Australasian Dentist Magazine Nov Dec 2021

104 AustrAlAsiAn Dentist Q uestion: Do the majority of Australian customers prefer to interact with businesses by phone or email? According to a recent business survey on customer communication trends, the answer may well be neither. results of the 2021 local Business Messaging trends report (Australia edition) show that almost 66% of consumers agree that having the option to text businesses would significantly increase convenience. Most Australian consumers still call or email their local businesses as they are the predominant modes of interaction that businesses offer. tellingly, the same survey found that only 12% of local businesses use text as a marketing tool. Closing the gap According to Dave schiene, the Australia Country Manager of Podium, the company behind the survey, dental practice owners have much to gain from closing this gap in service. “today so many of us live and work via our smartphones. For local businesses, this presents a significant opportunity,” he says. “According to our report Aussies, on average, open text messaging within three minutes. Our research also found that 95% of texts were opened in that time and overall texts have an open rate of 98%. “these statistics are important factors for businesses within the dental industry as it is proof of how customers prefer to communicate and are looking for channels that offer convenience and speed.” Podium is an sMs-based platform that helps local businesses receive reviews, collect payments, send sMs campaigns, and centralise their communications. Podium’s centralised platform even aggregates communications from channels such as Google, Facebook, instagram and tripAdvisor. launched in 2014, the business serves more than 100,000 local businesses in the united states, Canada and Australia. schiene says their customer base in Australia has almost quadrupled to over 3,000 local businesses since the start of the pandemic. “locally, we have over 70 employees in Australia and want to significantly expand our headcount to almost double that over the coming 12 months,” he adds. Numbers don’t lie Whether disseminating the latest teeth whitening offer, new patient promotion or announcing a new branch opening, many dentists are turning to eDM (electronic direct mail) and other seO-driven, web-based campaigns to keep their patients informed. Yet few are aware that sMs open rates are as high as 98%, compared to the email’s average open rate of 18%and click-through rate of just 2.6%. On average, it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text as compared to 90 minutes for an email. “it’s evident from our research that consumers want personal conversations with a business. Over half (56%) of mobilemessaging is done through sMs texting (or iMessage) while the remaining 44% is done via third party apps such as WhatsApp, telegram, and Facebook Messenger. text has a 209% higher response rate than phone, email, or Facebook,” schiene says. “in terms of promotional messaging, our research revealed that 75% of consumers welcome sMs messages, when opted in. Consumers also redeem sMs coupons or promotions 10 times more than other types of coupons. “When consumers were asked which channels they would like, but do not currently use, to learn about promotions from local businesses they frequent, text messaging was the top choice – higher than email, website or social media.” The medium is the message If statistics are anything to go by, dental practices that do not provide SMS text messaging services may be short changing their customers. SoFtware & teCHnology By Danny Chan