All eCommerce businesses continuously strive to deliver great customer experience and generate higher revenues. To achieve this, you need advanced solutions such as a personalized recommendation engine, analytics and reporting functionality, smart logistics capability, and more.

However, building each of these solutions in-house may take years of effort and resources. But the good news is you don't need to build these solutions from scratch. There are ample AI solutions in the market that you can readily implement to optimize your entire customer journey. 

And most experts vouch for the benefits of AI in eCommerce. For example, Salesforce data notes that 84% of eCommerce professionals say using AI gives companies a competitive advantage.

In this post, we will cover top AI applications in eCommerce and suggest tools that you can easily adopt.

Impact of AI on customer journey

Let's see how you can use AI to optimize all customer touchpoints: 

1. Brand awareness: Marketing your eCommerce store

The first step of the customer journey is raising awareness and making more and more consumers aware of your brand/products. To raise such awareness, you need engaging marketing campaigns across top channels: social media, email, and SMS. 

But it’s not easy to manage multiple channels together. 

An AI-powered omnichannel marketing solution like Plivo CX can easily boost your marketing efforts. For example, with the Copywriter AI feature, you can enter a few details about the campaign, and the platform will auto-generate the message for you. No need to spend hours crafting that perfect message. 

Another issue in managing marketing campaigns is finding the right time to message. What if you spend days drafting the perfect message only to find that the customer didn't even open it? All your efforts simply go to waste.

 AI can help you win this guessing game. Plivo AI suggests the right time to send a marketing message so that you have the best open rate. 

Apart from crafting the messages for campaigns, another task that takes the most time is designing graphics. You need an excellent design team. Also, you need to have the time in hand to coordinate with them to explain your vision so they can create the graphics. 

Sometimes, there is a lack of time and, sometimes, a lack of resources. AI can be your designer in that case. 

Midjourney is an excellent AI tool that you can use to create images for your marketing campaigns. It creates hyper-realistic images based on the prompts you provide. With the right set of prompts, its image outputs are so realistic that, controversially, it is one of the first AI tools to win an art competition! 

You can create graphics quickly and launch your campaigns faster by using such generative AI tools. 

2. Product search: Improving product catalog search

Once customers open an eCommerce store online, they are searching for that “one” product. Sometimes, it takes just a few scrolls, or sometimes, the scroll lasts hours. 

Optimizing this experience will ensure your customers find what they need as soon as possible and do not stop scrolling mid-way. 

Vue.ai, an AI orchestration platform, understands the shopper intent and autocomplete searches. Sometimes, users search incorrectly with typos or incomplete information. 

Of course, there is no one perfect way to search for a product. So, as a business, you need to decode their intent. Vue can interpret typos/shopper intent and show relevant results.  

Another way to speed up product search is by supporting visual search. You can take advantage of an AI platform like Visenze. Users can upload images of the product, and the Visenze search engine will instantly show relevant results based on the uploaded image. 

Make product search simple for your customers using AI.

3. Product selection: Recommending the right products 

Your best product may not be the best for customers. So, it's not just about optimizing the search. It's about optimizing the search for the user so you can suggest products that are right for them. This way, you can make personalized recommendations based on user behavior and purchase history. 

Apart from product search, Vue.ai also helps eCommerce companies build a personalized search engine that constantly learns from customer behavior. It builds a profile for every user based on their actions on the site and suggests products accordingly. 

Salesforce points out that 73% of customers expect better-personalized experiences from businesses than what they are currently getting. AI can help you fulfill their expectations. Moreover, with agentic AI built into the ecommerce workflow, systems can adjust recommendations in real time and advance the purchase flow once the right product is identified.

4. Product purchase: Set dynamic pricing

Imagine selling a product and then realizing you could have sold it at a better price. Or find out you are losing all your customers to a competitor who is selling the same product for a cheaper price.

Dynamic pricing is a powerful strategy that allows you to adjust prices based on supply, demand, and market trends. 

During peak seasons, you can raise prices to maximize profits. During slow periods, you can lower them to boost sales. You can also monitor the market to establish competitive pricing and stay relevant. 

Sounds interesting? But wondering how you can implement this strategy? 

Doing this manually by going through the product catalog is neither easy nor efficient. You can use Dynamicpricing.ai to optimize pricing. It monitors product demand/supply,  competitor products, and historical trends to define pricing. 

With dynamic pricing, you will ensure your business has continuous cash flow. It also keeps your customers happy as they pay a fair price for the product based on industry trends. 

5. Product delivery: Use smart logistics  

Now, with growing quick commerce options, consumers want products as fast as possible. A delay in product delivery can cost you a customer. 

Using AI can help you in the timely processing of orders. An AI-driven smart logistics platform helps streamline operations, automate manual tasks, and regulate the overall workflow. 

Blue Yonder is one such platform that helps you deliver an impeccable last-mile experience. Using Blue Yonder, you can:

• Automate manual partner processes
• Do real-time tracking of orders
• Optimize delivery routes
• Provide fast and cost-effective delivery 

6. Customer service:  Use chatbots and automation 

It's not just getting that first order. How you deal with customers when they want to initiate a return or have any queries will tell whether they will order from you again. 

Providing great customer service is a must in this competitive market. But it's not operationally heavy and expensive to provide excellent customer service. 

You can make it effective and quick by using AI-powered chatbots and automation. They can be trained on specific data sets to accurately answer repetitive queries of customers 24*7. Also, to avoid escalation, the call can be transferred to customer service agents.

Plivo CX’s AI-powered platform also serves as an effective customer service tool that lets you bring all your customer conversations (chatbots, live chat, voice, SMS, WhatsApp) into one platform. 

This helps your customers resolve their queries right from the platform they use the most, while agents also gain a complete context of customer issues without switching channels. 

Impact of AI beyond customer journey

AI can also optimize the following two processes running in the background:

1. Inventory management

Manual inventory management is prone to errors. AI helps you analyze product demand, sales history, customer trends, and market trends and maintain the right inventory to fulfill customer orders. It also provides real-time insights into inventory levels. 

Logility is an AI-first supply chain planning solution, using which you can:

• Predict promotional demand
• Get real-time visibility into supply chain activities
• Find the best source of supply
• Optimize inventory strategies.

2. Fraud detection

Global eCommerce companies lost $48 billion to online payment fraud activities in 2023. The most common payment fraud is friendly fraud, where a customer completes a purchase with their debit or credit card and then raises a dispute with their bank to get a refund. 

In 2021, nearly 40% of online merchants worldwide reportedly encountered this type of attack.

It's time-consuming and tedious for employees to manually review all transactions and raise red flags. You also need to build a big team to do this. The good news is AI can do this faster for you. 

Signifyd, an eCommerce fraud protection platform, provides guaranteed protection against fraud chargebacks. It analyzes data to identify patterns and trends associated with fraudulent transactions, interpret consumer behavior, and approve more “good” orders. The tool also detects suspicious activity to reduce fraudulent chargebacks. 

Use Plivo CX for effective marketing and customer Service

Plivo CX is an all-in-one, omnichannel marketing and customer service solution that helps you segment, reach, and engage more customers while taking care of the full customer experience lifecycle. 

With AI features, you can create and optimize SMS, email, and WhatsApp campaigns, send the right messages at the right time based on your customers’ actions and monitor the impact of the campaigns.

Plivo CX also ensures your support teams deliver exceptional service and automate handling repetitive queries by AI chatbots. 

Want to boost your customer experience using AI? Sign up for a free trial.

Imagine spending countless resources to attract customers to your online store, only to see them leave without making a purchase or never returning after their first buy. 

Today customers have several options to buy from. It’s difficult to stand out from the competition and keep your customers engaged. 

Without effective ecommerce customer engagement strategies, you risk losing valuable customers to competitors who are better at fostering relationships and building loyalty.

Effective customer engagement is your key to keeping customers hooked to your ecommerce brand. By prioritizing personalized interactions, seamless multi-channel experiences, and real-time support, you can transform casual shoppers into loyal customers. 

In this blog, we proven ecommerce customer engagement strategies so your customers keep coming back for more.

Let’s dive in.

What is Ecommerce Customer Engagement?

Ecommerce customer engagement is the act of enhancing customers’ relationships with brands through various strategies such as gamification, influencer marketing, virtual experiences and online communities. 

Once your customers are engaged, they trust your brand more, buy more and share positive reviews about your brand. By engaging customers across various touchpoints, you instill a positive brand image in customers’ minds so they prefer you over your competitors. 

Importance of Customer Engagement in Ecommerce 

With thousands of options for every customer, ecommerce customer engagement is your key to stand out. Here’s why you need to focus of customer engagement in ecommerce:

1. Increased customer loyalty: Personalized ecommerce customer engagement fosters loyalty. Engaged customers are more likely to return for repeat purchases and become brand advocates.

2. Enhanced customer experience: Effective customer engagement ensures a seamless shopping experience across all touchpoints. This includes personalized recommendations, efficient customer service, and a user-friendly interface, all contributing to higher customer satisfaction and retention.

3. Higher conversion rates: Personalized marketing and real-time support, can lead to higher conversion rates. By addressing customer needs and preferences businesses can drive more sales and reduce cart abandonment.

4. Valuable customer insights: Engaging with customers provides valuable insights into their behaviors, preferences, and feedback. You can use this data to create customer segments, optimize marketing strategies, improve products, and tailor services to meet customer demands better. 

5. Competitive advantage: A well-executed customer engagement plan sets a brand apart from its competitors. By maintaining active engagement, you can build a strong brand reputation and attract more customers through word-of-mouth and positive reviews. 

Top E Commerce customer engagement strategies 

1.Use customer data to deliver personalized experiences

80% of customers are willing to share data in exchange for deals and offers. Their only demand is personalized experiences. Customers expect your brand to understand their preferences and deliver tailored customer experiences that resonate with their individual needs.

By collecting and analyzing customer data like browsing history, purchase history, social media interactions, and even customer feedback, you can gain valuable insights into their behaviors, preferences, and purchasing patterns. 

Use this data to create detailed customer profiles that help you deliver relevant content, offers, and recommendations to increase. Or, you can let Plivo CX do it for you. 

Plivo CX syncs real-time contacts from your Shopify store, and provides 360 degree visibility into their storefront activities, engagement and purchases. Use this information to create customer segments with as many rules as you like. 

