Account Notifications are timely, relevant, and personalized messages sent by companies to their customers about their accounts.
Before the advent of the web, businesses were only able to use postal mail, fax or the telephone to keep their customers notified of account updates and changes. Today, many businesses let customers choose how they want to receive account-related communications, leveraging new messaging technologies and the Internet. Customers can now opt to receive account notifications via email, text alerts, or both.
Transaction-based e-commerce companies, in particular, often need to communicate with customers about important security-related issues, for example whether their credit card has been declined or if someone has tried to access their account fraudulently. By employing SMS account notifications as part of their commerce communications, business can ensure their customers receive these critical alerts faster and are able to act on them quickly. Netflix, for example, uses messaging to send alerts to customers when their credit card is about to expire or if they need to reset their password.
Notifications such as these can be sent in many ways. But not all channels are equally effective. For example, four out of five emails go unopened, so email is not the best way to ensure customers get important notifications. SMS has five times the open rate that email does. SMS alerts are the single best way to keep customers in the loop about important changes to their account.
By ensuring customers are notified in real-time — and receiving these notifications via their preferred channels — you can build a real-time relationship with the customer and increase customer satisfaction.