Telegram is a great messaging tool that has a ton of benefits when it comes to customer service. This app is often overshadowed by the bigger messaging apps like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, but it shouldn’t be! Telegram is still extremely popular with 200 million monthly users and the app plans to target 1 billion users by 2022. The app is extremely popular in Iran, India, the USA, Brazil, Italy, Venezuela, Russia, Ukraine, Kenya, and Nigeria. If you have customers in these regions, then offering Telegram customer service support is a great way to go above and beyond for your customers and connect with them using an app they trust.
With Telegram set to reach new heights in the coming years, now is a great time to get your company prepared to offer this communication channel. The more communication options you offer, the more freedom your customers will have, and the better their customer experience will be. With that in mind, let’s take a deep dive into Telegram and its benefits in customer service.
Why Some Users Prefer Telegram
Before we look at why Telegram is a good option for customer service, let’s take a look at why it’s becoming popular. Why do some consumers prefer Telegram to other digital messaging services?
- Something different – WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger are both owned by Facebook. This may be an issue for customers who want to distance themselves from Facebook or are concerned about the company’s data leaks over the last few years.
- Cloud-based – All conversations are stored in the cloud, so if you switch devices you don’t need to backup your chat to keep your data.
- Flexible with files – Users can send videos that are up to 1.5GB in size. This has made Telegram extremely popular for users who want to share movies with their friends. Users can even stream the video before it has finished downloading. This is a feature that the other messaging services don’t support and one of the major reasons Telegram is so popular. In fact, the most subscribed Telegram is called HINDI MOVIES and has 3.2 million subscribers.
- Draft messages – Users can save messages in draft format and access them from any device. This happens automatically if you start a message but don’t send it.
- Usernames over numbers – Not everyone is comfortable sharing their phone number, especially with people they’ve just met or with companies they don’t trust to handle their data responsibly. With Telegram, users can communicate by sharing their usernames and the other party won’t know your mobile number.
- Unsend or edit messages after they are sent – Unlike WhatsApp, there’s no time limit on unsending a message on Telegram. The other party in the message will also not be notified if you unsend a message.
- Fun features – Telegram also has a bunch of fun features like stickers, music players, pinned messages, video messages, and more.
Why You Should Use Telegram for Customer Service
Your Customers Are Using It
Telegram has become known as the messaging app for privacy-focused individuals. Despite being cloud-based, Telegram is extremely secure and has never been hacked or involved in a data breach scandal. This is something the company prides itself on. Since users can keep their number private and have no messaging data stored on their device, it is considered a superior app to very private individuals.
Privacy-focused customers tend to be passionate about technology and will fall into the same category of users who prefer to use digital communication channels. However, if you only offer WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (the same company), and the user isn’t a fan of these platforms, then they will be forced into calling your company instead. This could mean they are less satisfied or have a worse experience if calling isn’t their preferred communication method.
Channels
Telegram allows you to create channels. Channels are a tool you can utilize to broadcast public messages to your customer base or to select groups of customers. This can be great for proactive customer service where you want to inform customers of any major updates or changes to your business. It’s also great for sales. You can broadcast messages about your latest promotions or discounts and your customers will receive the message instantly and get a notification. Unlike WhatsApp, any new users will be able to view the entire message history once they are added to the Telegram channel. This is great because it means you don’t need to repeat messages each time a new customer is added. Repeating messages too often is risky because it might encourage long standing users to leave the group if they feel they are being spammed.
It’s Easy to Integrate
Telegram is extremely easy to integrate with your business software and will allow you to provide great customer service with ease.
You can also integrate your chatbots into Telegram to provide 24/7 customer support outside of your operating hours. You can also use Telegram bots for other things like:
- Allowing customers to book reservations at your restaurant.
- Allow users to buy products or place orders.
Groups
You can use Telegram’s groups feature to build communities and support up to 200,000 members. There are several use cases for groups in a business setting, for example:
- Gathering interest in upcoming events.