You can capture events from your storefront like a customer leaving a product in their cart and trigger specific responses such as abandoned cart messages. This way, you can send 100% personalized messages to increase ecommerce engagement. 

2.Create an easy-to-use user interface

User interface is crucial to make customers stay on your ecommerce website. The importance of UI reflects in various statistics such as this:

“As page load time goes from 1 second to 10 second, the possibility of a mobile website visitor bouncing increases 123%.”

A well-designed website increases user experience and encourages users to explore further. When customers are able find everything without any friction, they’re more likely to return to your website. 

Here are some tips to enhance UI:

• Clear Menus: Use clear, descriptive labels for menu items to ensure the most important pages are easy to find.
• Breadcrumbs: Implement breadcrumb navigation to help users understand their current location on the site and easily backtrack if needed.
• Fast Loading Times: Optimize images and use efficient coding practices to ensure your site loads quickly on all devices especially mobiles.
• Consistent Design: Maintain consistency in fonts, colors, and button styles throughout your site to create a cohesive look.
• Whitespace: Use whitespace effectively to avoid clutter and make your content more readable. 
• Auto-fill Options: Enable auto-fill features in forms so users can quickly fill them up. 
• Engaging Features: Create a dynamic user experience with interactive elements such as sliders, hover effects, and animations to engage users.

3.Share interactive content 

Interactive content is designed to engage users actively. It encourages them to participate rather than passively consume information. Interactive content like games, quizzes, polls, surveys, interactive infographics, contests and giveaways work well to increase ecommerce customer engagement. 

Here’s a short guide sharing the best interactive content ideas for various ecommerce marketing channels to increase ecommerce engagement:

4.Gamify user experience 

Gamification is becoming popular as a marketing tool for enhancing purchases and customer satisfaction. It motivates consumers through the reward points they get for making more product purchases.

Gamification can cause emotional reactions in consumers, such as a sense of addiction, perceived usefulness, enjoyment, and curiosity. It motivates them to constantly browse on e-commerce sites, keeping them engaged and informed about the current market trends.

A study from Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Business Intelligence mentions that the usage of points, badges, and leaderboard impacts people to be more attentive when surfing the web.

Gamification increases ecommerce engagement as customers remain on those sites that use gamification for a longer period of time than on non-gamified sites. Here’s a table on the impact of various gamification elements on the consumers.

Source: Journal of Information Systems Engineering and Business Intelligence

5.Engage across multiple channels 

Mckinsey’s research shows that more than 59% of customers use 3-5 channels throughout their journey. That’s why omnichannel customer engagement is crucial. It makes sure that your brand is responsive and accessible across multiple channels that your customers may use.

Popular channels to target customer engagement are SMS, email and Whatsapp. You set up separate marketing campaigns for each channel or use an ecommerce marketing automation tool that lets you run all campaigns from one platform. Plivo CX is one such tool.

Plivo CX is a robust marketing automation that’s laden with tools to kickstart SMS marketing, email marketing and Whatsapp marketing from a single platform. It provides end-to-end marketing automation from customer segmentation to personalization to analytics. 
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You can use Plivo CX to get real contacts from your ecommerce store. Then, use the audience feature to build customer segments with unlimited rules. The journey feature in Plivo captures uses events from your storefront to trigger personalized SMS, emails or Whatsapp messages so you always send the right message to the right customer at the right time. 

All you have to do is select a preferred channel, create personalized content and schedule it. You also get an AI copywriting assistant to help you write engaging content. 

You can head over to Plivo CX right now and kickstart your omnichannel customer engagement. 

6.Create seasonal or holiday content 

Seasonal and holiday content can significantly boost ecommerce customer engagement as it taps into the current mood and interests of your audience. During specific times of the year, such as holidays, people actively search related keywords. For instance, searches for terms like "Christmas gift ideas" or "Black Friday deals" spike dramatically during November and December, as shown by Google Trends data.

You can post seasonal content to capitalize on these trends. Plan ahead by creating a content calendar that includes all major holidays and seasonal events relevant to your audience. You can also launch special promotions, discounts, or giveaways tied to the holiday or season.
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For example, here’s how Macy’s campaigned for Father’s day on their website: 

Source: Macy’sTo promote seasonal content on social media, use popular holiday-related hashtags to increase the visibility of your posts. For example, #christmasshopping or #summervacation.

7.Leverage influencer marketing and influencer wishlists 

Businesses are making $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. Additionally, 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations for their purchase decisions. Influencer wishlists, in particular, provide a curated selection of products endorsed by trusted personalities, making them highly effective in attracting customer engagement.Follow these tips to get maximum ecommerce customer engagement from influencer marketing:

• Choose influencers whose followers align with your target audience.
• Prioritize influencers with high engagement rates over those with just a large follower count. 
• Clearly define what you want to achieve with your influencer campaign, whether it’s brand awareness, increased sales, or enhanced social media engagement.
• Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure the success of your campaign, such as click-through rates, conversion rates, and social media impressions.
• Have influencers curate wish lists featuring their favorite products from your brand and offer exclusive discounts or promotions for items on the influencer’s wishlist to incentivize purchases.

8.Provide a virtual experience

As per Mckinsey, 50% of fashion and beauty industry consumers want virtual experiences such try-ons and events. Both virtual and augmented reality help customers better engage with the product. Customers spend time trying on an outfit or a lipstick just for fun which increases their dwell time on your ecommerce website, thus increasing customer engagement. Here’s how you can provide a virtual experience in your ecommerce store to increase customer engagement:

• AR-powered try-ons: Use AR technology to allow customers to virtually try on clothing, accessories, or makeup. 
• 3D product visualization: Provide 3D models of products that customers can view from all angles. This is particularly useful for furniture, home decor, and other large items.

• 360-degree showrooms: Create virtual showrooms where customers can explore your product range in a 360-degree environment. This can mimic the in-store experience online.

• Chatbots and virtual assistants: Implement AI chatbots to assist customers in real-time, providing personalized recommendations based on their preferences and browsing history.

• AR-enhanced content: Incorporate AR elements into your marketing content, such as interactive ads, brochures, or catalogs. For example, users can scan a code to see a product come to life on their device.

9.Build onlines communities

An online community fosters a sense of belonging among customers. You can use this direct line of communication to understand customer needs, preferences, and pain points. Also, an engaged community can become a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool.
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That said, building and nurturing an online community requires a strategic approach and consistent effort.

• First, you must identify a platform where your target audience is most active. This could be a social media platform, a dedicated forum, or a community feature on your website. 

• Once the platform is selected, share valuable content that resonates with your audience such as informative articles, engaging videos, and interactive posts that encourage them to discuss and participate.

You can also host regular events such as webinars, live Q&A sessions, and contests to increase customer engagement. On top of this, you can recognize and reward loyal members through shout-outs, exclusive offers, or a tiered membership program to enhance their sense of belonging.
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Several ecommerce brands have successfully built strong customer communities that bring people together. One notable example is LEGO. The LEGO Ideas community allows fans to submit their own designs for potential new sets. The community gives participants a sense of ownership in the brand’s product development.

Increase Your Ecommerce Customer Engagement using Plivo CX

Your customers need personalized engagement across various touch points. That’s why you need a robust tool that can send messages via multiple channels and Plivo CX is the perfect choice.

Plivo CX helps you engage customers over SMS, email and Whatsapp. It supports your marketing campaigns from syncing contacts to segmentation, content creation and analytics. Plivo CX’s ‘journey’ feature triggers personalized messages based on customer actions so your customers always get the right messages at the right time. 

The best part? You don’t have to write these messages by yourself. Plivo CX comes with an AI copywriting assistant that helps you write engaging copies. 

It’s time to kickstart your ecommerce customer engagement with Plivo CX. Sign up for Plivo CX now!

According to Business News Daily, quality website traffic and visitor conversion are some of the top challenges of ecommerce businesses. The global conversion rate remains less than 3%. Therefore, achieving visibility from purchase-driven consumers is an uphill journey. 

To solve this problem,  you need ecommerce marketing channels that are best suited to attract the right customers at the right time. 

But there are already countless marketing channels. Does that mean you have to surf through each of them to find the right fit? 

Absolutely not! We have already tried out the best options available to create a list of the top ecommerce marketing channels you can readily leverage. 

Let’s dive in. 

What are ecommerce marketing channels? 

Ecommerce marketing channels are tools or platforms that can help you promote your brand and communicate with your target audience. 

These channels could be social media, email marketing, SMS marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and pay-per-click advertising, among others. Through these, you can share content and nurture potential customers at various stages of their journey.

Needless to say, each channel comes with its distinct edge and respective potential to enhance visibility, drive traffic, and boost sales. For example, SMS is one of the best channels to send time-sensitive messages to your customers, whereas SEO builds online credibility over time. 

Now consider this: if you use a tool that offers access to various high-volume marketing channels, along with its extensive messaging network, it could be a valuable asset for your company. 

Could this be the missing piece for your business? We'll uncover the answer soon.

Before moving forward, let's examine some of the most impactful ecommerce marketing channels and tools that yield tangible results.

Top ecommerce marketing channels

SMS marketing

52% of customers have purchased a product from a brand after being influenced by their text messages. Because of text messages’ almost 100% open rate, SMS marketing is perfect for delivering time-sensitive alerts like sales offers, flash sales, and urgent updates to nudge people to purchase. 

Here’s how you can leverage SMS as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Take consent: Use opt-in forms, keyword campaigns (e.g., texting a specific word to a number), or checkboxes during the checkout process to gain consent of your customers.

• Identify your brand: Each message must include your brand name at the beginning so recipients immediately recognize who the message is from.

• Add clear CTAs: Add CTAs, such as “Shop now” or “Get 20% off today,” to direct customers toward specific actions. These CTAs help you drive traffic to your website and encourage purchases.

• Personalized messaging: Send highly-tailored messages to engage customers. For example, share special offers on their birthdays and anniversaries to build personal connections. Additionally, you can segment customers using SMS marketing tools and then trigger specific messages based on key events.

• Comply with regulations: Customers have control over their SMS subscriptions. To ensure compliance with privacy laws and regulations such as TCPA, CAN-SPAM, and GDPR, include opt-in and opt-out options, avoid misleading content and identify your brand in all messages.

Here’s a perfect example of a brand SMS by Lashify. It’s short, conversational, and includes a CTA and an option to unsubscribe. 

