Enough is enough. For the past 20 years, SMS marketing companies seem to have evaded the concept of conversational marketing completely. Customers are cluttered with various marketing text messages that lack the human touch or the possibility to start a conversation.

Which seems a bit funny, doesn’t it, considering that is what text messages are all about: conversations. It’s the reason we built Cartloop in the first place: to enable companies to connect with their shoppers and vice versa.

So, we wanted to give you a glimpse of what SMS marketing can do for your shoppers (and your sales, too). Let's start with the basics.

What is Conversational SMS Marketing?

Conversational text marketing takes your SMS strategy up a notch - you’re not just sending out bulk, automated and irrelevant communications, but instead, you’ll be focusing on true conversations with your customers and on engaging them to build up rapport with your brand.

While email marketing has been the tried-and-true marketing channel for eCommerce brands for years, it's not everyday a new marketing channel appears. Conversational text marketing can help you plug the gaps in your user journey by effectively

Incorporating this empathy-driven approach and allowing your shoppers to communicate with the people behind your brand will give you a distinct competitive advantage.

What is Cartloop?

Cartloop is a conversational text messaging platform that revolutionizes the eCommerce space by enabling brands to build stronger customer relationships and driving growth for our users. We focus on what text marketing has so far largely ignored: actual conversations.

More than a messaging platform, our 2-way communication system is powered by both people and AI. For consumers, we are their very own shopping assistant, which allows us to become a communication interface between them and their favourite brands. We want our users to drive results and their customers to be always in the loop, safer when shopping online, knowing their favourite brand is just a text message away.

How Cartloop Works

When customers abandon their carts, one of our eCommerce experts reaches out to them via text message. From then on, a conversation ensues. We uncover real-time feedback on why shoppers are abandoning their carts. The kind of feedback such as: “the delivery takes too long”, “there was a problem with the payment method”, “the shipping cost is too high” is not available through regular surveys, nor is it observable through typical analytics tools.

This reduces the number of support tickets, thus improving the customer experience as well and props customers to return to their cart and complete their purchase. In this period when support teams are facing surges in volume, we prevent shoppers from opening new tickets by solving their needs in real-time. The nice part is that shoppers are also happier because they quickly get their questions answered and support issues solved within the span of a couple of text messages.

With the large number of people suddenly having to order products online, many face issues doing so. For example, we guide some shoppers through the checkout process by explaining how to enter their details or add a discount code - or we simply do it for them, step by step. This is otherwise impossible to achieve with standard cart recovery methods that only send promotional content.

Onboarding

Our world-class Experts are learning the ins and outs of your product(s) during the onboarding process, understanding the brand through your FAQ and by reaching out to your support team for additional questions. What we do is either set up a call to discuss your brand in detail, or, we send you a form with a unique set of questions that help our Experts better understand the brand, its core product/s, and mission. 

Our onboarding services are here to support you every step of the way. When you first join the Cartloop family, we’ll take time to get to know you better and create customized items together, designed to help you reach your most important goals, faster. 

As Cartloop is a fully managed service, following the installation, you get to sit back and check the dashboard for insights on how your text messaging is performing. Think of us as an extension of your pre-sales team that helps out with customer support, brand awareness, community building and social interactions. 

TCPA Compliance

In order to be able to send out SMS marketing (or any other marketing communications, for that matter), merchants need to legally collect, store and use the customers personal data – which includes phone numbers. 

By ‘legally’, we mean that customers need to give an explicit “Written Consent” prior to receiving any marketing messages. Cartloop is a conversational sms marketing platform that adheres strictly to TCPA and CTIA compliance.

We enable merchants to legally collect personal data through the checkout process.  

• Opt in through the website's checkout page — it's the most common way of collecting consent, as customers can opt in while placing an order.
• Opt in through subscription forms — this refers to on-site popups, modals and other similar forms.
  

During the onboarding process, our Experts will help you set up your Checkout Page to ensure compliance. At the end, your checkout page should look like this:

Cartloop Recovery Experts™

Who are the Cartloop Recovery Experts™?

Our Experts are real people from all over the globe, available 24/7. Not a chatbot, not bulk automated replies: real people from across the globe, who have your brand’s best interests at heart. We want you to succeed, because if you win, we win!

