When you want to measure customer engagement related to texting, you must consider factors beyond open rates and read rates. We talked about texting stats that relate to engagement in a previous post and now we’re going into even more detail!
With more and more businesses picking up their phones to text customers, you need to carefully think about all the ways that positive engagement occurs. Optimizing your engagement means helping more people and connecting more often.
In this article we’ll go over some “common” metrics for customer engagement as well as slightly less quantifiable measures that provide valuable information and insights.
Response Rates and Sentiment
This isn’t just about how many people respond to each message overall. You need to also focus on how often each individual person is responding as well as the sentiment of responses. Looking at the sentiment of responses helps you figure out areas of improvement as well as helps you pinpoint which customers might need more attention.
You can use how often someone responds combined with the sentiment of their responses to understand which customers are likely to be your best advocates. Here are some questions to get you started as you measure customer engagement of responses and sentiment.
- Who are the customers who respond to (nearly) every message?
- Do people respond more on certain days of the week or at certain hours of the day?
- When do people most frequently tell you to stop texting them?
- What sort of messages get the best responses overall? Is it a certain type of call to action or announcement?
- When do customers respond most positively?
- What types of messages never get responses or seem to elicit negative responses?
All of these questions help you dive deeper into analyzing your engagement and then plan future marketing and customer support campaigns.
Questions Asked
You should be asking lots of questions in your texts. That’s how you find out about people’s needs and keep conversations going. But you should also look closely at the questions people are asking you. Questions are a type of response and the more questions you get, the more engaged customers are. Examine these aspects of the conversations to see how well you’re doing.
First off, who asks follow-up questions and requests more information when you text them? Who doesn’t wait for you to text them and feels comfortable just reaching out? Knowing the answers to these questions can once again help you identify customers who are more likely to be brand advocates.
If people are never reaching out unprompted, you need to figure out why that type of engagement is so low. You want your customers to feel comfortable reaching out to you and you want them continually pursuing education from you. That generally means they trust you to teach them something or to help them improve.
Second, what are the most frequently asked questions? Based on the types of questions people ask you, you better understand where you need to make changes.
For example, if everyone seems to struggle with following directions you’ve written and they text in asking questions about a specific process, it’s time to A) rethink that process completely, B) explain that process in a different way, or C) both.
Frequently asked questions can also be turned into what are essentially canned responses. Within Skipio we have the Message Library where you can write a message and save it for future use. That way you can quickly and easily customize a message to respond. (Love those fast customer service answers!)
Actions After Link Clicks
Tracking how many people click on links is one of the most basic engagement metrics. But it’s just one part you should be thinking about. Once someone clicks on the link, you need to worry about whether they actually watch the video, read the landing page, fill out the form, leave feedback, etc.
Depending on the purpose of the link, these actions can be harder to track. For instance, it’s easy to see that someone you invited to schedule a meeting has gone ahead and done so. But you won’t necessarily know whether someone actually watched the tutorial video you sent.
To help encourage more actions after link clicks, you need to follow up. Sometimes people just need a reminder to leave a review or fill out a survey. Asking if they had questions about the document you sent them can also prompt people to read more closely. A quick text reminding them of any of these things keeps them accountable.
Just make sure you’re giving people ample time to perform the action. If a customer requested an ebook, you sent it to them, and then not even 5 minutes later you’re asking what they thought, that’s not exactly beneficial.
But texting them later that day or the next morning could be the nudge or reminder they need to actually open it and read it.
And if you really prioritize personalization, you won’t just ask if they read it. Instead, you ask about them about specific things that call back to previous conversations. For example, “The second section is related to what we talked about last week. Did anything stand out to you in that section?” or “I know you wanted some insight on ________. Did the guide help?”
Texting affords you a lot of unique opportunities to reach out and build relationships. Take the opportunity you have now to start trying it. Because hopefully you feel better prepared to measure customer engagement with these metrics! As a bonus, when you look at these metrics and apply what you learn, you further improve your customer retention strategy.
Get started today by signing up for Skipio. It’s the easiest and fastest way to start engaging your prospects and customers with texting.
