Investing in improving customer loyalty is key to business longevity. It may be a challenge to develop solutions in measuring loyalty but the payback is significant.

Chatbots are uniquely positioned to help with this need to maintain emotional connections with customers.

While they are not replacements for human interaction, chatbots help in resolving many common issues and queries. This can be done to help maintain customer expectations on responsiveness and reliability without the need for a large support staff. Human staff can handle special, complex issues while chatbots can help in more routine tasks.

A greeter chatbot on your website can help maintain a friendly demeanor for your brand, as well as obtaining the details of your potential customer and storing it for later use. A chatbot that is later on able to greet your shopper by name helps customers feel important and valued by your business.

However, make sure you don't fall prey to petty personalization that does nothing special for your customers. Reward customers when they connect with you, whether it is with promotions, updates, or a more tailored experience according to their tastes.

Businesses need to be where the customers are. With messenger and chat applications in heavy use by everyone, your business's ability to be in the applications that your customers are in is important. A customer is more likely to connect with your business if you are available where they need you to be.

Unfortunately, maintaining multiple channels can be a daunting task, which is why multi-channel chatbots can be a lifesaver. This also makes sure that when your customer interacts across multiple chat applications or your website, your business is responding to them in the same way, and they won't need to repeat themselves.

Consider these two chatbot messages:

versus

The latter drives home the fact that your shopper has just helped make the environment just a little bit better by purchasing from your business.

Lastly, a chatbot with a personality that speaks to your brand's values will help customers connect better with your business. This depends heavily on your brand's identity as well as your target market's expectations, so make sure you check your buyer personas when building your chatbot's personality.

Everyone wants a good deal, and the people who have signed up for your mobile subscriber list are no different. Better yet, you need to give them a really good reason to stay and keep opening those texts you send them.

How?

Send them irresistible, time-sensitive exclusives via SMS. Perhaps hold a flash sale until 5pm with a valuable freebie or significant discount. Limited editions with limited stock are great incentives for people to order quickly and via SMS.

Make sure they see the urgency in your SMS copy: if they don't act now, the chance to snag a great deal is gone.

If your business is one that customers typically return to order the same things, giving your customers the power to quickly order something via SMS is a great idea.

In the US, Domino's Anyware initiative allows patrons to order pizza just by texting a Pizza emoji. It’s a great initiative and one that you can do locally.

Own a coffee shop with regulars coming in every day to order? Let them quickly send a text message to alert you they’re coming in, and they can get their coffee fix as soon as they come in.

Do you sell specific grocery staples that need regular replenishment? Let your suki drop you a quick emoji and they get their staples delivered to them instantly.

Ecommerce is all the rage these days. Everyone is buying things online and getting their goods delivered straight to their doors. At the same time, many are still hesitant and wary about online shopping for fear of losing their purchased goods.

Take a leaf from local courier Gogo Express. Recipients are required to provide an OTP code to receive their parcels -- ensuring that the parcels are released to the right people. This not only ensures where parcels go, but also gives people peace of mind when it comes to sending or receiving their items.

Holding a contest in your SMS subscriber list can raise engagement and tell your subscribers the value of keeping an eye out on your messages. Similar to giving them mobile exclusives, holding these contests must be time-sensitive.

It’s also best to encourage them to respond to your SMS messages to participate, rather than visit a separate webpage -- remember, many may not have access to data when they get your message.

Giving your customers peace of mind when they order or set up an appointment with you is a no-brainer. SMS is a classic avenue for that, and with its high open and read rates, cannot be left off this list.

Whether you confirm orders or ask them to provide an OTP to confirm their mobile number, the acknowledgement that you have received their order and are working on it will give them peace of mind and raise their anticipation for their order.

It’s important to retain the trust of your subscribers when dealing with your SMS campaigns. Massive text blasts should be a thing of the past--don’t alienate them by sending inappropriate offers and messages.

If they see that your text messages are of good value to them, they’ll stay on and look forward to hearing from you. An engaged list can do wonders for your business--take care of them, and they’ll take care of you.