Happy Friday! Here’s our picks for the best customer service, customer experience and mobile articles of the week, in no particular order.

The New UI for SaaS by Tomasz Tunguz

Today, more and more industry pundits are heralding the rise of simple messaging platforms as a replacement for more complex apps. Case(s) in point: messaging app WhatsApp has nearly 1 billion users, Slack has over a $2.8 billion valuation, and texting is going strong as the most-used “app” on a smartphone with 97% of Americans using it every day.

The real question is, how are businesses (SaaS ones specifically) going to ride the messaging wave while dealing with increasing market saturation? Venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz explores this in his most recent blog post, discussing the challenges SaaS companies face in incorporating messaging into their service offering and the reasons why messaging is so successful.

How SMS Customer Service Can Benefit Your Business by Elena Lockett

At OneReach, we’ve long championed the idea that SMS is a great fit for customer service. It’s affordable, familiar, and perhaps most importantly, what over 60% of customers would prefer. In addition, it also has a massive response rate (98%), far outpacing similar stats for email (just 22%).

Businesses across verticals are starting to realize the value of texting, with lots of businesses using it for notifications. Uber, for example, texts customers when their ride arrives, and Snooze texts customers when their table is ready. However, texting could be used for a lot more. In her article for callcentre.co.uk, Elena Lockett explains the different ways industries are using texting, including alerts, transportation, and retail.

Is Your Customer Experience the New Normal? by Annette Franz Gleneicki

Almost every business wants to differentiate on the customer experience, but how many are actually doing it? Apple and Amazon are among the top companies offering a great customer experience (knowing what customers want and providing great, helpful customer service), but others consistently fail to meet expectations.

Why? Part of it could be that companies aren’t unified on what constitutes a great customer experience in their organization, and subsequently can’t provide one that really satisfies customers. Lucky for us, Annette Franz Gleneicki outlines how to build a customer-centric culture for your business, and includes a few tips, including branding your initiatives and hiring the right people.

To learn more about providing a great mobile customer experience, download our new whitepaper here.