this year. Another Aberdeen study found that 88 percent of best-in-class companies considered corporate profitability to be "a key metric driving the need to manage telecom costs," including in the call center.

 

"We have all been there -- we call for service only to be #134 in the queue when we simply need a balance update or tracking number. Consumers are increasingly mobile and interact with a myriad of companies through call centers, often using their mobile phones," said Pieter de Villiers, CEO of Clickatell. "SMS provides an easy to use mobile product that doesn't require long wait times or interactive voice response systems."

 

Results from the recent Aberdeen study found that 80 percent of best-in-class call centers are using text messaging, and concluded that there is "a marked difference" in adoption in what the study's authors describe as "non-best-in-class organizations which are not taking advantage of an opportunity to add a touch point between a given company's expert resources and their customers through the use of text messaging."

 

Aberdeen officials say the cost of using SMS for customer contact is "a fraction of the cost of live agent communications, as well as interactive voice response systems"

 

UK-based call center analyst firm ContactBabel (News - Alert) has reported that live-agent service calls average $12 per call, while SMS costs pennies per message. Done correctly, "SMS replaces the need for live agents, as well as IVR systems, for many simple service inquiries, allowing live agents to spend time on dealing with more complex customer inquiries," ContactBabel officials say.

 

Text messaging can be integrated with existing CRM or call center products. Clickatell's APIs and developer tools provide a central point to integrate new SMS capabilities into existing or new offerings.

 

This January Clickatell and Dontgo, an online consumer advocate service, announced the launch of a mobile customer service notification system.

 

Using Clickatell's global mobile messaging services, Dontgo lets users send text messages directly from their cell phones at the time of service. This lets customers report bad service using their cell phone instantly.

 

Dontgo CEO Moshe Sohaba got the inspiration after a bad holiday experience involving his family, an hour's wait for the wrong breakfast and an unsympathetic salesperson.

 

Research cited by Clickatell officials says few customers complain to businesses directly about bad service, they just stop buying from the company and grouse about its lousy service to friends, family and coworkers. Along with Dontgo, friends, families and coworkers, Clickatell hopes customers will find satisfaction in witching directly to the company instead, sending them a SMS on the spot.

 

Using the system today, customers send the keyword, "dont" to a specific SMS short code "34040", followed by the name of the company and their comment. Dontgo then sends the information via e-mail to subscribers. Non-subscribers are called and provided with alerts at no cost on the first occasion.