Now that we've seen an example of an effective brand SMS, let's explore a tool that can help businesses create and manage such messaging campaigns at scale.

Plivo CX is a web-based omnichannel marketing engagement platform suited for midmarket and ecommerce companies. It provides a single platform to manage all SMS marketing activities. You can deploy an SMS marketing campaign in four simple steps: 

1. Select your audience
2. Schedule SMS
3. Create messages with AI assistance
4. Track performance with analytics

Besides offering an AI copywriter so that you can craft engaging messaging on the go, the Plivo CX platform comes packed with audience management features so you can segment your customers based on their buying habits. Following this, you can quickly share personalized messages to each segment. 

You also get access to Journeys, which lets you capture events from your storefront to trigger personalized messages for customers at the most relevant times. 
Also, Plivo’s premium carrier network comes with global coverage that lets you deliver messages globally with high reliability.

WhatsApp marketing 

With over 3 billion active users worldwide, WhatsApp is the world's most popular messaging app—and it's likely your customers are already using it. This platform is ideal for building direct relationships, delivering timely updates, and promoting your products or services to your target audience.

Here’s how you can use WhatsApp as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Obtain customer consent: Customer consent is important when sharing messages on WhatsApp. Use opt-in forms on your website, social media, or during the checkout page to seek permission.
• Create a business profile: Set up a WhatsApp Business account to access features tailored for businesses. Customize your profile with your logo, business description, contact information, and website link to establish credibility.
• Personalized messaging: Use customer data to address them by name and tailor messages based on their purchase history and preferences. You can also share personalized greetings on special occasions.
• Broadcast lists and groups: Utilize broadcast lists to send messages to multiple contacts at once. You can create groups to engage customers in discussions and receive support.
• Use quick replies and automated messages: Set up quick replies for common questions and automated messages for welcome greetings or out-of-office notifications. 

You can get started with WhatsApp marketing with Plivo CX. It lets you segment your audience, schedule WhatsApp messages, craft compelling copy with AI, and monitor your campaign’s performance—all in one platform. 

This way, you can stay top-of-mind with your customers and reach them through their most-used channels.

Email marketing

The 2023 Square Future of Commerce report found that 60% of consumers listed email as their preferred method. 

Compared to SMS, emails allow for more comprehensive communication. You can add infographics, images and videos to creatively educate your customers and solve their problems. 

Here’s how you can use email as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Build a quality email list: Use sign-up forms on your website, pop-ups, and social media campaigns to encourage visitors to subscribe. Offer incentives like discounts or free resources to entice people to join your list.

• Segment your audience: Divide your email list into segments based on demographics, purchase history, and engagement levels to send more targeted messages to each group.
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  For this, Plivo CX comes with a powerful code-free segment builder that lets you segment your contacts with as many rules as you’d like.
  

• Create compelling subject lines: 47% of recipients open emails based on subject lines alone. Your subject line is the first thing recipients see, so make it catchy and intriguing. Use action words and personalization to increase open rates. For example, "Exclusive 20% Off Just for You, [Name]!"

• Share personalized content: Include the recipient’s name and tailor content to their preferences and past purchase behaviors. You can also use dynamic content, such as triggering an abandoned cart email whenever someone leaves a product in the cart or greeting them with special offers on their birthdays and anniversaries.

• Design for Mobile: Ensure your emails are mobile-friendly, as a significant portion of users check their emails on smartphones. Use responsive design, concise text, and large, tappable buttons to enhance the mobile experience.

• Automate Your Campaigns: Use email marketing tools to automate your campaigns. Set up welcome series, abandoned cart reminders, and post-purchase follow-ups to keep customers engaged without manual effort. 

Here’s a perfect example of a brand email:

You can kickstart your email campaigns with Plivo CX by segmenting customers and building automated workflow sequences for welcome emails, abandoned cart emails, re-engagement emails and much more. Also, the  AI writing assistant can help you here as well, as you can write and develop personalized emails within the platform.

Retargeting

98% of first-time visitors leave your website without making a purchase. 

Retargeting is perfect for bringing back these potential customers. You remind them of the products they've shown interest in. 

Here’s how you can use retargeting as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Set up retargeting pixels: Install retargeting pixels (small snippets of code) on your website to track visitors. These pixels help collect data on visitors’ behaviors, which you can use to create targeted ads later.

• Segment your audience: Create visitor segments based on their behavior, such as pages viewed, items added to the cart, or time spent on the site. With these segments, you deliver highly relevant ads to different groups of potential customers.

• Create engaging dynamic ads: Design ads that feature the products or categories your website visitors viewed. Use eye-catching images, compelling copy, and strong CTAs like "complete your purchase" or "your cart misses you" to encourage clicks.

• Frequency capping: To avoid overwhelming potential customers, set frequency caps on your ads. These caps let you limit the number of times an ad is shown to the same person to prevent ad fatigue.

• A/B testing: Use the insights from Meta or Google to test different ad creatives, copy, and CTAs for click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, and return on ad spend (ROAS) to determine what resonates best with your target audience.

Influencer and affiliate marketing

As per a Statista survey, 32% of marketers say that influencer marketing results in increased engagement, while 19% say that it results in increase in social media traffic. Influencer or affiliate marketing is perfect for leveraging word of mouth to expand your reach and drive sales.

Here’s how you can use influencer and affiliate marketing as ecommerce marketing channels:

• Identify relevant influencers: Look for influencers whose audience and values align with your target market. You can use tools like BuzzSumo or Social Blade to find influencers based on engagement, reach, and relevance to your brand. 
• Create mutually beneficial partnerships: Offer influencers incentives such as free products, commission on sales, or flat fees for promoting your products. You can also offer tiered commissions, which reward top-performing affiliates with higher percentage commissions.
• Set clear objectives and guidelines: Communicate your goals such as increasing brand awareness or driving sales. Also, provide influencers with creative briefs along with banners, product images, and pre-written copy to ensure consistency. 
• Track performance: Use unique discount codes or affiliate links to track the performance of each influencer. You can track metrics like engagement rates, CTR, and conversions to evaluate effectiveness.

Here’s a perfect example of a successful influencer collaboration by Glossier. This reel shared by Emily Weiss on her Instagram, in collaboration with Glossier, has 468k views and 4686 likes. 

Source: Instagram

Google ads

As per Databox’s recent survey, most businesses get 3.1-6% ROI from Google Ads. Google Ads are perfect for reaching your potential customers right at the moment they are searching for products or services like yours. 

Here’s how you can use Google Ads as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Conduct keyword research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify relevant keywords for which your target audience is searching. Focus on a mix of broad, exact, and long-tail keywords to capture various search intents.

• Create compelling ad copy: Write clear, concise, and compelling ad copy that highlights your unique selling propositions (USPs). Include your keywords in the ad copy and use strong CTAs to increase conversions.
• Use ad extensions: Ad extensions let you add contact details, site links, CTAs, and more to increase their visibility and CTR. For instance, you can link to specific product pages or highlight special offers to increase conversions.
• Leverage shopping ads: Use shopping ads to display product images, prices, and merchant names directly in the search results so users can find and shop your products right when they search for them on Google. 
• Set up conversion tracking: Track key actions such as purchases, sign-ups, and other valuable interactions to understand what’s driving results and where to optimize.

Here’s an example of Google ads for a “night cream:”

Social media ads

A US-based social media buyer spends $779 on average. This amount is projected to reach $937 in 2025. It's clear that consumers are increasingly purchasing directly through social media channels. This makes it an opportune time to invest in social media advertising. 

Here's how to get started:

• Choose the right platforms: Identify which social media platforms your target audience uses most. Each platform has unique ad formats and targeting capabilities. 

For example, here’s a dataset showing the percentage of US adults on different social media platforms: 

Source: pewresearch

• Define your campaign goals: Establish clear objectives for your social media ad campaigns, such as increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales. Your goals will guide your ad strategy and copy.

• Leverage targeting options: Utilize the advanced targeting features of social media platforms, such as demographic targeting, interest targeting, behavior targeting, and custom audiences. 

As a case in point, you can use demographic targeting to reach women aged 25-34 in urban areas, interest targeting to connect with users who are passionate about fitness and wellness, behavior targeting to focus on individuals who frequently purchase health supplements online, and create custom audiences by uploading your email list to target existing customers with special promotions. 

• Experiment with ad formats: Take advantage of various ad formats such as carousel ads, video ads, story ads, and collection ads to keep your audience engaged. Different formats can help showcase your products in unique and interactive ways.

• Monitor and optimize performance with A/B testing: Track metrics such as CTR, conversion rates, and ROAS. You can also A/B test different ad elements, such as visuals, copy, CTAs, and targeting options, to find the best-performing ads and maximize your ROI.

Here’s an example of a social media ad from Instagram:

SEO

68.7% of all clicks on Google go to the top three ranking pages. That’s why optimizing your ecommerce website for SEO is super important. It’s perfect for increasing your website’s visibility in search engine results and driving organic traffic.

Here’s how you can use SEO as an ecommerce marketing channel:

• Conduct keyword research: Use tools like Google Keyword Planner to identify relevant keywords that your target audience is searching for. Focus on a mix of high-volume, low-competition, and long-tail keywords to capture various search intents.

• Optimize on-page elements: On-page elements include title tags, meta descriptions, headers, and URL structures. Make sure each page has a unique and descriptive title tag and meta description, and optimize them for relevant keywords. 

• Enhance user experience (UX): Optimize site speed, ensure mobile responsiveness, and create a clear and intuitive site structure to improve user experience and reduce bounce rates.

• Build quality backlinks: High-quality backlinks from reputable websites improve your site’s authority and search engine ranking. You can reach out to industry influencers, guest blog on relevant sites, and create shareable content to earn backlinks.

• Utilize internal linking: You can link to relevant pages and posts within your site to help search engines understand your site’s structure and content hierarchy.

• Implement technical SEO: Address technical aspects such as XML sitemaps, robots.txt files, and schema markup and fix any broken links or errors that may impact your rankings.

• Leverage local SEO: To rank for local searches, claim your Google My Business listing, include local keywords, and encourage your customers to share reviews on Google to boost your local SEO efforts.

Here’s an example of top-ranking blogs for the keyword “wall decor:”

How do you choose the best ecommerce marketing channels?

1.Understand your target audience

Figure out where your target audience spends their time online. Use tools like Google Analytics and social media insights to gather demographic data and create detailed customer personas.

