Automate with Flow Builder: Get 20% yearly discount as one of our first 100 customers!

Table of contents

What is a Customer Messaging Platform?

Benefit your business with a customer messaging platform

With many features and benefits, an enterprise messaging platform is an essential tool for businesses looking to stay ahead of the competition, especially in increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty automating tedious tasks like customer service inquiries and live chats.

Emails have an open rate of 20% and a click-through rate of below 2% while messaging has an open rate of 98% or above. - Forbes

What is a customer messaging platform

A customer messaging platform is a software solution that enables businesses to communicate through a customer support chatbot or a customer messenger app. It allows companies to provide customer support quickly and conveniently and build relationships with customers through personalized conversations.

WhatsApp message for customer

The instant messaging platform for businesses is a powerful tool to reach out to your customers in an efficient way. It enables companies to automate customer service, reduce response time, and increase customer satisfaction. With the help of AI chatbots, businesses can create automated conversations that can be used for marketing campaigns or customer surveys. Other than that, it can provide personalized support based on the customer’s preferences and needs.

71% of shoppers feel frustrated when their experience is not personalized. - Forbes

SleekFlow personalized broadcast messages examples

Benefits of using a customer messaging platform

One of the main benefits of using a customer messaging platform is increased efficiency, as automated messages reduce response times by taking away manual labor associated with responding individually via email, call centers, or other avenues required priorly before implementation.

These omnichannel platforms can also save money as they minimize staffing costs associated with traditional methods like call centers by providing automation features like automated response messages, eliminating the need for the 24/7 presence of human operators.

Other advantages include enhanced productivity since automated messages save time; improved communication with customers since messages sent through this medium should be consistent across all devices; and cost-saving because you don’t have to pay expensive fees associated with many traditional marketing techniques such as telemarketing campaigns or billboard advertising campaigns which incur high costs even if only used sporadically throughout the year.

In summary, the benefits of using a customer messaging platform include the following:

  • Increased efficiency

  • Better allocation of manpower

  • Cost-saving and budget-friendly customer support

  • Enhanced productivity with automation

  • Consistent tone and branding across channels

  • Effective marketing and retargeting strategy with analytics

Best practices in setting up and managing your customer messaging platform

When selecting a customer omnichannel messaging platform, it’s important to understand the different types available, so you can pick the one that’s right for your business. Some popular options include chatbot applications, voice-based systems, and SMS messaging services. Each type offers different benefits depending on what you need in regard to automation capabilities and scalability potential.

  1. Chatbot applications: typically built around natural language processing (NLP) technology so that customers can communicate with your staff through text conversations anytime, anywhere. This makes it easier for customers to ask questions or navigate their way around a website without having to wait for manual input from staff members.

  2. Voice-based systems: use computerized speech recognition technology to generate automated replies based on what customers say during conversations with your staff or virtual assistant application.

  3. SMS messaging services: enable you to send text messages directly from your business’s phone number to keep in touch with customers without requiring manual input from staff members each time they need assistance with something. This helps increase efficiency while ensuring information sent is consistent across all channels – ensuring fast delivery of key data points such as appointment reminders or marketing notifications when needed. However, many have opted for free messaging apps on social media channels these days instead of paid SMS, as people spend more time on social media calls and text messages compared to before.

Setting up and managing a customer messaging platform can be a daunting task, but it is essential for any business that wants to provide an effective customer experience. The right messaging platform should be tailored to the business's needs and designed with the customer in mind. 

How to choose the best customer messaging platform for your business

Choosing the right customer messaging platform for your business is essential in today's digital age. With so many options available, it can be difficult to select the best one for your needs. Some key factors to consider are ease of use, scalability, integration capabilities, and customer service support. Here are a few tips for you to make an informed decision about which enterprise text messaging platform is best for your business.

Exploring automation settings on a customer messaging platform to increase efficiency

Send Shopify Order Update automation

Automation, a feature commonly found on a customer messaging platform, is a great way to improve business operations. Other than streamlining the process of managing conversations from various messaging apps, automated settings can help manage your team members’ workload and improve customer experience.

Not only does it make it easier for your business to respond quickly and efficiently to customer messages, but it also tracks customer engagement with data and analytics. A magnificent amount of time and money can be saved with automated processes, such as message routing and response time tracking.

Automate with Flow Builder: Get 20% yearly discount now

Get a 20% yearly discount as one of our first 100 customers! Only available to new subscribers.

