Let Rich Messages Turbocharge the User Journey

By giving your customers visual cues of all kinds, you can guide their user journey and buying experience in a way that is otherwise impossible. In the world of chat and chatbots, this is known as rich messages. 

Don’t get us wrong– text is important. It's the foundation for live chat. (In fact, we cover the importance of using the right language in our Ultimate Guide for Improving Chat Performance which you can get for free here.) 

But as useful and necessary as text and language are, they can only take you so far. And in some cases, they’re not always the perfect tools to meet the customer’s exact needs. Some people are more visual than others, and some information just can’t be conveyed in text quickly and easily. So what can you do? This is where rich messaging comes in. 

In this article, we’re going to show you the power of rich messaging, explain how it works, and give you some tips on how to use it to turbocharge your user journey on your website.

The Value of Rich Messaging

To see the power of visual cues, look at Instagram, for example. The app is built off the power of people interacting with photos and video. Instagram’s visual appeal was so successful that Facebook eventually purchased it because it was outperforming the tech giant’s platform.

Note that Instagram realises how powerful this is– and most recently launched the ability for small businesses to sell directly to consumers via chat.

Using rich messaging is the ultimate hack to convey a lot of information quickly without overwhelming the customer. Because these options are in various forms – links, images, buttons– appearing organised, concise options the customer can choose. 

Here’s an example of rich media at work for a mattress brand. The customer is looking for a personal recommendation on a mattress. As you can guess, it can be challenging to convey comfort, style, and trust about a mattress using words alone.

Our agent uses rich messaging by providing a short compelling description accompanied with a beautiful photo that visually conveys comfort and style. 

Also, note that other built-in buttons compel the customer to take specific actions within this phase of the journey. These buttons can offer promotions, give options to read reviews or have a call to action to purchase the item immediately. 

By including these buttons directly within the live chat, you don’t lose the customer’s attention for a second, they stay on path to a sale. Without these buttons, you risk losing them to other parts of your site– or worse– having them leave or visit a competitor. 

Here are some common buttons you can use to help customers:

• Promotions or coupons
• Other relevant product categories
• Reviews
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Downloadable case study or webinar
• Add to cart and other CTA buttons

As you can see, the options are many, and all of these touch-points can be used to curate a perfectly crafted user journey.

Rich Messaging is Interactive

When customers are faced with the right interactive content, it can be a powerful tool to build trust and immersion in their buyer’s journey. When people have options, and they begin to choose their own carefully curated path that you present to them, a sense of ownership can develop. These sorts of journeys are more likely to lead to sales.

In any environment, you want the engagement to be high, and rich messaging helps put the right focus on the right options at the right time.

Rich messaging allows you to build interactive multimedia user experiences far beyond the average link sharing or text alone. Why? Because you’re not only giving the customer exactly what they’re looking for in an attractive, understandable way– but you’re also giving them the next step to the sale. 

Rich Messaging is Efficient

As we mentioned earlier, rich messaging is a great way to convey a large quantity of information at once.

The Chat Shop’s rich messaging app leverages LiveChat’s ability to send rich-text messages, while giving the chat agent a user-friendly interface to choose from pre-made rich text messages. This saves the chat agent time and also means that the information/choices being sent can be pre-approved by the client.

Simply put: if your chat agents don’t have to answer every single query manually, it can save them quite a bit of time. What if, instead, your agents are able to use rich messaging technology as a tool? Then your live chat can scale much more efficiently and deliver the best experience for customers.

Rich Messaging and Chatbots? Yes.

Rich messaging shouldn’t be limited to a live chat experience powered by chat agents. Here at The Chat Shop, our software gives you the tools to deliver the same powerful, engaging rich-messaging user journey even when you’re using a chatbot.

If used properly, a finely tuned chatbot combined with right messaging and a live agent who can step in at any time can provide you the ultimate in scalability. 

Get Started With Rich Messaging

If you’re already using live chat, let’s talk about how you can use rich messaging in your current approach. If you need help getting started with live chat altogether, we can look at building in rich messaging as part of your conversion strategy. 

Either way, we’d love to chat.