Automated Bulk SMS, Bulk Voice and Bulk Emails. How to Choose the Most Efficient Tool?

Every business should communicate with its clients. What channel will suit a task better? In this article, we consider several options, show their advantages and disadvantages, and help you to find a perfect solution.

Features

Bulk voice calls
Interactive dialogues
The delivery rate up to 98%
Detailed statistics
Calls records
Not everyone absorbs information by ear
A message should catch attention from the start
Call-center
More variability in conversation
Operators adjust quickly
Claims can be solved during a call
Operators often go off scripts
The need for constant quality control
Data disclosure risk
Bulk SMS
Clients is used to it
Messages are stored on the сontact's phone
Links can be sent
Characters limit
The low delivery rate (about 70%)
Often are ignored
No open tracking
E-mail campaigns
Full tracking of customer actions
Broad opportunities for testing
Detailed messages
Detailed messages
The low open rate
A letter may be read too late

Time

Interactive dialogues
Call 1000 clients in few minutes
Clients hear a message instantly
Takes about 2 month for preparation
10-15 calls are made in an hour
Clients hear a message instantly but it may be inaccurate
Takes about 30 minutes to start
Can be sent in few minutes
Clients may read a message too late
Takes about 5 minutes to start
Usually a message can be sent fast but it depends on the connection speed

Effectiveness

An average purchase conversion rate is 2%
Relatively cheap
You pay only for seconds of conversations
An average purchase conversion rate is 5%
Extremely expensive
The price depends on the number of calls that were made
An average purchase conversion rate is 0,1%
Relatively cheap
The price depends on the size of a database
An average purchase conversion rate is 0,1%
Relatively cheap
The price depends on the number of characters

Key points

Consider your specifics! The choice of customer communication tool should be based on your product. It is better to sell complex products through call-centers and simple ones via e-mail or SMS.

The golden mean is bulk voice calls. They are not such expensive as a call-center, while they are much more likely to deliver information to a client due to higher delivery and open rates. Imitation of a real human voice involves customers to conversation and the IVR-scripts provide them more information or immediately place an order and transfer it to a manager.

The size of the contact base matters. If the base is small, you can call it manually. Voice mailings are most effective if you have bases of 1000+ contacts. SMS and e-mail newsletters, due to lower conversion, will be useful for bases of 5000+ contacts.

Always test your messages on small groups of customers. It is better to test several offers on groups of 100-500 people before sending them to all clients.

Rating

Promotional messages
Bulk voice calls
Allow sending personalized messages with a high delivery rate (up to 98%) and speed. Establishes contact with a client "here and now". You can measure the effectiveness of any offer and get only interested leads. Sometimes causes “wow-effect”, especially when you use the voice of a company owner or a chief manager.
E-mail campaigns
It is a suitable tool for large commercial offers and complex products. A letter can look like a mini-landing page, it is colourful and attracts attention but has a high probability of getting into spam or being ignored.
Bulk SMS
SMS lose its popularity - its open rate of texts has become rather low. It is difficult to measure the result. That is why many companies use SMS as an addition to a voice mailing with IVR nowadays. For example, they send a link only to those clients who are interested. The same can be done with e-mail mailings.
Call-center
Call centers offer high prices and a long time for launching. Such service can be recommended only for the most complex products and offers or to call small and special groups of clients.
Transactional messages
Bulk voice calls
Allow sending personalized messages with a high delivery rate (up to 98%) and speed. Establishes contact with a client "here and now". You can measure the effectiveness of any offer and get only interested leads. Sometimes causes “wow-effect”, especially when you use the voice of a company owner or a chief manager.
Bulk SMS
It is a suitable tool for large commercial offers and complex products. A letter can look like a mini-landing page, it is colourful and attracts attention but has a high probability of getting into spam or being ignored.
E-mail campaigns
E-mail is still rather popular and one of the cheapest tools, but it is used less and less because of the high risk of getting into spam. A letter can easily get lost among others and will not be read at all.
Call-center
It is an extremely expensive and slow way of notification.
It should be used for small groups of clients and complicated orders. Can be combined with robocalls with the IVR function “connect me with the manager” button.

NETVANA TELESMS PRIVATE LIMITED
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80 Feet Road, Michael Palya,
Bengaluru, India