A mobile messaging campaign is conversational by its very nature. You text out information to a wide number of people; they respond; then you send them further information based on their responses. For most organizations, those conversations are largely automated. In some cases, an organization might want to have its staff members send direct messages to their mobile community.
In some situations, however, you may want to provide a live, immediate response to your users. For those customers, Upland Mobile Messaging lets you create real-time text chat, by integrating with LivePerson.
LivePerson over SMS
LivePerson is best known for their chat platform, which lets companies chat in real time with visitors on their websites. Upland Mobile Messaging has integrated their software into our system, so you can chat with people on their mobile phones.
Real-time text chat doesn’t make sense for everybody. For one thing, you need to have a staff set up to field the incoming questions. There also has to be a need. If you’re sending out organizational updates, or trivia about New York, for example, a fully staffed call center and live chat might be overkill.
But for some organizations, text chat can be the perfect solution to a real problem. For one example, Planned Parenthood has created a text chat “hotline” for teens to send in their sexual health questions. Health experts provide real-time feedback and advice, and in some cases, can direct the teens to local health clinics near them. By providing the immediacy of chat with the anonymity of text messaging, Planned Parenthood can give teens vital information about an embarrassing subject in a way that’s convenient for them.
Using Text Chat Instead of a Call Center
Health information is just one example of a potential use for live chat. Any call center could be converted to a text chat hotline. Customer service is one obvious example – how great would it be for you to be able to text in your computer problem or billing complaint, and rather than sitting on the phone, just get a text back?
As people more and more prefer texting to talking, that could be the convenient solution in our immediate future.