2.Analyze the channel costs and fees

Each channel has its costs associated with ads and content. Consider how much you can spend on ads, subscriptions, and other transactions. 

3.Assess marketing and reach

Evaluate the potential reach of each channel to attract and engage your target audience. For broad reach, consider Facebook Ads, which offer extensive targeting options and a large user base.

4.Consider integration and management tools

Check if the marketing channels can integrate with your existing ecommerce platform and tools for easier management. For example, Plivo CX lets you sync data from Shopify to kickstart SMS, email and WhatsApp marketing. 

5.Analyze competitor strategies

See where your competitors are marketing and how successful they are on those channels. You can use tools like SEMrush to analyze competitors' ad campaigns and see which channels they are most active on.

Run omnichannel ecommerce marketing campaigns with Plivo CX

Each marketing channel mentioned above has a positive ROI, but using them separately is time-consuming and impractical. So, you need a single platform to automate marketing for at least 2-3 channels so you can focus on content strategy and results. 

Plivo CX holistically automates end-to-end marketing so you can sit back and enjoy results. As a true omnichannel ecommerce marketing platform, it supports diverse channels such as WhatsApp, SMS, and email marketing. It also comes with features like:

• Audiences: To segment customers based on several rules
• Journey: To identify events and trigger marketing messages to automatically send to the right customer at the right time
• Copywriter AI: To write compelling copy that captivates your customers’ attention 
• Campaigns: To launch, manage and monitor marketing campaigns

‍Try Plivo CX and kickstart multiple marketing campaigns together today!

So, what is the problem? Often, it’s the lack of customer engagement.

In a hyper-competitive marketplace, simply having a presence is no longer enough, as 79% of customers expect consistent interactions across all departments. So, without strong customer engagement, even the most promising Shopify stores can struggle to convert browsers into loyal buyers.

Therefore, you must develop a comprehensive relationship-building plan with customers by reaching them at different stages in their journey. With the right strategies, you can transform your Shopify store from a simple online catalog into a dynamic shopping destination that keeps customers coming back for more.

To help you improve customer engagement in your Shopify store, we’ve compiled the top 10 strategies with some applied examples. Let’s begin!

Tips to improve customer engagement on your Shopify store

Here are some impactful strategies and tips to increase customer engagement in your Shopify store:

1.Add shoppable videos

70% of businesses say that video converts better than any other form of content they use. Shoppable videos harness the power of video content to sell directly on your website. 

These interactive videos let your customers buy your product during the video. Like a subtle version of the product page, these videos open up a side screen where you can enlist the product shown in the video. 

See how Rifruf, a dog shoe designer brand, uses shoppable videos throughout its online store.

These videos bring your product to life and offer instant gratification while enticing customers to stay engaged for longer. 

To embed shoppable videos in your Shopify store, go to the Shopify App Centre and look for a shoppable video platform, such as Videowise or Videojet. These platforms help you create shoppable videos to add to your online store.

2.Create membership or loyalty programs

72% of consumers say they shop more at companies with loyalty or membership programs. These programs offer perks, exclusive rewards, and incentives when customers buy from your store. Apart from sales, they can increase customer engagement, strengthen brand loyalty, and bring in referrals.

Here are some of the membership programs you can use include on your Shopify store:

• Point-based loyalty program: Customers earn points for every purchase, which they can redeem for freebies, discounts, or special offers.
• Tiered loyalty programs: They also receive different perks based on their rank. Rankings are determined by customer’s purchase frequency, amount spent, and engagement. Those with higher ranks get more and better rewards.
• Paid loyalty programs: Customers can pay a one-time or recurring fee to access exclusive offers.

3.Include augmented reality experiences and virtual try-on

A whopping 64% of consumers demand augmented reality (AR) and virtual try-ons to have an interactive shopping experience. AR gives them the option to try out a product before they buy. When they see the product in action, they feel more confident in their purchase.

On top of this, augmented reality engages your customers, so they spend more time in your store.

Here’s how to implement AR and virtual try-ons into your online store.

4.Add “How It's Made” page

Consumers crave transparency. That's why a "How It's Made" page is key. It builds trust by showcasing your sourcing and production process. You can even take it a step further with behind-the-scenes videos–let them see your commitment firsthand. Here’s how:

• Show the people behind your brand
• Share your processes in brief
• Give a sneak peek into your product’s sourcing or manufacturing

For example, check out how Scott Brands shows its customers how they make toilet paper in their warehouse: https://youtu.be/JFB2goawgVU?si=PmnFtzzd_Yllromy

5.Add interactive quizzes

Interactive quizzes on your Shopify store can set you apart and increase customer engagement. With quizzes, you collect zero-party data about each user as they themselves share their preferences, needs, and behavior. This data can be of great help for personalizing the customer’s experience, leading to increased engagement and more sales.Gainful, a health supplement brand, has a Take a Quiz button on its homepage. Through this quiz, Gainful prepares a personalized supplement formula for its customers.

Some other types of quizzes you can use on your Shopify stores include:

• Product recommendation quiz: Frame engaging questions to ask their preferences and recommend products based on their answers.
• Loyalty and reward quiz: Propel customers to answer a few questions to unlock exclusive offers.
• Feedback quiz: Collect customer feedback about products, shopping experience, and preferences.

6.Send time-sensitive SMS

57% of customers have admitted that they intentionally wait for brand messages, hoping for incentives. SMS is a cost-effective marketing channel that lets you send the right message to the right customer at the right time. To generate higher customer engagement, here are some SMS marketing tips:

• Get consent with opt-in and opt-out messages
• Add your brand’s name upfront to help your customers instantly recognize your brand

          Source: Fantastic Texts‍

• Always end with a compelling CTA with exclusive offers and discounts that can further nudge them to take the desired action
• Keep your messages concise, relatable, and engaging 

If you want to get started with SMS marketing, try Pilvo CX. This web-based customer engagement platform integrates with your Shopify store and helps you send personalized high-converting text messages to the right audience all over the world. Besides offering its premium carrier network across 200+ countries, Plivo also provides various functionalities such as two-factor authentication, alerts and notifications, and appointment reminders. To double down on engagement, you can use Plivo CX’s extensive audience segmentation feature to create specific customer groups. Then, use the Journey feature to create triggers that share time-sensitive messages at the right time and measure the campaign's impact thoroughly.That’s not all; Plivo CX comes packed with an AI copywriting assistant, so you can start your SMS marketing campaign on the go. 

7.Share store links in email marketing campaigns

Emails allow you to share more detailed versions of your offers. You can send numerous types of emails throughout a customer's buying journey, each achieving a specific goal. As noted before, Plivo CX offers comprehensive email automation and lets you create, schedule, and send emails to specific customers based on their actions. For example, an abandoned cart email helps you re-engage customers who didn’t complete their purchase, and upsell/cross-sell emails help bring in more repeat purchases.To add, no matter which type of email you send, adding a link to your store can increase customer visits to your Shopify store. You can add links to your store home page or create a navigation menu outlining different product listings, as Yeti did in their email.

8.Create Shopify events

You can schedule key activities and operations in advance with Shopify launchpad events. Shopify Launchpad allows you to schedule key activities and operations in advance. So, you can plan and automate a variety of events to enhance customer engagement. There are plenty of options to improve engagement with Shopify events:

• Trigger countdown timers on your store
• Send real-time updates via SMS or emails
• Adjust inventory to avoid out-of-stock issues.

For example, you can run a 24-hour flash sale to clear old inventory and attract new customers. Add countdown timers to your store to create a sense of urgency and encourage customers to make quick purchases. You can send SMS and email notifications to your subscribers an hour before the sale starts to get them into the store. You can also automatically adjust your inventory levels to prevent overselling and ensure popular items are restocked in real time.How to add events on Shopify?‍

• Step 1: Go to Shopify admin, click Settings > Apps and sales channels
• Step 2: Click Launchpad and Open the app
• Step 3: Click on Create event
• Step 4: Go to the Title section and enter a name for the event.
• Step 5: Enter a start date and time in the Start date section.
• Step 6: You’ll see a list of options. Pick the right one, and click Save

9.Use chatbots on your website

73% of customers expect websites to have digital assistants like chatbots for better convenience. Chatbots can help ecommerce businesses meet ever-increasing demands. They’re quick and can provide personalized responses in seconds. With Plivo CX, you can use OpenAI-powered intelligent chatbots. You can also build your chatbot in minutes with drag-and-drop functionality without any coding. You can train chatbots with specific data sets to deliver the most relevant and accurate responses.Here’s a really good example of a chatbot on Cowboy, an electric bike maker’s store.

10. Use pop-ups

‍62% of Shopify store owners use pop-ups as their go-to customer engagement tactics for all the good reasons. With pop-ups, you can collect customers’ email addresses, announce upcoming offers, share new product launches, and offer lucrative discounts. All of these incentivize customers to stay in your Shopify store and check out the products. Here are three ways to add pop-ups to your Shopify store:

1. Third-party apps: Shopify App Center offers over 500 popup apps like Wisepops, Omnisend, and Ampede for designing and adding pop-ups.
2. Built-In pop-ups: Shopify provides built-in functionality for basic pop-ups, such as announcement bars.
3. Manual coding: You can design and add advanced pop-ups by manually adding code, though this requires coding knowledge.

Drive more customer engagement on your Shopify store with Plivo CX

Improving customer engagement in the ecommerce sector involves quickly responding to customer queries and reaching out to them with “an offer they can’t refuse.”
‍
If you are looking for a comprehensive customer engagement solution, look no further than Plivo CX. With its diverse features, it can help you to: 

• Boost conversions: Target the right customers with the right message at the right time through segmentation and multi-channel communication
• Save time and resources: Create and launch campaigns quickly and easily without coding and with the help of AI-powered assistance
• Deliver personalized experiences: Generate compelling messages that resonate with individual needs
• Gauge the overall impact: You can also track key performance indicators (KPIs) associated with your campaigns.

‍Start a free trial and improve customer engagement in your Shopify store today!

For SaaS companies offering services through subscriptions, customer retention significantly controls the bottom line. Customers generally pay only a fraction of their lifetime value upfront. Therefore, retaining them is crucial for driving recurring revenue. According to HubSpot, increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can boost profits by 25% to 95%. 

