Discover The Easy But Hidden Way To Engage With More Customers And Get Ahead Of Your Competition We've noticed a shift happening - customers are contacting businesses more and more with instant messaging, SMS text messages, and emails, and less with phone calls than they used to.  This is great, but it comes with a catch!  It's super easy to know when your phone is ringing...but how do you know if you have a new message on Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, or any other 3rd party messaging platform?  Don't let these customer inquiries slip through the cracks!  In this weeks episode we share some tips and tricks to quickly engage with these customers, and win the sales that your competition is missing out on!     What You’ll Learn There is a rise in the ratio of non-phone call communications for customer contact from websites Phone calls remain the most popular method of contacting local companies for service requests Often times businesses are slower to reply to emails than they are in handling phone calls Customers can easily contact many businesses via email in short order If you can promptly reply to emails, you will stand out above the competition Customers can also contact you via Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and other 3rd party messaging methods You can use screen recording apps (like Loom) to record a message, and link to it in your message replies Many customers choose messaging over a phone call so they can have a one-way conversation and avoid talking to a salesperson Strategically reply to messaging with smart and informative answers, communicating your points where relevant Emails and messages are easily shared by customers, so your replies should take that into consideration Instant messages are much more intimate and less likely to get lost in the shuffle, compared to emails or phone calls Messaging platforms like Yelp and Facebook will display your response (reply) time - a slow response time can turn customers away, and a fast response can gain you new customers Find all your communication inputs and understand how and where you are getting new leads from Use Google My Business to enable messaging (SMS) direct from your GMB listing Use Twilio or Intrycks Call Tracking to integrate SMS on your business phone numbers Integrate a live chat feature on your website to provide easy and immediate customer interactions Make sure you have a quote form or contact form on your website that is easy to find and easy to use View the show notes, resource links, episode transcript, and watch the video version at https://www.localseotactics.com/episode28