Americans prefer to text over talk; and this trend shows no signs of slowing down, yet the vast majority of today's product and service providers are not equipped to handle customer service issues over SMS.
As millennials, in particular, get even more spending power, it's a channel brands may want to consider. In fact, 76 percent of millennials prefer to receive texts over calls from companies because, "texts are more convenient and on their own schedule" according to an OpenMarket report.
One brand who has leveraged this channel in an innovative way is that of the Edwardian Group, which has a large hotel portfolio, and uses Aspect call center solutions to improve its guest experience. Using Aspect, the hotel group allows guests to text its customer support team members at the hotel level using interactive text technology. For instance, a guest can pick up their phone and text an employee that they need more towels or ask questions like, "what time does the restaurant close?"
Jim Haskin, SVP and CIO of Aspect, told SuiteWorld 2016 attendees that while this service is pretty far away from the call center in which Aspect typically operates, it's still a customer experience issue. Aspect itself moved to NetSuite last June and prior was using "very old" legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology, which was a big barrier to change, like moving products to the cloud and trying to think out of the call center.