Thomas Howe, founder of TextGen / GREENBOT, has come up with a slick way of removing adoption friction for instant inbound customer texting with KISST.
KISST automates customer conversations using messaging. Each KISST service attaches to a telephone number, and listens and responds on behalf of the business. When the conversation is over, KISST emails a transcript of the conversation. KISST allows people to run their business, while it answers customers in real time. KISST services can be deployed in minutes, and can be attached to a new number, or it can service an existing land line. That’s the service description, its quite straight forward. But selling that is quite a different matter, because its new and not a big, pretty graphic on a webpage. This is a common challenge faced by many telecom applications.
The really smart thing they’ve done is on the removal of friction around adoption, in particular making it easy to sell. With the common customer templates the main use cases can be configured in minutes for a business, see below. Then simply walk into the business / call them and show them the texting working on their business number, at that point they can buy the service. Its that simple, by making it easy to set up and demo with on the spot sign-up.
In state-of-the-art web services, much effort is spent on design, not just in operation, rather from the moment a customer becomes aware that the service exists, through demonstration of value, configuration and all possible modes of operation; with meticulous focus on clarity of communication, making it intuitively obvious. What Thomas with Kisst has done is use the inherent limitations of SMS to make their service immediately useful for a business, and embed sign-up into that experience.
There are a few templates that covers most of the common uses cases, as shown below. This focus on making it as simple and as relevant to the buyer as possible, is a great sign-post in the increasing relevance of telecom application development. Check-out justkisst.me.
- Information: hours, address, specials
- Leads: deliver content, collect contact information
- Feedback: collect common questions, complaints
- Engagement: new ideas from your customers
- Incident: report repair requests, late payments
- Under Construction: takes messages until the text site is ready
- Text2Email: converts text to email conversations
Great pick on this one Alan as KISST snatched a global prize at the TAD Hack 2015 event! Let’s see who else realizes the gold in taking care of its customers through automated texting.