However, retention alone isn't enough—businesses must balance acquiring new customers and keeping existing ones to sustain growth. Effective customer retention also opens up more opportunities for revenue growth through cross-sells, upsells, upgrades, and referrals. This also drives sustainable growth for many SaaS companies.

As Forbes points out, a company cannot grow without attracting new buyers. The key is finding the right customers with a high lifetime value (LTV) that justifies their customer acquisition costs (CAC) and retention costs.

Also, great products and services are the baselines—to thrive truly, SaaS sellers must develop tailored retention strategies that keep current customers subscribing. This is especially critical given the continual nature of SaaS tools and the potential for multi-year contracts with add-on upsell opportunities. 

In this article, we will explore how, with the right approach and tools balancing acquisition and retention, SaaS companies can acquire more valuable customers while preventing churn of existing higher-value ones.

Why is SaaS Customer Retention Important?

Here’s why SaaS customer retention is important:

Faster growth and increased revenue

According to a recent ChartMogul report, companies that prioritize customer retention grow 1.5 to 3 times faster than others.  If these numbers tell us one thing alone, it’s that customer retention is the centerpiece when looking to scale your business and drive revenue growth.

Indicates a strong product-market fit

Product-market fit is a nuanced concept. Despite conducting pre-launch feasibility studies, many businesses fall into a real vs perceived demand fallacy, realizing one or both of these a little too late:

• Their product is not needed
• Customers are unwilling to pay for it.

One surefire way to confirm product-market fit early and pivot, as needed, is to look at customer retention rates over time. A steady stream of return buyers shows that you’re solving a real problem and providing adequate value to customers.

Reduced CAC

Acquiring new customers is often expensive, so retaining existing ones can enhance cash flow and reduce marketing costs. The happier your customers are, the less you'll spend on acquiring new ones. 

As a SaaS company, Zendesk's success demonstrates this, as their focus on customer satisfaction lowered acquisition costs and improved loyalty.

Increased loyalty

Satisfied customers who consistently choose your product and have positive experiences tend to become more loyal. This fosters trust, making them less likely to switch to competitors, even if offered similar features or lower prices.

Repeat customers are more likely to recommend 

Satisfied customers who regularly use your product are more likely to become loyal brand advocates and refer others. This translates to a lower CAC and higher customer lifetime value (CLTV) for your SaaS business. 

By prioritizing a consistently positive customer experience, you're not just building a loyal following; you're creating a sustainable growth engine.

How Do You Measure Customer Retention?

Your customer retention rate (CRR) shows how you retained customers over a specific period. 

Calculate customer retention by first subtracting the number of new customers you acquired within a period from the total number of customers you have at the end of the period. Next, divide that figure by your number of customers at the start of the period and multiply your answer by 100.

Here’s the simple formula for calculating your SaaS retention rate over a specific period:

Customer retention rate (CRR) = [(No of customers at the end of the period - No of new customers acquired during the period))/No of customers at the start of the period] x 100

SaaS Customer Retention Metrics and Benchmarks

SaaS customer retention metrics are KPIs that measure how effectively a company retains customers over time, providing insights into customer loyalty, satisfaction, and overall business health.

Here are some key B2C and B2B SaaS retention benchmarks to note as you grow your business:

• Customer Retention Rate: Some experts say best-in-class SaaS businesses have customer retention rates between 85% and 87%. Meanwhile, UserPilot asserts that a good SaaS retention rate to aim for is 90%. Either way, this number can fluctuate over time due to factors like product updates, economic instability, average uptime percentage, and more.
• Customer Retention Rate by ACV: According to 2023 SaaS Capital benchmarks, products with higher annual contract values (ACV) record higher net and gross retention rates (GRR). Companies with ACVs over $250,000 had a median NRR of 110% and a GRR of 95%, while those under $12,000 had a median NRR of 100% and a more variable GRR.

• ARR Per FTE Benchmark: Founder and angel investor Bartek Pucek suggests that at scale, companies should target a high revenue per employee, aiming for $200k+ in ARR per FTE. This range indicates efficient use of human resources relative to revenue generation, suggesting operational effectiveness. 

Understanding and tracking key metrics

Consider tracking these additional SaaS customer retention metrics for deeper insights:

Customer churn rate

Customer churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop using your product or service during a specific period, the opposite of customer retention rate.

Churn Rate = (No of customers lost during a period/No of customers at start of period) x 100

Customer lifetime value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value estimates the total revenue your company can expect from a single customer throughout their relationship with you, reflecting the long-term impact of your acquisition and retention efforts.

Customer LTV = Average purchase value x Average purchase frequency x Customer lifespan

Repeat purchase rate

Repeat purchase rate shows the percentage of your customers who make more than one purchase from you over a specified period. It is a key customer loyalty indicator.

Repeat purchase rate = (No of repeat customers/Total no of customers) x 100

Net promoter score (NPS)

Net promoter score (NPS) measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely they are to recommend your product or service on a scale of 0 to 10. 

It categorizes customers into promoters, detractors, and passives, then calculates the score by subtracting the percentage of detractors from promoters.

Net Promoter Score = % Promoters - % Detractors

Where: 

• Promoters are respondents who rate your company 9 - 10
• Passives are respondents who score 7 - 8.
• Detractors are respondents who rate your company 0 - 6 

Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

Customer satisfaction score measures customers’ satisfaction with your company by asking them to rate their experience on a predefined scale, typically from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10. This helps you assess customers' immediate sentiment about your business and identify areas for improvement.

Customer Satisfaction Score = (No of satisfied customers/No of survey responses) x 100

Where:

• Satisfied customers are respondents who rate their experience with your brand positively (usually 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale or between 8 and 10 on a 10-point scale).

Active users

Active users are the number of unique users engaging with your product or service over a specific period. They indicate product stickiness, user-friendliness, and utility. 

Calculate active users daily, weekly, or monthly to gain insights into engagement patterns and the impact of marketing campaigns, new features, or other changes.

• Daily active users (DAU) refers to the number of unique users who engage with your product or service in a single day.
• Weekly active users (WAU) refers to the number of unique users who engage with your product or service within one week.
• Monthly active users (MAU) refers to the number of unique users who engage with your product or service over the span of a month.

For deeper insights, segment users by demographics or behavior and analyze activity patterns. 

However, first, define what “active users” or “user activity” means for your business. This could include specific user actions like logging in, engaging with content, making purchases, or other key activities. Analytics tools like Google Analytics or Amplitude can then be used to monitor and optimize user activity.

SaaS Customer Retention Strategies in 2024 with Examples

SaaS retention strategies, shaped by personalization and the right CX software, can significantly boost customer satisfaction and loyalty. Different CX providers offer varying features that support customer retention, from live chat functionality to chatbots, in-depth reporting dashboards, and more. 

We will also explore how the Service module of Plivo CX, as an all-in-one omnichannel customer service platform, can help amplify the impact of your customer retention strategies. 

To help you get started, here are five proven strategies to retain SaaS customers, reduce churn, and drive growth:

1. Create personalized onboarding experiences

Personalizing onboarding experiences for customer segments is more effective than generic onboarding. It improves customer stickiness and retention by tailoring the process to their needs. 

Utilize data gathered during sign-up, purchase, or account creation to personalize the experience.

Example

Take Notion’s onboarding flow, for instance. After signing up, the app asks you how you’d like to use it to tailor your user experience accordingly.

Next, Notion asks you to share some more details about yourself so it can show you the most relevant content and features.

The app will then prompt you to name your workspace and add an icon, like using your company name or branding, so any added collaborators can easily recognize the invite.

SaaS buying software Vendr reports that Notion’s customer retention rate is 65.83% so they’re definitely doing something right. This rate indicates long-term usability and strong user satisfaction, especially in the SaaS industry where apps with 35% retention are considered elite.

2.Offer omnichannel customer support

Excellent customer support on the channel customers prefer can significantly drive customer retention. In fact, one of the top four brand loyalty drivers worldwide is top-notch customer service.

Focus on providing a true omnichannel support experience so your service agents can promptly address customer issues or requests. 

Example

With Plivo CX's Unified Agent Desktop, agents can seamlessly switch between AI-powered live chat, voice, SMS, email, and WhatsApp. As for customers, here’s how they benefit: 

1. Faster resolution times: They experience quicker responses and resolutions to their inquiries. Since agents have immediate access to all necessary information and tools in one interface, they can address customer needs more efficiently.
   
   
2. The same quality of service on any channel: Customers enjoy a seamless experience as they move across different communication modes without having to repeat their issues or re-provide information.
3. Personalized interactions: As agents can tailor their interactions based on past engagements and known preferences, customers feel more valued and understood. This promotes their overall satisfaction and loyalty to the brand.
4. Reduced errors and miscommunications: The aggregation of communication channels and customer data in one place eliminates scopes of miscommunications and errors in handling high volume customer requests. This leads to more accurate support and a better customer experience.

3. Monitor product usage

Track product usage to identify engagement patterns and potential churn risks. At-risk customers often show signs like decreased usage or unresolved support tickets. 

Also, analyzing customer data by user segments helps you promptly identify and address churn potential.

Example

Before adopting Hotjar, the social media planning and approval brand HeyOrca needed a clearer way to measure user engagement and satisfaction. 

With the website and app analytics tools, HeyOrca has been able to assess its user experience, monitor how users interact with their app, and adjust site elements as needed.

4. Use customer journey maps

Customer journey maps help you understand the different stages users interact with your product and identify pain points or opportunities to enhance their experiences.

For example, analyzing your customer journey maps may uncover delayed verification email delivery during the signup process, which frustrates new users and leads them to churn. 

With this information, you can then troubleshoot the issue and ease the account creation process, subsequently driving up retention.

5. Make self-service more accessible

Research from 2018 showed that 88% of customers expect companies to have online self-service support portals. 

Want to keep us with modern customer requirements? Leverage live chat technology, chatbots, interactive voice response (IVR), and comprehensive help centers to help customers self-serve even when agents are unavailable or otherwise occupied.

Example

Plivo CX partners with OpenAI, keeping your customer support at the forefront of innovation. The OpenAI-driven self-service chatbot helps you offer 24/7 support to your customers. You can also train the chatbot to use only your selected content, ensuring accuracy and relevance. 

Easily build custom knowledge bases to empower both bots and human agents. When issues require human intervention, easily escalate them to your agents for faster resolution. 

