How to set up a conversational SMS strategy that serves your customers and doesn’t overwhelm your team

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If you read nothing past this sentence, click away with this knowledge: The most common mistake businesses make with SMS marketing is to treat it like email marketing.

Email marketing is a one-way conversation. It’s great for brand building, nurturing, and conversion over time—all vital steps to your brand’s marketing choreography.

But if you’re really looking to engage a subset of folks who are highly interested in your products, conversational SMS is the email complement you’re looking for.

Whereas email marketing delivers your core narrative (in many, many parts), conversational SMS is reserved for time-sensitive content—which translates to a better post-purchase experience, immediate product feedback, and higher conversion among VIPs.

Conversational SMS is reserved for time-sensitive content—which translates to a better post-purchase experience, immediate product feedback, and higher conversion among VIPs.

To achieve these goals, brands need to be selective about not only what they text, but how often they text it.

As part of a Klaviyo 2021 survey on texting in the COVID era, we found out that most people think it’s acceptable for a brand to text them once a week. When brands do text them, people want to hear about:

• Coupons or promotion codes: 51%
• Loyalty offers and benefits: 40%
• Upcoming sales and promotions: 39%
• Birthday deals: 34%

Conversational SMS can transform all of the above into engagement with your customers and potential customers.

What is two-way SMS vs. conversational SMS?

Conversational SMS is a tech evolution of two-way SMS. Whereas two-way SMS responds to specific words as prompts, conversational SMS uses natural language processing to carry on digital conversations with more nuance.

True conversational SMS systems use a combination of this automation technology and human customer service agents who can fill in the blanks when conversations are beyond the algorithm’s abilities.

True conversational SMS systems use a combination of technology and human customer service agents who can fill in the blanks when conversations are beyond the algorithm’s abilities.

A main use case for conversational SMS is customer service enhancement, which leads to higher retention, higher average order value, and even higher customer lifetime value.

For example, subscription businesses that make it easy for customers to skip a month or swap out products through two-way messaging or conversational SMS actually increase their LTV by an average of 15-32%.

Keep reading to learn exactly what you need to do to launch your conversational SMS strategy, both for better customer service and new customer acquisition. You’ll walk away from this article knowing where to start with your current customers, how to expand to promotional efforts, and, finally, how to master conversational SMS in ways not too many brands yet have.

How to get started with conversational SMS

The best place to start with conversational SMS is with customer service, which actually often begins with transactional SMS.

Transactional SMS happens when you get someone’s phone number and their permission to communicate with them via text about a specific order. Transactional SMS improves customer service by:

• Keeping customers informed about the status of shipment and delivery
• Allowing customers to modify an order without an account log-in
• Connecting customers to technology or agents who can answer questions about an order (conversational SMS)

Basic transactional SMS messages include:

• Order confirmation
• Shipping confirmation
• Out for delivery notification
• Delivery confirmation

If transactional SMS is completely new to you, learn everything you need to know about it here. If you understand the basics of transactional SMS, this section will teach you how to build on your workflows and automations for more nuance.

Focus on post-purchase experience

The most common use case for conversational SMS is to enhance your brand’s customer service. When you keep customers happy post-purchase, they’re more likely to buy again—and recommend your brand to someone they know.

So what does enhanced customer service with conversational SMS look like? Here are some examples:

Order tracking

SMEAR SHOES: Hi Danai! Exciting news—your order #12345 has shipped! Track here: [tracking link] or text us anytime to ask about your package.

It’s been a few days and I haven’t gotten my order. Can you please tell me when it’s coming in?

SMEAR SHOES: Happy to give you an update! Your order is about to go out for delivery, so you can expect it within the next business day. Hope you enjoy!

Order revisions

SMEAR SHOES: Hi Stephanie! Exciting news—your order #12345 has shipped! Track here: [tracking link] or text us anytime to ask about your package.

Help! I ordered the Scarpa Drago in a size 8, but I think I need an 8.5. Is it too late to change my order?

SMEAR SHOES: Happy to make the change! We swapped out the size for you, and you’ll be getting the Scarpa Drago in an 8.5. Track your package here: [link] or text back for an update.

Order cancellations

SMEAR SHOES: Hi Stephanie! Exciting news—your order #12345 has shipped! Track here: [tracking link] or text us anytime to ask about your package.

Is there any way I can cancel this order? My friend gave me some shoes, and I don’t need the Scarpa Drago anymore.

