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How Your Customers' Hypermobility Can Help Your Business By Jennifer Goforth Gregory - Writer

Do you feel lost without your phone near your hand? Does it take effort to keep from checking your texts and email? Do you start sweating and shaking when your phone battery dips below 20 percent? If you have almost as many mobile devices as you have fingers, the term "hypermobility" was coined for you. Hypermobility helps businesses stay connected with customers

You are not alone. Pew Research Center found that 66 percent of Americans own two mobile devices (such as a laptop, phone, or tablet) and 36 percent own all three. This study doesn't even take into account wearables such as fitness trackers and smart watches, which seem to be on the wrists of more and more people these days. Unsurprisingly, the research also shows that hypermobile people like yourself use the internet more often, get online from a variety of places, and are more likely to use the internet while on-the-go. Not only that, but a lot of you are probably sneaking a peek at your devices right now as you read this article — busted!

Yet all of this hypermobility isn't just an annoying habit. It's a way of life. The odds are that the majority of your customers fall into the checking-their-phones-during-dinner category, especially if you're targeting millennials. By structuring your business to meet the needs of your customers when and where they have a question, you can make them so happy that they will hopefully use those rapidly typing thumbs of theirs to rave about your company on social media.

Let Your Customers Communicate With You on Their Terms

You text with your spouse to pick up milk, your mom to see how she's doing, and your friends to say you're running late for brunch. Not to mention the texts you send your boss and co-workers when you're working from home or on-the-go. It's how your customers communicate in their daily lives. By asking them to pick up the phone to call you for help, you're asking them to change their routines and communicate in the way you want, not in the way they want.

By using a business phone app, you can provide text-based customer service and your employees can respond using an app from whatever device they want, from whatever location they happen to be at. This means your customers get the answers they need on their terms, and your employees can do their jobs while on-the-go as well.

Use Customers' Hypermobility to Provide More Targeted Information Based on Location

The good thing about having hypermobile customers is that their phones are almost always with them, providing you with helpful geo-targeting information. Once your customers grant you permission, you can pinpoint their location and send geo-targeted push notifications right to their devices. This is a great way to let customers know they are near your store and alert them to special, in-store-only sales or deals.

Be There When Your Customers Need You, Even If It's 10:30 p.m.

Life - and business, for that matter - doesn't always happen during traditional business hours. Offering extended support in the past tended to be expensive because you had to pay someone to sit in a room and wait for the phone to ring. However, with the help of the cloud (and a great business phone system), employees can route customer calls to their personal devices under a single ID, maintaining a consistent business presence and brand experience.

So, next time you look at your phone (which is probably going to be as soon as you finish reading this sentence), remember that your customers do exactly the same thing and expect your company to respond at the same speed. Make sure you are there when they reach out.

To learn more about hypermobility and how it can help your business, contact a Vonage Business consultant today.