How industrial companies can offer innovative customer communication
Competition in the industrial export sector is constantly increasing: factors like global interconnection, high production costs and a shortage of qualified personnel can create pressure on industry brands.
In this article, we’ll show you how to outperform the competition by offering innovative and efficient messaging app customer service for all industry sectors.
In this article you’ll discover:
- Why should you use messaging apps for customer service?
- Five use cases showing how to effectively use messaging app communication
- How can you get started with secure, innovative messaging app communication?
Why should you use messaging apps for customer service?
Messaging app customer service is fast, innovative and leads to smoother customer experiences. By using messaging apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or iMessage, you can increase customer satisfaction. According to the Washington Post , customer satisfaction for interactions via messaging apps is 25% higher than via phone.
Industry target groups use messaging apps
The agency Brandpunkt and John Deere, manufacturer of agricultural machinery, confirm that the target group of industrial companies uses messaging apps. Around 90% of their target group uses WhatsApp. The company would not be able to reach its target audience via email in the same way because WhatsApp dominates the attention for push notifications.
Five industry use cases showing how to effectively use messaging app communication
Which scenarios are possible for manufacturing companies to successfully implement customer service via messenger?
1. Process damage reports, repeat orders or complaints via 1:1 chat
Your customer contacts you because the delivered construction machine has a damage and needs to be repaired quickly. Damage reports like these were previously submitted by fax, e-mail or telephone. However, this process can be taken care of faster and more personally using messaging apps, which can also be used to send multimedia content (pictures, videos, documents, etc.) in real time. This allows service colleagues to immediately understand the extent of the damage and which spare parts are required.
Real Life Use Case: How Transgourmet uses 1:1 chat for successful customer communication
The B2B company Transgourmet uses the 1:1 customer service via messaging apps to handle product information questions, availability requests, repeat orders, cancellations or general service topics such as address changes. “Most customers don’t even ask what messaging apps like WhatsApp should be used for, but use it for service questions intuitively,” says Luca from Transgourmet. You can learn more about this use case in our exclusive interview .
2. Use Chatbots to automatically answer product questions
Manufacturing companies often have a particularly high volume of incoming questions about product specifications. Your customers can easily request product information via WhatsApp & co. using a direct 1:1 chat with your customer service. Even more efficiently, you can support customer engagement with a chatbot. Your customer can type a product number in a WhatsApp chat, send it, and automatically receive the required information. This gives your customer an immediate answer to his product question and enables him to complete his actual tasks more quickly. Your support now longer has to handle routine, often-repeated questions and can focus on more complex questions.
3. Hire workers more easily using messaging app job applications
In the area of Human Resources (HR), two scenarios are possible for industrial companies.
1) An applicant uses messaging apps to ask your company which jobs there are in the production area. Your colleagues in the HR department send the open positions in a 1:1 chat. If the applicant finds a position interesting, he or she sends his or her application via messenger to the HR contact person who decides whether or not to invite the applicant for an interview.
2) An important point when hiring new employees is their qualifications. These are often queried on company websites in a complex portal system. The target group, on the other hand, chats every day on messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. This means that applicants are much more likely to apply if the pre-qualification is handled on a different platform or taken over by a chatbot. The chatbot asks the candidates the most important questions and collects the answers. This enables the HR team to match the applicant’s qualifications with the job profile more quickly and to proceed in a 1:1 chat with the candidate. Our short demo video shows you how it works.
Real Life Use Case: How Siemens uses personal consultation via chat for HR
The company Siemens uses messaging apps in their HR department. Applicants are advised quickly and personally in a 1:1 chat all about vacancies and training. Candidates learn in real time what tasks are part of the job description and can compare these with their own qualifications in a personal consulting chat with an HR employee. Candidates will be informed immediately whether they match or not. In addition, documents, pictures or videos can be exchanged quickly and easily between applicants and companies.
4. Personal consulting via 1:1 chat and chatbots
Your colleagues in sales or field service have to be available on site to answer questions or take orders from their customers or suppliers and help them with any issues. But do your colleagues really have to be there in person for these issues, or really handle the same tedious telephone calls? You can actually answer your regularly-repeated customer inquiries automatically via chatbot. This frees up resources and leads to more efficient work processes. Our Chatbot Builder can easily be used to create simple and effective chatbots.
Real Life Use Cases: How Südzucker supports farmers in 1:1 chat
The B2B company Südzucker supports their beet farmer customers using messaging apps. Farmers can use WhatsApp to ask why seeds do not arrive on time and what measures they can take. If there is a pest infestation, they can use photos to ask what type of pest it is. This enables them to assess whether there is a need for action and, if so, to what extent. The beet growers are helped directly from the head office with tips and tricks in real time via messaging apps.
5. Send appointments, reservations or payment confirmations via WhatsApp
In addition to customer service via 1:1 chat, there is also the option of using WhatsApp notifications . Customers must agree to receive these notifications beforehand. There are currently 10 types of notifications available for selected customer service scenarios. They range from notifications for updates during the payment process to notifications for deliveries of already purchased products (shipping confirmation, delivery update, or time of receipt).
What could such a scenario look like? Your customer has to have his machine serviced regularly. To make an appointment, he will receive an Appointment Update Notification in real time after having previously agreed to messaging app contact.
The following WhatsApp notification types are specifically useful for industry companies:
- Alert – alert warnings, helpful new information, urgent updates
- Appointment – scheduling appointments
- Issue Resolution – message asking about the status of an open request
How can you get started with secure, innovative messaging app service?
All these examples can only be implemented with the right tool. Our Messenger Communication Platform can be used immediately and is browser-based. It enables you to offer scalable customer service, which is 100% GDPR-compliant. The unified messenger approach makes your company reachable on the world’s most popular messaging apps and to process these inquiries from the various messengers centrally in one platform. We offer comprehensive support, with experience from more than 1,800 enterprise customer cases. Our Help Center was additionally developed for our customers who prefer self-service learning. With our Chatbot Builder, you can quickly develop effective chatbots to support you in customer service, without any programming knowledge. The multi-agent and rights management allows different employees in different departments to use the tool at the same time. In addition to in-tool statistics reporting, there are two options for you to connect the Messenger Communication Platform to your existing CRM. Either you use it as a standalone solution or the CRM integration is done via our open API. You can find out more about the Messenger Communication Platform on our website.
Tip: Want to learn more about how to get started with messaging customer communication for your industry sector? Check out our free webinars ! Our experts explain the strategy behind the modern communication and give you an inside look into our tool.
Have a great idea for customer service via messaging apps for the tourism industry and want to talk about it? Message us!