SMEAR SHOES: No problem! We’ve canceled your order. You can expect to see a refund on your credit card within 3 business days. See your cancellation record here: [link]

Order returns

SMEAR SHOES: Hi Yan! Your order #12345 has been delivered. Text HELP to report a lost package. We hope you love your purchase!

HELP I would like to return my order

SMEAR SHOES: No problem, happy to help. Can you please confirm you’d like to return order #12345? Text CONFIRM

CONFIRM

SMEAR SHOES: Okay, great. Here is your shipping label for order #12345: [link]. We will refund your credit card within 3-5 business days of your order arriving at our warehouse.

Order exchanges

SMEAR SHOES: Hi Yan! Your order #12345 has been delivered. Text HELP to report a lost package. We hope you love your purchase!

HELP I would like to exchange my shoes for another size. They don’t fit

SMEAR SHOES: No problem, happy to help. Can you please confirm you’d like to exchange order #12345? Let us know what size you need.

Confirmed. I’d like to exchange the Scarpa Drago shoe size 8.5 with a size 9

SMEAR SHOES: Okay great. Here is your shipping label for order #12345: [link]. We will issue an exchange shipping notification in 3-5 business days after we receive your package.

Conversational SMS leads to a great customer experience because it eliminates the need for the customer to log into an account, retrieve their order number, and untangle the logistics of shipping, returns, and exchanges themselves.

If your customer can handle everything with your brand the same way they would plan a dinner with a friend, you’re already leagues ahead of others in your category.

If your customer can handle everything with your brand the same way they would plan a dinner with a friend, you’re already leagues ahead of others in your category.

So how do you actually make that happen? The answer is ecommerce platform integrations. If you want to move beyond simple transactional SMS notifications for shipping that might come with your ecommerce platform—and be able to customize these messages—you can use Klaviyo integrations to make it happen.

People who use Gorgias and Zendesk can automatically sync customer records and responses, create tickets, and send text messages from their help desk systems.

These integrations allow brands to send informed SMS responses to customers’ questions by accessing their entire profile and shopping history, so those texts are as valuable as possible—and not spam.

Shortcut: set up quick responses

When you first start to use two-way SMS and even conversational SMS, you’ll most likely find that the same basic questions keep coming up. Most customers want help tracking a package or exchanging items, but they may also ask the same questions about certain products.

Quick responses within your SMS system make it easier to answer these common questions.

Quick responses are templated answers you won’t need to retype after you set them up in your platform, similar to chatbots. They’re flexible enough that your customer service agents can edit them for any individual’s situation, but they provide a good baseline answer so no one is retyping the same thing over again.

Use conversational SMS as an acquisition channel

Once you feel confident in your conversational SMS systems as a customer service enhancement, you’re in a great place to start playing with it as a customer acquisition channel.

When you’re ready, we recommend crafting your strategy around some first principles:

• Conversational SMS value depends on quality answers: Generic responses are a fine place to start, but they need to evolve quickly to trigger high customer engagement and word of mouth.
• Conversational SMS value depends on VIP-level offers: Generic product offers shouldn’t make it to your SMS channel. Reserve your highest-value offers for SMS as a way to treat your subscribers with respect.
• Conversational SMS value depends on customer feedback: High-quality responses and offers depend on a healthy customer feedback loop. Segment highly engaged SMS subscribers for customer feedback to take full advantage of the communication channel.

These conversational SMS first principles create rules that protect people’s time, improve brand integrity, and ultimately provide the highest level of value possible.

With that in mind, here are some of the most effective ways to offer that value via conversational SMS as an acquisition channel:

Birthday or anniversary discount

When people subscribe to brand text messages, they’re most often thinking, “What’s in it for me?” If you can answer that question with “a birthday discount,” it may be enough to gain access to someone’s text messages.

Nicole and Grace Boutique, for example, texts customers a photo to celebrate their birthday, along with a discount that corresponds with the receiver’s age. If only more people could make it to 100…

Abandoned cart conversation

Be careful about this one—no one wants to sign up for SMS, place one item in their cart, then receive several texts nudging them to buy the item. That’s not how effective abandoned cart conversations happen over text.

But if you have data to show that someone keeps coming back to your website, browsing several product pages, and abandoning multiple carts, you have a highly engaged person on your hands who may have questions they don’t know how to ask.

The abandoned cart SMS conversation starts with an offer to answer questions, not a nudge to buy. Here’s a sample of what a good abandoned cart conversation opener could look like:

SMEAR SHOES: Hey, we notice you’ve been considering the Scarpa Drago shoe. Can we answer any questions about it? Text STOP to opt-out.

