Be Where They Are: The Four Channels Your Customers Actually Want You In

SMS: still the most-opened channel there is

It is easy to overlook the humble text message, but nothing else comes close on open rates. Most texts are read within minutes of arriving. That makes SMS the channel of choice for anything time-sensitive, from order confirmations and shipping updates to appointment reminders and back-in-stock alerts. It reaches almost everyone, and it asks nothing of the customer but a glance. The mistake brands make is treating it as a one-way megaphone. Used well, SMS is the opening line of a conversation rather than a broadcast.

WhatsApp: the default for much of the world

In much of the world, WhatsApp is not a channel. It is the channel. It is where people already talk to friends and family, and now to the businesses they buy from. For a brand, that means rich, two-way engagement inside a thread the customer already trusts. Everything from a product catalog to live support can live in one place. If you are expanding into a new region and your audience lives on WhatsApp, building your presence there is not optional. It is the price of entry.

RCS: SMS, leveled up

Rich Communication Services is what texting becomes when it grows up. Picture a branded sender name so customers know the message is really from you, with images, carousels, buttons and read receipts now supported across both Android and iPhone. RCS gives you the reach of SMS with an experience that feels closer to a native app. For brands that have outgrown plain-text messaging but do not want to force a download, it is quickly becoming the sweet spot.

Voice: not dead, essential

For all the talk of digital-first, the phone call still matters for certain customers and certain moments. A complex problem or a high-value purchase can be exactly the time a customer wants a real voice on the line. What has changed is everything happening around the call. AI voice agents can now answer instantly and, by tapping into your existing customer data, route to a human only when the conversation truly needs one. Voice is not a relic. It is a channel that has been given new intelligence.

The real unlock is not a channel. It is the connection between them.

Here is the trap. A brand adds SMS for marketing and pilots WhatsApp in one region, then ends up with disconnected conversations about the same customer. That is how someone orders a product that never ships and still gets cheerful texts to buy more. Marketing and support work from different systems, and neither one sees the whole picture.

The point of being multichannel was never to be everywhere. It was to be where each customer is, while you stay anchored to one view of who they are. A Customer Data Platform pulls every interaction across every channel into a single, real-time profile. From there, agentic AI can orchestrate the next best step, sending the right message on the channel the customer prefers, at the moment it will actually land.

Because this is real customer data moving across real channels, governance cannot be an afterthought. The brands doing this responsibly choose partners with serious credentials behind them, such as ISO 42001 certification and full GDPR compliance, so that meeting customers where they are never costs you their trust.

Where to start

You do not have to solve all four channels at once. Pick the one your customers are clearly asking for and connect it to a single source of truth. Build from there. The brands that move now, while the window is open, will set a standard their competitors spend years trying to match.

Your customers have already told you how they want to be reached. The only question left is whether you are listening.

Learn more about the CM.com engagement platform and HALO agentic AI.