SMS is one of the fastest and most affordable forms of communication. Since everyone has a mobile phone, texting is the easiest way to talk to customers and your own team.
A mass text messaging service can improve many aspects of your business including preparing it for future growth. The business uses of SMS have been around for years now, but it is never too late to use this essential tool for your future strategies.
In this article, we will look at three major benefits of texting with TextMagic:
Benefits of Texting for Customer Service
Customer Contacts
Looking for a more direct and easy way to contact customers?
Bulk SMS costs less and lets you talk to more customers faster than calling. What business cannot benefit from that? Letting customers contact you by text reduces the volume of calls to your help desk. As a result, growing your business does not mean a loss of quality.
Customers can get in touch at any time without waiting in a call queue, and customer support teams can talk to multiple customers at the same time. Don’t let a growing customer base prevent your support team from providing quality service.
Email can also perform some of these functions. However, not everyone uses email often or at all.
A W Dansey Associates needed to handle all their contacts from one office system. The problem was many of their clients rarely used email, and calling was not efficient. TextMagic provided an easy solution that worked with their existing system.
Reminders and Alerts
TextMagic can also manage customer service tasks such as appointment reminders. Missed appointments can be a major source of lost productivity, and this can be overcome by automated text alerts. Alerts for delivery or updates further cut down on unneeded calls and wasted time.
The benefits of texting enabled Alpine Limousine Services to contact clients and drivers more easily. Alpine wanted a way to let clients know the driver was on the way without resorting to calling. In addition, they also used SMS to update drivers about client locations. Doing this saved time in contacting customers and removed the chances of misheard details.
Customer Feedback
We all know how important customer feedback is to long-term customer satisfaction. The question is: how do you collect that feedback? Focus groups and interviews are expensive, especially if you want a large sample. Email surveys can take a long time to complete. Often they are unopened for days. Consequently, email surveys are prone to low completion rates.
SMS polls and surveys have high completion rates because of their ease and convenience. 95% of customers will reply to a text within three minutes of sending it. As a result, you can get feedback while it is still fresh on your customer’s mind.
TextMagic helped market researchers Solvero contact hard-to-reach target groups. Many of their contacts were too busy to take calls or reply to emails. Solvero used the full benefits of texting such as Long SMS, which they could not find with other providers.
Benefits of Texting for Marketing
Marketing tactics that encourage prompt purchases are another of the benefits of texting.
You probably already send your customers discounts and offers via email, but how often do they use them?
According to MailChimp, the average open rate for marketing emails is just 21.8%, with an average click-through rate of only 2.78%. Maybe your message went straight to the junk folder. Perhaps it went unseen until after the offer expired or it was just ignored.
Your customers receive so many marketing emails that there just isn’t time to read them all. Avoiding these problems is one of the biggest benefits of texting. In contrast, most people check their phones within a few minutes of getting a text.
SMS has an average open rate of 98%. It also has an average click-through rate of 19%. This allows you to use limited-time offers encouraging immediate action. It is too easy to forget about marketing you received days or even hours ago.
The rapid nature of SMS marketing pairs well with geo fencing strategies. Message customers who are near your business or far away. You can use this to create effective and personal messages. For example, a café could remind nearby customers to pop in for their favorite drink.
Pizza Hut used geo fencing to text customers as they passed within half a mile of a nearby Pizza Hut. This proved to be almost three times more effective than online ads, and almost five times more effective than TV ads.
Benefits of Texting in the Workplace
Internal Communication
So far we’ve covered some benefits of texting to improve your customer experience. TextMagic can also enhance your internal communication.
Are schedule changes or shift patterns disrupting your productivity? SMS alerts linked to your scheduling system can keep your workers up-to-date on changes and reduce lateness as a result.
Any manager at a high street business will know the struggle of getting last-minute shift coverage. Calling can be time consuming and an unreliable way to contact employees. With bulk SMS you can send out a pre-written text to employees. Employees can text back to confirm and have their hours updated. This frees up your manager’s time and makes sure employees get their extra time recorded.
Loomion AG needed a more efficient way to keep board members updated on meetings. The benefits of texting with TextMagic include added security features. Loomion found this increased their customer’s trust in the business.
Recruitment
Recruitment is key to growing any business, and TextMagic can help.
Internally, a group text linking to the apply page is a great way to ensure everyone knows about the new position. Externally, texts can let candidates know about interview times and starting dates. Interview reminder texts cut down on missed interviews and saves time spent on the phone.
SMS even helps you find candidates, by allowing employees to send job referral links by text. A simpler referral scheme encourages more employees to take part and helps you find the best talent. Easy referral tracking assures employees they will get credit for referrals. As a result, more people will engage in the scheme.
Education recruitment agency Classroom Ltd needed a fast way to contact candidates directly. Due to candidates usually being unable to answer their phones due to working in a school, calling was not convenient. Email took too long to get a response, and often candidates could not reply discreetly at work. To address this, they chose to use TextMagic for booking interviews and confirming information. As a result, time was saved for both agency and candidates, and recruits could be discreet when applying from where they work.
Conclusions
The unique benefits of texting will help your business grow, provide convenience, immediacy, and automation at a low cost. With TextMagic there are no monthly fees or commitments to worry about. You only pay for the texts you send.
The rate at which mobile phones are taking over the business world certainly shows no sign of slowing down. Accordingly, there is no excuse for leaving your organization without this essential communication tool from TextMagic.
Alexa Lemzy
