SMS is a convenient way for customers to contact your brand and receive fast support. It’s no wonder it’s one of the top five channels that consumers expect to engage with brands, alongside email, voice, website, and in-person.
Every Gorgias plan now includes two-way SMS at no additional cost, making it easy for your brand to start offering this conversational channel.
Why offer SMS support?
There are many reasons to offer customer service messaging, but here are the top four:
It’s fast and conversational
SMS is a conversational, real-time channel. The benefit of this is that customers tend to keep the conversation short and reply quickly to follow-up questions, meaning your agents can resolve the situation quickly, too.
Customers can contact you while they’re “on the go”
Most people keep their phone with them everywhere they go. With SMS, it’s easy for customers to start the conversation and follow-up as they move throughout their day, instead of feeling stuck to a chat conversation on their laptop.
It’s natural for younger customers
Sending text messages feels like you’re texting a friend, even if it’s actually between customers and your brand. Younger clientele will feel natural using this support channel, and it can even help you build that friendly-feeling into your brand perception.
It makes sending photos back and forth easy
Does your refund or return policy require photo evidence to kick off the process? If your customers ever need to send pictures of damaged items or wrong products, SMS is the perfect channel because they’re probably taking those photos on their phone anyway.
Still not sure if SMS is a support channel your brand should prioritize? Try it for 2 weeks. Because SMS is included in every Gorgias plan, it’s easy to turn off if you decide it isn’t right.
Recommended reading: Our list of 60+ fascinating customer service statistics.
How to add SMS to your helpdesk
You’ll need two things to get started with Gorgias SMS. (Don’t worry, they’re both quick!)
If you’re new here, get started on the Gorgias helpdesk. It only takes a few minutes to create an account, and you can always book a call with our sales team if you have questions.
The second is a Gorgias-owned phone number, meaning you either created it in Gorgias or ported it from your previous phone provider. You can do both of these actions in Settings > Phone Numbers.
Note: SMS is currently only available for US, UK, and Canadian numbers.
Once your phone number is ready in Gorgias, you can add the SMS integration to it. You can do this from Settings > Integrations > SMS.
Once the integration is active, you’re ready to start replying to SMS conversations from your customers.
To tell your customers they can now text your brand, we recommend adding “Text us,” plus your phone number, in some or all of these places:
- The footer of your website
- The “Contact Us” page of your website
- Your Gorgias Help Center
- Transactional emails (order confirmation, return initiated, etc.)
4 automation Rules to help you get started
Below are four top automation rules to take full advantage of SMS customer service. We also have a full guide on customer service messaging that includes templates and macros to upgrade your SMS support.
Auto-tag with “SMS”
SMS is an official channel in Gorgias, meaning you can see SMS-specific stats or create SMS-specific Views out of the box. There may be times when you also want to Tag tickets with “SMS” however, in which case you can do so with a Rule like this:
Auto-assign to a real-time team
SMS is a fast, conversational channel, so you’ll want to assign these tickets to agents that can keep up with the pace. If you have a dedicated chat team, they’ll be naturals at answering questions via SMS, as well. Here’s a Rule that will automatically assign SMS tickets to a specific team.
Auto-reply: Message received
When customers text your brand, they’ll expect a fast response. In order to buy your agents some time, we recommend sending an auto-response to let the customer know their message has been received and an agent will be with them shortly. This will also give them confidence that the text message did in fact go through, so they don’t follow-up right away.
Auto-reply: Order status
Whenever you add a new communication channel for your customers, you should consider how you’ll respond to WISMO (“Where is my order?”) questions on it. With SMS, you’ll want to keep the length of your reply in mind so you’re not sending an insanely long text message back to customers. We recommend creating a Rule that can A) make sure the reply follows the best format for SMS and B) save your agents from having to answer these WISMO questions manually.
Next: Connect your SMS marketing apps for a seamless experience
Gorgias SMS empowers your brand to keep the conversation going on SMS, even when your customers are on the go.
We also integrate with SMS marketing apps, making it easier for agents to answer promotion replies from one workspace. They can work more efficiently while turning SMS questions into opportunities for better customer value.
In the Gorgias App Store, you’ll find some of the top ecommerce integration partners like Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript, and more.
If your brand is using any of these apps to drive sales via SMS, we highly recommend integrating with Gorgias so your team can work more efficiently toward your revenue goals. When SMS marketing and SMS customer service work in tandem, they are far more powerful.
Want to see an example of a brand that successfully launched SMS customer support and effectively drove customers to use the new channel? Check out our playbook of Berkey Filters, an ecommerce merchant that did just that.
Ready to get started with this conversational support channel? Add SMS to your Gorgias helpdesk today or book a call with our team to learn more.