How Cartloop Recovery Experts™ work

Take a look at a real SMS conversation below. Within the space of 3 text messages (no more than 5 minutes), we uncovered 3 crucial insights for our client

• Adding an additional payment method would benefit some segments of their audience 
• FAQ page needed updating as it lacked vital information
• Extra shipping options would benefit delivery times

Now take a look at your own store. 

How long would it take to get that kind of feedback from a potential customer – one that decided to walk away from the purchase? Let’s be honest – unless they somehow find their way back into a customer service conversation, it is highly unlikely that you’d find out why they decided not to complete their acquisition. 

When people hesitate to buy because they have questions, our experts provide instant answers, in a way becoming their very own personal shopping assistant when they need it most.   

How long does it take for Cartloop Recovery Experts™ to reply to customers? 

Cartloop Recovery Experts™ are converting customers 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, and your customers will get a text message response within 1 to 2 minutes!

Who Should Use Cartloop?

Take a look at the image below. Which brand do you want to be? 

We hope you answered ‘the first one’ – an experience that delivers real value to your shoppers through two-way text conversations, just like your customers would get in-store, face to face. 

If your goal is to deliver more than intrusive notifications and random coupons to your existing or potential customers, then Cartloop is for you. We can help you build a community of loyal customers that not only love engaging with your brand, but will spread the word about the incredible customer service you provide through text messages. 

Why Should You Choose Cartloop Over Other SMS Marketing Tools?

We often get asked how Cartloop compares versus other platforms for SMS marketing. In a nutshell, our competing platforms are great but differ in a couple of ways, in what they are meant to do, where they are strong, where they are weak, how to try them out, cost, and features.

So to help answer your questions, we’ve drafted a couple of comparisons where we take an in-depth look at each platform to help you decide which one is best suited for your brand’s specific marketing needs based on features, free trials, availability, pricing and more. You can read the comparisons here, here and here.

But, here’s the bottom line, in our view:

• Cartloop is the better option for brands that want to engage with shoppers in real-time, right when they need it the most by using the human approach.
• Most SMS Marketing tools are great for brands and stores that want to automate their SMS marketing and put it on autopilot.
  

Note: Rather see for yourself than read a comparison? Sign up and trial our risk-free plan — we send unlimited texts for free for 14 days. Or book a demo to see how it works!

The Benefits

What we are most proud of is that Cartloop provides value for both you and your shoppers – you get to create a community of brand supporters and your customers get true value from your communications. It’s a win-win! 

Don’t believe us? Here’s 25 solid reasons why: 

(Honestly, you really only need one)

Real-time insights and feedback

• Helping merchants take data-driven decisions
• Helping merchants find otherwise undetected problems or areas of improvement

Improved shopping experience

• Bringing the in-store shopping experience online
• Offering customers a personal shopping assistant free of charge
• Delivering human-powered product recommendations
• Offering a Premium experience for shoppers
• Reducing customer support tickets

Consistent results

• Conversing with actual people behind each text
• Increasing conversion rates
• Increasing customer LTV

Builds trust and customer relationships

• Creating a personalized experience for customers in a conversational tone
• Offering shoppers someone to reach out to instantly
• Allowing customers to feel safe when purchasing for the first time
• Showing customers that someone actually cares about them
• Listening to what your customers are saying
• Providing actual value to the customer

Quicker reply rates, like in an actual text conversation

• With automated texts when someone replies they are getting routed to support which can take hours or days to reply
• With Cartloop the average reply time is under 5 minutes

First-hand support

• 24/7 Support
• Help with payment issues
• Help navigate technical hurdles
• Answer product questions
• Answer shipping related questions
• Solves pain points

Low unsubscribe rates

• Because of the human tone, people are less likely to unsubscribe

What Cartloop Customers Are Saying?

We worked very hard to build Cartloop into the platform that it is today and customers are our most important focus. 

Here’s what they have to say about us: 

If that sounds like just what you’ve been looking for, recover up to 5x more abandoned carts today with Cartloop's conversational SMS marketing platform—the first 14-days are on us! Or book a free demo with us to see how it works.