With a customizable IVR, you can automate your first customer touchpoint. Guide callers through self-selected options for faster routing, shorter wait times, and quicker issue resolution. You can also further personalize the experience by incorporating customer data into greetings and voice prompts.

Boost SaaS Customer Retention with Plivo CX

Plivo CX’s intuitive customer service features can help you boost customer retention and drive revenue. From self-service tools to SMS support, the web-based platform lets you deliver exceptional service across various touchpoints.

Book a demo to get started with Plivo CX and watch it transform your SaaS customer retention rates for the better!

Customer retention is often influenced by a multitude of factors, including the quality of the website experience, response times, and the level of personalization offered. 

However, maintaining customers, especially new ones, for an extended period is a challenging and unpredictable process. 

In 2023, the retention rate for banks improved the most (4.3 percentage points) among other industries globally. On the other hand, the electronics industries witnessed negligible improvement (0.4 percentage points).

In this scenario, the right customer retention software can help you maintain existing customers and even re-engage those you may have lost along the way.

Now, let’s check out the 11 best customer retention software available today.

What is Customer Retention Software?

Customer retention software gathers valuable insights about customers’ pain points to facilitate targeted action. It is designed to reduce churn and increase repeat purchases through various features, such as lead tracking, data analysis, email marketing campaigns, and multi-channel engagement.

These features help companies collect and analyze customer data in a way that reveals patterns and trends in consumer behavior. They can leverage this knowledge to pinpoint the junctures where customers drop off and find out the key reasons behind churn.

Top 11 Customer Retention Software You Need to Know

1. Plivo CX 

Ideal for mid-market e-commerce, B2C, and healthcare companies, Plivo CX is a cloud-based omnichannel customer support and retention platform that brings all customer data into a single-pane-of-glass solution. 

The unified platform ensures that no matter which channels a customer uses to contact support—be it chat, email, SMS, or voice—the service quality remains consistent. Agents no longer need to switch between channels to find the context of the problem, leading to faster resolutions. On the other hand, customers can quickly resolve their queries, in their preferred channels—which promotes a convenient experience.  

To up the game, you can train and deploy OpenAI-powered self-service chatbots to reduce reliance on live agents further,  by over 50%. 

Moreover, you can track your customer support team’s performance through live metrics and detailed reports. 

Features

• Use the Unified Agent Desktop to provide effortless and omnichannel customer service across email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and live chat
• Deploy OpenAI-powered self-service chatbots to answer complex customer queries around the clock
• By offering self-service options and personalized greetings, the customizable IVR reduces wait times and improves customer experience.
• Seamlessly integrate Plivo CX with your existing tech stack, including homegrown systems, ERP, CRM, and helpdesk tools for a holistic view of customer data
• Drag-and-drop workflows can further simplify intricate customer journeys. By visually connecting components, you can automate tasks and trigger actions based on data.
• Analyze customer interactions and collect feedback in real time via Metrics and Reporting features to tailor your responses accordingly
• With features like call recording, barge and whisper, you can coach your agents effectively 
• Create an integrated knowledge base so your agents can provide complete, quick, and up-to-date responses. 

Limitations

• Lacks features for quality assurance and workforce management
• No mobile version is available for support agents on the go

Pricing

Omnichannel (annual plans):

• Growth: $29 per user per month
• Business: $69 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

Voice-only annual plans

• Growth: $25 per user per month
• Business: $40 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

Chat-only annual plans

• Growth: $15 per user per month
• Business: $30 per user per month
• Enterprise: Available on request

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.5/5 (700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (80+ reviews)

2. Salesforce Service 

Salesforce Service assists companies in addressing data silos by consolidating all customer data into one centralized location. Additionally, it includes the “Last Activity” field to keep businesses informed about their most recent customer interactions, allowing them to filter communications based on the timing of their last interaction. 

Salesforce facilitates tracking customer engagement, simplifying the identification of proactive customers. 

It is more suitable for large enterprises. Examples of its current customers include Spotify, Amazon Web Services, Walmart, etc.

Features

• Get real-time customer call summary and data through cloud telephony integration
• Automate omnichannel routing to resolve customer issues faster
• Set up visual remote assistants and AI-powered chatbots for better customer support 

Limitations

• Implementation and customization options are complex, especially for smaller businesses (G2) 

Pricing 

• Starter Suite: $25/user/month
• Professional: $80/user/month
• Enterprise: $165/user/month
• Unlimited: $330/user/month 
• Einstein 1 Service: $500/user/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.3/5 (3700+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (750+ reviews)
  

3. HubSpot Service Hub

Service Hub by HubSpot changes how customer experience impacts your business by leveraging AI technology, offering omnichannel support, and integrating with marketing and sales data to drive scalable customer support.

Service Hub offers proactive tools to improve customer health, identify upsell opportunities, and drive customer retention.

Features

• Use a unified help desk to track customer tickets
• Instantly direct customers to the right agents via AI-powered chats
• Utilize customer health scores and product usage insights to retain customers actively 

Limitations

• The ticketing system is new and not so advanced compared to other tools (Capterra)  

Pricing 

• Free: $0
• Starter: $20/seat/month
• Professional: $100/seat/month
• Enterprise: $150/seat/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.4/5 (2240+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (130+ reviews)

4. Zendesk

Zendesk Support Suite allows you to centralize customer conversations, interact with users using chatbots, connect with over 1,500 third-party apps, and analyze customer service performance through intuitive reports and graphs.

Its round-the-clock AI-powered bots provide customer insights by detecting sentiment and intent, helping agents predict and understand customer needs and emotions.

From enterprises and startups to small and medium-sized businesses, Zendesk mainly serves the retail, financial services, education, manufacturing, healthcare, telecommunications, and media industries.

Features

• Collect customer data and track support tickets using Agent Workspace
• Personalize omnichannel communication with your customers 
• Compile valuable feedback through automated customer satisfaction (CSAT) surveys to identify areas for improvement more accurately

Limitations

• Users have complained about slow and delayed customer support (Capterra)

Pricing 

• Suite Team: $55agent/month
• Suite Growth: $89/agent/month
• Suite Professional: $115/agent/month
• Suite Enterprise: Custom pricing

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.3/5 (5840+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.4/5 (3800+ reviews)

5. Keap

Keap is a CRM tool and automation builder for small businesses, particularly service-oriented ones (such as coaching and consulting businesses). It helps with multiple aspects of customer service, from managing customer lists to creating sales pipelines.

Keap’s strategic reporting feature tells you which customers have clicked an email or purchased a product. Pre-designed email and text templates and advanced predictive algorithms ensure that leads and clients receive timely communications tailored to their needs and preferences.

Features

• Track customers as they move through your sales pipeline with lead scoring
• Automate email and text marketing campaigns 
• Integrate different payment methods and promo codes to target customers with varying preferences

Limitations

• The reporting measures are limited, with users being unable to generate complex reports (G2)

Pricing 

• Ignite: $249/month
• Grow: $329/month
• Scale: $499/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.2/5 (1520+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.1/5 (1270+ reviews)

6. Freshworks

Freshworks Customer Service Suite helps businesses of all sizes centralize customer interactions across various platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, email, and live chat.

With advanced automation webhooks, you can automatically update customers on their inquiries, initiate conversations using pre-designed chatbot sequences, and support agents in resolving customer problems.

Features

• Deploy AI-powered chatbots on any channel to help customers 24/7
• Respond quickly on multiple channels through the omnichannel agent dashboard
• Solve complex customer issues using smart assist tools 

Limitations

• Users have been left frustrated with unresponsive customer service, with sometimes issues not getting resolved at all (G2)

Pricing 

• Growth: $27/agent/month
• Pro: $65/agent/month
• Enterprise: $106/agent/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.4/5 (3680+ reviews)
• Capterra: Not enough reviews

7. Hotjar

Hotjar is a one-stop solution offering tools like heatmaps, recordings, feedback, live interviews, and surveys for user insights. Observe how each customer moves through your website and see what catches their eye. This also allows you to detect where they lose interest.

The tool also offers easy-to-fill surveys to collect customer feedback. The sentiment analysis feature automatically categorizes the responses as positive, negative, or neutral, saving you time and helping you improve engagement with your clientele.

Hotjar caters to any business seeking insights into customer behavior, from small websites and e-commerce brands to SaaS, retail, financial services, subscription businesses, etc.

Features

• Watch complete recordings of user sessions on your website to track clicks, mouse movements, and rage clicks
• Automate the recruitment, scheduling, and hosting of moderated user interviews to learn what they think about your business
• Use live feedback widgets and send post-delivery emails to customers to calculate CSAT and Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Limitations

• The dashboard is cluttered and confusing to navigate (G2)

Pricing 

• Basic: $0 
• Plus: $32/month
• Business: $80/month
• Scale: $171/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.3/5 (300+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.7/5 (500+ reviews)

8. Qualaroo 

Qualaroo is a cloud-based research tool that allows you to ask customers specific questions based on their user activity. These targeted surveys provide accurate information about your customer experience, enabling you to improve and optimize it. The tool targets micro-businesses, startups, and larger websites like LinkedIn, Udemy, and Glassdoor.

Features

• Conduct exit surveys to understand why customers aren’t converting and gather feedback on their experience with UX design across various platforms
• Utilize the Nudge™ technology to prompt relevant inquiries at the right moment without being pushy
• Get AI-powered analytics for your survey questions

Limitations

• The reporting dashboard lacks features and needs upgradations (Capterra)

Pricing 

• Free Plan: $0 for 50 responses
• Business: $239.88 for 100 responses/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.3/5 (45 reviews)
• Capterra: Not enough reviews

9. ClickUp 

ClickUp provides different views (List, Board, Table) to track projects, client communication, and retention efforts in a visually intuitive manner. 

Customize ClickUp’s task management system to suit client retention activities, including follow-up calls, satisfaction surveys, and special client engagement initiatives.

Its built-in reporting features provide valuable data on customer retention, sales effectiveness, and team efficiency, which can be used to make informed decisions. ClickUp caters to enterprise-level companies, startups, non-profit agencies, etc.