- Setting up subscribers.
- Holding contests.
- Marketing.
Telegram is powerful and highly flexible so the options are almost limitless. This is what makes it so great for businesses, especially in a modern and rapidly advancing digital world full of customers with all types of preferences.
It’s a Forward-Thinking Company Move
It’s such a competitive world out there for businesses in 2020! Businesses have to work harder than ever to set themselves apart from the crowd and capture the attention of consumers. The goal is to attract and excite new customers with the products you offer and the experience you provide and keep those customers happy so they stay with you. Of course, this is easier said than done and there are hundreds of ways you can improve your company and the experience you offer. One such way is through innovation.
Consumers like forward-thinking and innovative companies. Companies that invest in the latest tech and trends are seen as the movers and shakers in the world. They inspire confidence in consumers who want to believe that the companies they buy from are here to stay. A company that moves with the times and adopts proven tech is more likely to survive than a company that relies on traditional systems and a traditional approach.
By integrating Telegram into your customer service, you are signaling to your customers that you are invested in the future – you’re a modern company that uses modern messaging services! You’re also signaling that you care about their preferences and are proactive about providing what they want. Think about it… It’s great to offer WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger Integration, or Live Chat services, but is this remarkable? You absolutely should offer these services because lots of customers will want to use them and it will take pressure away from your call staff by diversifying your customer communication options. But at the same time, it’s no longer remarkable to offer these services. Consumers in 2020 are more demanding than ever. They have high expectations and they want these expectations to be met or exceeded every time. Consumers in 2020 expect to be able to contact your company on WhatsApp, Facebook, or Live Chat. To truly impress customers you need to surprise them. You need to offer more than what they expect as the new standard. Offering Telegram meets this goal. Even customers who don’t use Telegram today will see it as a sign that you are committed to providing as many communication options as possible to support your customers. It’s essentially free marketing for your company.
How to Get Started with Telegram
So, you’ve decided to offer Telegram customer service support for your customers, what next? First, you need to understand how Telegram will integrate with your current business solutions. For Telegram customer service support to be its most effective, you will want to use an omnichannel platform. Omnichannel platforms are great for customer engagement and streamlining your business operation. Their benefits go beyond Telegram. For example, with an omnichannel platform you can:
- Gather in-depth customer insights – All of your data is in one place! This means you can crunch your data, do expert analysis, find anything with a flick of the finger, and more. This is not only useful for daily business activities but can also help you unlock powerful insights hidden in your data. These insights will inform your business goals and actions for the future.
- Engage with customers in one system – No more switching between systems and dealing with siloed customer data.
- Be where your customers are – With an omnichannel platform, you can be where your customers are and never miss an opportunity to deliver great customer service.
- Use AI to offer a more personalized experience to customers – Not only will this result in better customer experience, but it also results in more sales for your company. Customers only see tailored and relevant products based on their customer persona and other data. AI is booming right now and AI is best utilized on an omnichannel platform. The two go hand in hand.
Telegram Customer Service with CommBox
CommBox’s leading Omnichannel platform has the Telegram App integration into it. The new version of CommBox, version 8 has fully integrated Telegram features that allow agents to answer Telegram communications through the smart inbox feature. This means that agents can answer Telegram messages from within CommBox and also conduct other tasks such as answering calls, sending SMS, talking to customers on Live Chat, and more. Agents will be immediately alerted through the smart inbox anytime a customer communicates with your company through Telegram. Agents can then respond instantly to customers through the smart box to resolve customer complaints. The customer will receive the message straight to their Telegram app.
Our team has been working hard to continually add features to CommBox that improve the experience of both customers and agents. With Version 8 and its increased focus on a clean and powerful user interface, strong AI, and more features, we believe we are advancing this goal. Telegram integration is crucial for some businesses and a good addition to other businesses. We believe that businesses should offer as many customer service communication channels as possible to satisfy the expectations of customers in the digital age.