Timing is everything: 3 tips for using Cordial Quiet Hours

Marketers know better than anyone—there’s a time and a place for every message. Even if you spend hours crafting the perfect email or text, if the timing isn’t right, the message won’t yield positive results.

Cordial’s “do not send” Quiet Hours feature offers a few twists on this tried-and-true marketing best practice, including taking a full cross-channel approach by extending this beyond just SMS. Let’s take a closer look at how to best use Quiet Hours in Cordial. 

How it works

Have you ever received a promotional text message, email, or app notification at 4AM? If so, you know this can be disruptive and irritating–which is not the ideal customer experience. How do you make sure your brand is not guilty of this marketing faux pas? Thankfully, marketers can set a designated time block (like in Cordial’s Quiet Hours scheduler) in which they do not want their customers to receive messages.

Quiet Hours is available for both event triggered automations across channels and in Podium (our orchestration builder), giving marketers the flexibility to use this feature in a variety of creative ways.

Once you set your desired Quiet Hours timing, how does the platform distinguish a contact’s timezone? The feature will pull from a contact’s designated timezone, with a backup to pull from the account level for contacts with no timezone listed.

Tip 1: Don’t wake up your customer

Of course, you don’t want to send messages when your subscribers are likely asleep—especially when it comes to text messages or push notifications, which are more immediate and received on such a personal device.

Tip 2: Send a message when it’s less likely to be ignored

“The right customer, right channel, right time” is the mantra of many marketers, so it makes sense that timing is a critical part of the customer journey. By setting a Quiet Hours time block, brands have better control over when contacts are receiving messages, ensuring they are getting them when they’re more likely to take action on your offer

Tip 3: Don’t send your message if too much time has passed

Marketers might also want to cancel messages if too much time has passed. It all comes back to your customer’s experience and what will resonate best for them within a given time frame. For example, if a message is intended to send at 9:30PM but is suppressed due to the Quiet Hours window, it might not be as relevant the following morning, so you can cancel the send.

Enabling Quiet Hours gives marketers greater control over the customer experience and timing across SMS, emails, and mobile app messages. After all, customers expect more personalized content from brands these days, so think of each touchpoint as a way to drive more customer loyalty—and in turn, more conversions and revenue for your business.

Want to learn more? Check out our support article, or contact your Client Success Manager for additional details.