This is why the user-friendliness of the automation settings on a customer messaging platform is important. As you choose the best customer messaging platform for your business, make sure it has an easy-to-use automation function to reinforce your customer support needs, such as FAQs and chatbot flows to guide customers through the purchase process or automated marketing needs, including personalized broadcast messages or WhatsApp campaigns.

Curious about how you can automate messages with a WhatsApp Chatbot? Find out more in our how-to guide.

Integrations to enhance productivity and save costs

integrations available with an omnichannel platform for customer messaging

Integrations should also be a vital factor taken into consideration when choosing the best customer messaging platform. This is because it allows your brand to manage your customer messaging platform along with other systems, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP), making the communication process between customers and businesses more coherent, allowing for faster response times and more efficient customer service. 

Essentially, tight integration allows for unified workflows and processes across customer communication channels, like how the best cloud manufacturing ERP can help unify data flows between accounting, supply chain, manufacturing, quality control, and other organizational functions for seamless end-to-end visibility and control.
With this approach, you can prevent data silos and allow you to streamline communication data across the entire organization.

Be sure to check if the integrations on the customer messaging platform charges expensive fees for third-party or non-native integrations. Native integrations are much more stable and come with better support when issues occur.  

Omnichannel inbox to improve communication with customers

omnichannel platform example for customer instant messages

When using a customer messaging platform, an omnichannel inbox is crucial. As your company communicates with customers across various messaging apps, it can be difficult to manage if the volume of messages increases over time.

Managing automated responses and allowing customers to message through their preferred apps can be quick and simple if the customer messaging platform offers an omnichannel inbox. 

Also, with a complete customer profile right next to the chat box, your customer support or sales agents can easily cultivate customer loyalty by providing personalized experiences that are tailored to the individual needs of each customer.

Choose the best customer messaging platform to ensure that your business is providing the best possible service to your customers and ensure that they remain loyal in the long run.

Unified view of analytics for social CRM and customer segmentation

WhatsApp campaign analytics

If you’re still switching tabs to check out customer details, order history, and campaign performance, that’s because you need a better customer messaging platform with a unified view of analytics. Social CRM and customer segmentation can be completed effortlessly if you compile them on a single platform. You can truly understand your customers and use the actionable insights collected to create the best social selling strategy.

Social messaging is the most direct communication if we cannot do face-to-face communication.

TAI SENG YEE

Executive Director, ZENXIN

See the success story of the award-winning producer, distributor, and retailer of organic produce, ZENXIN Organic, to find out how to benefit the most from a customer messaging platform.

Unlock the potential of your business with a powerful customer messaging platform via SleekFlow

A customer messaging platform has become an essential tool for businesses, allowing them to engage with their customers through in-depth, meaningful conversations. By leveraging the power of an omnichannel platform, businesses can unlock the potential of their business and take it to new heights. 

On SleekFlow, you can get powerful features of the best customer messaging platform, such as automated conversations, customer segmentation, analytics, and customization options, in which you can create a seamless customer experience that will keep them coming back for more.

With the right strategy on the best omnichannel platform in place, you can unlock the full potential of your brand and increase the bottom line.

As the best customer instant messaging platform, SleekFlow offers the best omnichannel strategy to ace the management of customer messaging without breaking a sweat. The all-in-one inbox allows you to use all popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM, and more without missing out on messages. You can also scale your business through other features:

  • Own customer conversations as company assets, avoid agents from bringing customers to competitors after leaving

  • Create automated workflows and customer support chatbots on an easy-to-use interface

  • Organize marketing campaigns with personalized broadcast messages and monitor results with detailed analytics

  • Develop a seamless chat-to-pay journey using in-chat payment links

  • Maintain a common voice and tone for branding across channels

  • Track customer journey and leads from campaigns right next to the chat via CRM integrations (e.g. Salesforce and HubSpot CRM integration)

  • Label chats and categorize conversations according to priorities with proper social CRM and segmentation

  • Draft orders in the chat and send to customers with native Shopify integration

  • Using the app from mobile devices as an instant messaging app to experience the best collaborative tool

There’s also a free plan available, making it the best customer messaging platform for startups to try for free - and the good news is that there is no expiration date!

Want to outcompete your peers with SleekFlow's help?

Book your personalized demo with SleekFlow today and unlock the potential of seamless communication

Recommended for you

Automate your growth with SleekFlow

Get started for free and supercharge your customer engagement.