Features

• Implement your customer retention strategy with pre-built CRM templates
• Track important customer retention metrics like average order value and customer lifetime value
• Use automated lead scoring to prioritize high-value customers 

Limitations

• The mobile app is not intuitive and user-friendly (Capterra)  

Pricing 

• Personal: Free Forever
• Unlimited: $7/user/month
• Business: $12/user/month
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.7 /5 (9500+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.6/ 5 (4100+ reviews)

10. ProfitWell 

ProfitWell by Paddle provides services to more than 5,000 subscription-based businesses (both B2B and B2C organizations). It reduces customer churn by automatically recovering declined payments. 

ProfitWell also captures customer metadata to attempt payment retries strategically. The interface offers comprehensive reports and visual representations, providing valuable insights into customer and revenue growth.

Features

• Monitor and compare user engagement across different plans
• Design custom churn reduction strategies to decrease customer turnover and re-engage with your client base
• Receive alerts for at-risk customer relationships

Limitations

• Most of your customers need to pay via Stripe if you want to benefit fully from ProfitWell (Capterra)

Pricing 

• Pay-as-you-go: 5% + 50¢ per checkout transaction
• Custom pricing

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.9/5 (120+ reviews)
• Capterra: Not enough reviews
  

11. Zoho CRM 

Zoho serves enterprises and small businesses in the automotive, retail, financial services, and education sectors.

Zoho integration gathers information from landing pages and stores customer data in dashboards. It generates personalized reports for each customer, containing their contact information, current projects, product needs, previous orders, etc. Use this information to segment customers and target them with customized offers. 

Features

• Talk to leads and existing customers using the omnichannel communication tool
• Automate Zoho workflows for targeted customer communication for specific offers and special occasions, like sending birthday wishes
• Enable collaboration with support teams to resolve customer tickets by integrating with help desk software

Limitations

• The platform configuration is complicated, and customizing the setup is complex (Capterra)

Pricing 

• Standard: $9/user/month
• Professional: $16/user/month
• Enterprise: $28/user/month
• Ultimate: $31/user/month

Ratings from G2 and Capterra

• G2: 4.1/5 (2600+ reviews)
• Capterra: 4.3/5 (6720+ reviews)

Key Features of Retention Software to Consider

Real-time data collection and reports 

This feature enables customer retention software to gain insights into valuable metrics, such as sales call metrics, lead drop-out rates, marketing video performance, link click-through rates, email engagement, and average wait and handle times. 

Look for a tool that presents the collected data as organized reports with tables and graphs. 

Customer segmentation

Personalization is the key to retaining clients. Customer segmentation can group different customers based on their demographics, purchase behavior, engagement levels, or other specified criteria and then develop and deliver a personalized customer experience (such as discount codes for cart items or promotions) to build strong connections.

Omnichannel engagement

Customers today interact with brands across multiple channels, including social media, email, live chat, and phone calls. Look for a tool that helps you connect with customers and maintain a high service quality across all communication channels.

Transform Your Business With the Best Customer Retention Software 

As a true omnichannel customer service platform, Plivo CX comes with its robust suite of features, including a Unified Agent Desktop, drag-and-drop workflows, custom APIs, extensive integrations, agent coaching features, real-time metrics and analytics, etc.

These can help companies enhance agent performance and gain valuable insights into customer interactions. The outcome is faster issue resolution, personalized customer experiences, and ultimately, increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Are you ready to use Plivo CX to retain customers and elevate their customers’ experience?

Book a demo now!

In the rapidly evolving landscape of cloud communication, ensuring smooth and reliable call connectivity stands paramount for businesses leveraging Plivo's communication solutions. Recognizing this critical need, we're thrilled to introduce Zentrunk Debug Logs, a robust tool meticulously crafted to enhance your troubleshooting capabilities and streamline the process of diagnosing and resolving call connectivity issues.

Understanding Zentrunk Debug Logs

Zentrunk Debug Logs is an advanced feature designed to provide Plivo customers with deep insights and detailed logs for effective debugging of call connectivity challenges. This tool is part of our ongoing commitment to empower users with the resources they need to maintain seamless communication channels, thus ensuring uninterrupted business operations.

When to Use Zentrunk Debug Logs

Zentrunk Debug Logs become indispensable when facing call connectivity issues, such as calls not connecting, dropped calls, or poor call quality. These situations could stem from a multitude of factors ranging from network configurations, SIP signaling problems, to codec mismatches. Identifying the root cause quickly is critical to minimizing downtime and maintaining high standards of communication.

Key Features of Zentrunk Debug Logs

• Call Details: This feature presents essential information about each call, including caller and call recipient details, timestamps, and call duration. It serves as the first step in understanding the context and flow of affected communications, allowing users to quickly pinpoint potential issues.
• Call Stats: Dive into origination, termination, and trunk-related details. This data is invaluable for identifying performance trends, anomalies, or bottlenecks that might be impacting the quality of your calls.‍
• SIP Logs: A cornerstone feature of Zentrunk Debug Logs, the SIP Logs section enables the download of SIP PCAP files, showcasing the last SIP response and Codec information. This in-depth analysis of SIP signaling data is key to uncovering the root cause of connectivity issues, facilitating swift and effective resolution.

Call Details

Call stats

SIP Logs

How to Access and Utilize Zentrunk Debug Logs

Accessing Zentrunk Debug Logs is straightforward:

1. Log into your Plivo console.
2. Navigate to "Zentrunk" and select "Logs" from the menu.

Here, you'll find an intuitive interface that displays all the necessary tools and information at your fingertips. For a more effective troubleshooting process, start by reviewing the Call Details to get a sense of the communication flow. Next, analyze the Call Stats to detect any patterns or anomalies. Finally, delve into the SIP Logs for a technical deep dive to identify the specific issue.

Leveraging Zentrunk Debug Logs for Success

To get the most out of Zentrunk Debug Logs, we recommend incorporating it into your regular troubleshooting and maintenance routines. By proactively reviewing and analyzing your call data, you're positioned to quickly identify and resolve issues, minimizing their potential impact on your communication workflows.

Zentrunk Debug Logs are more than just a diagnostic tool; they're a means to ensure that your communication infrastructure is robust, reliable, and capable of supporting your business needs. We invite you to explore this feature and discover how it can enhance your Plivo experience.

If you have any feedback or require assistance, our support team is here to help. Happy debugging!

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Plivo is introducing PIN-based authentication to its robust Number Masking API. This feature is designed to expand the utility and coverage of our number masking capabilities, catering to a broader range of use cases, including scenarios where calls originate from numbers that are not part of the number-masking session.

What is PIN-based Number Masking?

PIN-based number masking builds on our existing number masking solution, which anonymizes the phone numbers of parties in a call by using an intermediate virtual number. The new feature introduces a PIN authentication layer, enabling seamless connection even when calls originate from numbers that are not part of the number-masking session. This is particularly useful for situations where users may have multiple phone numbers or when calls are made from a number not previously associated with the application.

For example, imagine a user who signed up on a ride-sharing app with their primary phone number (let's call it Number X). One day, they need to call their driver but find that their primary phone is out of battery. They decide to use a different phone (Number Y) and call from a number that is not part of the number-masking session. Thanks to PIN-based Number Masking, they can still make the call. In such scenarios Plivo will ask for a PIN, and once the caller enters it correctly, the call connects to the driver, all the while keeping both parties' actual numbers hidden.

Who Benefits from PIN-based Number Masking?

This solution is tailor-made for businesses that operate in dynamic environments where end users or service providers use multiple SIMs or phone numbers. Whether it's a delivery service connecting drivers and customers, or a healthcare provider ensuring patient confidentiality, PIN-based number masking ensures that every call is securely connected, regardless of the phone number used.

How Does It Work?

When a call is initiated from an unregistered number, the caller is prompted to enter a PIN. This PIN, either set by the user or automatically generated by Plivo, verifies the caller's identity and connects them to the intended party, all while maintaining the anonymity of both parties' phone numbers.

Getting Started with PIN-based Number Masking

The adoption of PIN-based Number Masking involves a straightforward process, ensuring businesses can easily integrate this feature into their existing systems. Here's how to get started:

• Account Setup: Ensure you have an active Plivo account. If not, sign up with your business email and acquire a voice-enabled Plivo phone number, essential for creating number masking sessions. You can rent numbers from the Numbers page of the Plivo console, or by using the Numbers API.
• Creating a PIN-Based Session: Use a simple cURL request to kickstart your number masking session with PIN authentication enabled. This request should include both parties' phone numbers, a flag to enable PIN authentication (is_pin_authentication_required), and the PINs for both parties. You can also specify audio prompts for PIN entry and incorrect PIN attempts. 

 Here’s a basic template:

Ensure that is_pin_authentication_required is set to true for sessions requiring PIN verification. This step is vital for authenticating calls from unknown numbers.

• Configuration and Customization: Tailor the session to your specific needs by configuring optional parameters. These include setting custom PIN prompts and actions for incorrect PIN entries, thus offering a personalized experience for your users. Further details about these attributes can be found in the session object description.
• Session and PIN Management: Upon session creation, both parties receive the same virtual number. The PIN generated by Plivo will be unique for each party. Customers also have the option to generate unique pins for the parties involved. Plivo's system seamlessly handles the authentication, connecting calls upon successful PIN verification.
• Monitoring and Feedback: Plivo's infrastructure provides callbacks for real-time updates on PIN authentication status and session interactions. This feature is invaluable for maintaining oversight and optimizing the call experience based on actual usage.

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Why Choose PIN-Based Number Masking?

PIN-based number masking enhances security and flexibility, ensuring calls are authenticated even from unregistered numbers. This level of authentication is crucial for businesses that prioritize customer confidentiality and security, such as healthcare providers, ride-sharing services, and delivery platforms. By integrating this feature, businesses can reassure their users that their privacy is protected, and their interactions are secure, no matter which phone number they use.

Conclusion

Incorporating PIN-based number masking into your communication strategy not only enhances security but also provides a seamless user experience across various scenarios. Whether your users need to switch between multiple devices or numbers, this feature ensures uninterrupted and confidential communication.

To implement PIN-based number masking and leverage its full potential, explore our comprehensive developer documentation. Here, you'll find detailed guides, examples, and best practices to help you integrate this feature effortlessly.

Discover how Plivo's API can transform your communication processes by visiting our developer documentation. Empower your business with advanced security features and ensure your users' privacy and satisfaction.

Enhance your call security today with Plivo!

SMS has long been the workhorse of business messaging—but there’s a new show pony in town. 

Rich Communication Services, or RCS messaging, offers a powerful upgrade that goes beyond plain text to transform business-to-customer communications.