Price drop alerts

Another way to use abandoned cart data is to send someone a price drop. In Klaviyo, you can set up rules to trigger a text when an item drops by at least 10% and someone has started a check-out on it within the last 30 days.

This is a great way to get additional data on price drop thresholds: How much of a drop does it take to trigger a purchase? The results will help you craft valuable marketing messages that can transfer to other product announcements and offers.

New product announcements

When you’re using SMS to announce new products, the key to value is exclusivity. This example by Mantra Labs makes people feel special by calling out early access to a new product for the #mantrafamily text list.

The early access bit is key here, because then it’s not about the product announcement in and of itself—it’s about the VIP, who gets access to that product before other people.

One way this example could be better would be to invite VIPs to offer feedback on the product upon purchase. This is how you create a sense of community for your brand—by asking your VIPs to contribute to product development and evolution, as a way to show them you’re listening.

User-generated content

If you want a non-sales-driven way to engage customers with your brand, user-generated content (UGC) is a great way to have some fun.

You may want to reserve this kind of fun for people who have clicked on SMS links in the past, because you know these people won’t mind engaging.

UGC could mean a pet food store asks for pictures of pets to post on their Instagram account with a shout-out (and maybe a contest!). But it could also be simpler than that. Check out this example from Organic Olivia, which asks people to help name their new company mascot.

It’s a small thing, to be sure—but it may just be the detail that primes your audience to text you back when you ask for product feedback in the future.

The future of conversational SMS is here

Conversational SMS is growing in popularity, but it still isn’t a standard way to communicate with an audience. Similar to virtual reality, two-way SMS was stuck for a long time as a proto-version of itself, stumbling into use cases with all the grace of a baby taking their first steps.

As the technology surrounding conversational text matures, SMS for ecommerce is finally coming into its own. Payment processing, natural language processing, and product development platforms are all technologies that feed into conversational SMS and make it more valuable to customers.

As the technology surrounding conversational text matures, SMS for ecommerce is finally coming into its own.

Here, we’ll highlight some of the next-level conversational SMS use cases that not a ton of brands are leveraging. If you have a healthy SMS list with low opt-out rates and decent engagement, you may want to start taking advantage of more ways to increase revenue.

Text-to-buy

What if you could text a promo offer to your VIP list—people who have bought before and likely will again—and they could jump on the offer just by texting you back?

That’s text-to-buy. It works by connecting customer profiles to Shop Pay, and prompting the customer to purchase an item with a keyword. Then, with an additional confirmation prompt, the purchase is processed—no credit card entry required.

Use text-to-buy when contacting people about:

• Items that are back in stock
• VIP product announcements
• Product replenishment reminders
• Birthday offers

Concierges or stylists

In 2015, Nordstrom was ahead of its time when it announced TextStyle, its own personal stylist and purchasing SMS program. Unfortunately, the company was a victim of its own innovation—they were too early for consumers, and they discontinued the service in favor of website chat.

7 years later, consumers are more accustomed to seeing brands in their text messages—which means the world is ready for personal styling, live agents, and real-time assistance via SMS.

Feedback on product development

Conversational SMS reaches peak useful when your customers respond to your brand like they would a friend. Ali Bonar, founder of Oat Haus granola butter, reaches this level of productivity when she uses conversational SMS to ask for feedback on her product.

The reason this is so effective is because there’s no survey link. The receiver just needs to respond to the text with their honest thoughts, and they get a text back validating their feedback with a real personal message.

While this may be a lot of work, we recommend opting for this approach and making it manageable by selecting a small subset of your customers: the ones who love what you do and the ones who may have been a bit more vocal about something that went wrong.

When you task human customer agents over robots and surveys to get feedback, you achieve several goals: getting high-quality feedback, having meaningful conversations with customers, and making VIPs feel valued. If there’s a downside to this use case for conversational SMS, we simply don’t see it.

Conversations lead to loyal customers

Use SMS conversations to ensure that you aren’t just talking at your customers—you’re talking to them, and creating a space for them to feel heard.

Whether it’s for customer support, or just collecting more information around their interests and preferences, conversational SMS marketing enables you to create stronger relationships with your subscribers—that will ultimately make them less likely to unsubscribe.

To learn more about SMS marketing in general, not just with conversational SMS, read our Guide to SMS Marketing Strategies.