Facebook Messenger vs SMS: A complete review for small businesses

By this time, you should know that your customers are probably your business's most valuable asset. To build and foster relationships with them, you'll inevitably need to communicate directly, whether it's giving practical information about opening hours, details about promotions, or even if you need to help them sort out a problem.

Fortunately, when it comes to communicating with your customers, you're not limited by choice and you have various options. For one, you can opt for a tried and trusted phone and maybe use email. You could also consider SMS, and you definitely shouldn't ignore Facebook Messenger. But why?

In this short Facebook Messenger and SMS review, we'll look at these two tools and some of the benefits of using them in more detail.

Why Facebook Messenger?

There is no way to get around it; the Facebook user base is enormous. As a result, Facebook Messenger is one of the most important messaging apps that businesses can use to connect with their customers globally.

In fact, Facebook Messenger hosts activity from 1.2 billion users every month and businesses exchange over 20 billion messages with customers on Messenger every month. So, it would be a mistake not to consider using Facebook Messenger in your business.

Why SMS?

SMS has been around the longest of all text messaging services. The reasons why it is so popular are simple. It's reliable, text messages are delivered instantly and it's cost-effective. As a bonus, it's also very efficient and straightforward to set up.

It enables you to communicate better with your customers, which in turn promotes customer loyalty and retention. And, by using the right marketing strategies, you'll also be able to attract new customers through the use of SMS.

What can Facebook Messenger and SMS bring to small businesses?

The obvious question is why you should consider SMS or Facebook Messenger if you're already using email and phone for communication. Well, let's look at some stats. By using an instant messaging service, you'll be able to connect with your customers instantly.

In fact, 98% of text messages are opened immediately and 67% of customers would rather receive a text than talk with or email a business. Simply put, text messaging is now the preferred method of communication for customers.

But it goes further than just communication.

For instance, you can use text messages for marketing. Here, you'll be able to deliver personalised marketing campaigns to your customers. Moreover, if you consider that most people have phones capable of receiving SMS, you can create awareness about your business in a much broader market.

You can also use it for customer service, where your customers can contact you with any questions, queries or issues — you'll be able to sort any problems out far quicker than having a customer wait for an email reply. And it is like they say, a happy customer is a returning customer.

It's also possible to use text messaging services to get feedback from customers or even conduct surveys and polls. By gathering all this information, you can use it to gain insight into your business and improve in any areas that might be lacking.

With that in mind, let's look at some of the benefits you'll get when you use Facebook Messenger and SMS for your small business.

Benefits of using Facebook Messenger for business

Some benefits of using Facebook Messenger for your small business include:

• Quality customer service. Nowadays, customers expect businesses to be online and available at all times. As a result, 81% of customers message businesses to ask about products or services, 75% message businesses for support and 74% message businesses to make a purchase. As a result, Facebook Messenger is vital for your business's sales and customer service processes.
  
  

• Building trust in your brand. When you communicate with customers over Facebook Messenger, it's more than just a unilateral marketing message. It shows your company is open to dialogue with its customers. This makes customers feel more confident about your brand. Just having this option available for customers to message you increases their trust in your brand.
  
  

• Generating high-quality leads. When a customer reaches out on Facebook Messenger, it creates an opportunity for you to follow up. So, every message from a customer is a chance to learn more about the customer and build relationships with them.
  
  

• Turning trust into sales. As we said before, having the option available for customers to message your business makes them trust you more. It's pretty simple: if a customer trusts you more, it's more likely that they'll buy from you. For instance, 65% of people said they would be more likely to buy from a business they can contact via chat.
  
  

• Taking sensitive conversations private. Messenger provides customers with the option to approach you with questions that they are too shy to ask publicly. Also, a customer could have a negative experience that you'd want to resolve privately and not in public.

Benefits of using SMS for business

Some of the benefits of using SMS for your small business include:

• Immediate delivery. As far as delivery times go, it doesn't get much quicker than SMS. It's quick, efficient and only takes a second or two to reach a vast audience. As a result, you'll get your personalised messaging to your audience faster than many other services. Also, you'll be able to instantly see who has received the message, who opened it, read it and who has responded.
  
  

• Personal. Because SMS messages are sent separately to every individual customer, they are very personal. When your customers receive these messages, they are also more likely to respond.
  
  

• Cost efficiency. SMS messages are cheap, and there are no other marketing methods available that provide such affordable results. This is especially true if you compare it with other traditional marketing methods like TV or radio. Besides, it's simple and easy, so you can implement it quickly and your customers can read it even quicker because messages are small, direct and concise.
  
  

• Global reach. Although there are many people without the internet, there are very few without phones. Actually, it's estimated that there are up to 7 billion mobile phones in use today and SMS is one of the universally available technologies on mobile phones.
  
  

• Reliability. Compared to other messaging services, mobile phones don't come with a spam filter or spam folder. As a result, SMS is often far more reliable than other services like email, where your mails can be diverted to a customer’s spam folder.

In short

So, which is best out of Facebook Messenger and SMS? We think the question should rather be: why not use both? Combined, they allow you to boost your customer communication game and, while they're simple and easy to implement, they are big on results.