In this guide, we’ll detail how RCS is different from OTT, SMS, and MMS, the advantages RCS can offer your business, and some tips to help you leverage its full potential for your business.

What is RCS messaging?

RCS, which stands for rich communication services, is a revolutionary protocol that upgrades traditional SMS and MMS text messages with a host of advanced features. These features include images, read receipts, suggested replies, group chats, and e-commerce integrations, making RCS messaging more engaging and informative. 

Many of these features are already familiar to consumers who use chat tools like OTT services like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The big difference is that RCS messaging builds these features directly into Android and iOS; it will inevitably replace SMS altogether. 

Does RCS work on Android and Apple devices? 

Most major carriers in the US offer RCS messaging on Android devices. However, Apple only recently announced that it will adopt RCS with the release of iOS 18 in the fall of 2024.

"We believe RCS Universal Profile will offer a better interoperability experience when compared to SMS or MMS. This will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” said an Apple spokesperson. 

Apple has started testing RCS messaging with iOS 18 developer beta 2, suggesting a wider release is imminent. 

Where is RCS messaging used?

The use of RCS messaging is contingent on two factors: carrier support and device compatibility. Currently, RCS messages are only compatible with newer Android phones, such as the latest devices from Samsung and Google. 

Carrier support is comparatively more common. Most major carriers in North America support RCS messaging, including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint. The map below shows where RCS messaging is available and in use in more detail. 

While RCS isn't universally available yet, it's being adopted by more and more carriers and becoming increasingly common on newer devices.

How does RCS messaging compare to MMS, SMS, and OTT?

RCS, MMS, SMS, OTT — these acronyms can quickly become confusing. SMS and MMS are legacy systems from which RCS has evolved. Let’s go through the key differences between different messaging protocols to understand why RCS messaging is so promising.

SMS (Short Message Service)

SMS messages are the most basic types of text messages. These texts can be up to 160 characters and text-only, meaning you can’t send images or video over SMS. SMS messages are compatible with virtually every mobile phone on the market and do not require an internet connection.

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

MMS messages are an extension of SMS designed to send multimedia content, including images, video, audio, and text. MMS allows for more text than SMS, up to 1,600 characters. These messages are compatible with most mobile phones, but there are sometimes issues with formatting between different devices and carriers. MMS messages work over cellular networks but often benefit from an internet connection to transmit media content. 

OTT (Over-the-Top Services)

OTT messages use your phone's internet data connection rather than your mobile carrier's traditional SMS/MMS network. Apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat are all OTT messaging services. OTT messaging apps tend to offer more features than SMS, such as sending photos and videos, voice and video calls, group chats, and read receipts. These apps aren’t native to iOS or Android devices and must be downloaded by the user before OTT services can be accessed. 

RCS (Rich Communication Services)

RCS messages are an upgrade to MMS. These texts support text, high-resolution images, videos, audio messages, file transfers, location sharing, and more interactive elements like group chats and read receipts. However, RCS requires both the sender and recipient to have RCS-enabled devices and carriers that support RCS. 

RCS messaging offers the best set of features and security compared to legacy text messaging protocols. The only drawback is the lack of market penetration — something we expect will change with Apple’s new iOS launch. 

The future of RCS messaging for your business

The potential of RCS messaging hasn’t been fully realized, but early analysis has forecasters excited about what RCS texting can do for businesses of all sizes. “New feature-rich messaging apps, such as those built on the RCS platform, offer businesses powerful new opportunities for successfully interacting with consumers,” wrote the experts at Harvard Business Review. 

Brands such as Citi, UnoTV, Overstock, and Subway are early adopters of RCS. These companies provide case studies of how other businesses can make the most of RCS messaging. For example, Overstock uses RCS texting to send purchase, shipping, and delivery confirmations. Subway used RCS messages to send promotions with high-quality images; the campaign saw a 144% increase in its coupon redemption rate compared to the same promotion sent via SMS.

The analysts at Juniper forecast significant growth in RCS usage, expecting the user base to surpass 2 billion by 2028 — a prediction that seems well within reach given Apple’s planned release to its customers. Here’s what the mobile market could look like over the next few years. 

Given that RCS is poised to make MMS and SMS campaigns obsolete, let’s dive into why RCS can make such a big difference for your business. 

The advantages of RCS chat for your company and customers

The adoption and popularity of OTT apps signal how RCS will work for your company. Let’s break down in more detail how RCS messaging can strengthen your customer relationships. 

Deliver a better customer experience

Like WhatsApp and other OTT messages, RCS is packed with features that improve the user experience. Here are a few media capabilities built into RCS chat that can upgrade the customer experience. 

• Quality images, video messages, and GIFs
• Delivery and read receipts
• Video-calling capabilities
• Suggested replies
• Suggested actions
• Location sharing
• In-message payment options
• Sender verification
• QR codes

“With RCS, which has the richness of OTTs but is universal, consumers will get graphically branded messages from a verified sender, which may include suggested action buttons quick button replies, along with high-definition images and video,” wrote Harvard Business Review. “Survey respondents emphasize the importance of these messaging capabilities, with 81% saying that the ability to offer verified sender information is highly important.” 

Boost trust with sender verification

Brands that use RCS texting can be verified by a Verification Authority—a specialized entity, Mobile Network Operator, Chatbot Platform provider, etc. Once verified, your brand’s logo will appear at the top of the conversation along with your brand name and status badge (such as a checkmark).  

Verified sender information is among the most promising features of RCS messaging. By becoming a verified sender, your brand avoids being marked as spam and can build customer trust. Today, 70% of consumers have worried brand texts pose a data security risk; sender verification helps mitigate that anxiety.

Build strong customer communication

The many features available in RCS messaging enable brands to boost engagement and create a meaningful channel for two-way communication with customers. Interactive messaging lets customers take action directly, reducing admin for your brand while making it as easy as checking a text for customers to engage.

Imagine sending messages enriched with buttons that trigger specific actions. Customers can click a button to view product details, book an appointment, or initiate any relevant action – all within the same message thread. This ability saves customers time and frustration by eliminating the need to navigate through separate platforms.

Learn more from your data 

RCS messages generate better data and analytics from which your brand can learn. UnoTV’s RCS pilot gave the brand useful information that can trigger smarter, more targeted future campaigns. 

“With SMS, we don’t even know if the message was delivered to the user, but with RCS

we can see if it was delivered, if it was opened, and if it was interacted with,” said Violeta Rosales, UnoTV digital development lead. “It gives us a much better understanding of interactions.”

Leverage a more targeted UX 

RCS's rich multimedia experience lets your brand leverage chat history, analytics, and other customer data to build rich customer profiles. These detailed profiles become the key to crafting highly targeted messages – whether for automated responses or marketing campaigns. Tailoring compelling content that resonates with individual customers becomes much easier with this protocol. 

Use RCS messaging to grow your business

RCS messaging can supercharge your sales, marketing, and customer service. Here are a few ways to make the most of RCS’s advanced features to grow your business. 

Send captivating promos and specials

RCS messages allow brands to create eye-catching promos with image carousels, media cards, and GIFs. Many brands are already using WhatsApp to do this. Showcase multiple products at once with a call-to-action that takes the viewer straight to the shopping page, streamlining checkout. 

Early data suggests that media-rich promos significantly outperform traditional mobile campaigns. BodemerAuto, a car dealer, launched a Black Friday campaign using RCS to increase customer engagement. The campaign delivered a 17-fold clickthrough rate (CTR) improvement compared to a concurrent, text-only SMS campaign.

Manage appointments and reservations

Healthcare and hospitality companies can use RCS texting to manage appointments, send reminders, and sell event tickets. Live support, suggested actions, and AI chatbots can all be used in RCS texting to help customers manage their relationships with your business without tangling up customer service channels. 

How does this work? A salon could prompt a customer to set up an appointment with a “schedule now” button. The client would schedule their appointment directly through the text conversation. Suggested actions could also include a “reschedule” autoresponse. 

Automate account alerts 

Citi has traditionally used SMS to ask customers to verify account information, receive alerts on their spending, and get notified immediately of suspicious transactions. With RCS messaging, Citi can do more. 

“This RCS functionality allows customers to message Citi through the standard Android Messages app on their device and to access information such as their current balance and payment due date,” Wooters notes. “Our customers can also escalate their inquiry to a live agent, to address additional servicing needs.” 

Not only can Citi customers get real-time account alerts, but they can also take action directly in the message. 

Beat the competition with a great RCS strategy: 3 tips

Now is the time to start developing an RCS strategy. As this messaging protocol grows, brands that are prepared will have a competitive advantage over those that continue to rely on SMS or MMS. 

Treat your RCS text campaigns like e-mail. 

The features of RCS messaging allow you to be more sophisticated in your mobile marketing strategy. RCS messages can deliver powerful, specific CTAs, so customer segmentation is imperative. Set campaign goals, segment your contact list, and measure results the same way you would an email campaign. 

Please note that we do not suggest writing RCS messages that are as long or detailed as your e-mail campaigns. RCS messages should be used to augment your other communications channels in a more targeted, impactful way.

Start developing content on OTT apps.

More brands are signing on to use this messaging protocol every day. But, in the meantime, develop an OTT strategy that can help hone in on what content works and doesn’t. Plivo’s WhatsApp Business API allows users to effortlessly deploy WhatsApp for customer engagement while keeping costs low. 

WhatsApp for Business allows brands to send images, videos, and documents, making the messaging experience richer and more engaging. Plivo makes it easy to use the WhatsApp Business Platform to showcase a new product through a video, share a brochure as a PDF, or simply update customers on their latest transactions.

[Read more: Get Started with Plivo's WhatsApp API – Quick Onboarding Guide]  

WhatsApp for Business gives you a way to test different content and see what resonates. Try different campaigns to learn best practices and understand how customers respond to these richer messages. 

Utilize your customer data. 

Finally, remember that RCS messaging is simply another channel in an omnichannel approach to the customer experience. Like any tool, it’s best utilized with customer data from across your company — sales, customer service, marketing, and operations. Integrate RCS messaging with your other systems and channels to get the best results.  

Conclusion

RCS messaging is poised for explosive growth. Preparing your business for this messaging protocol now is a smart way to build customer loyalty and trust in the future. Learn more about RCS and how Plivo can help your business engage customers by getting in touch with sales.