It isn’t news that text messaging is the most common form of communication, with over 6 billion texts sent per day.
Text messaging connects people and makes communication simple and convenient between business associates or friends.
More than often, when people receive calls, they find themselves thinking: “why didn’t they text first?”. That implies a bias towards texting over calling.
Furthermore, the rise of numerous messaging platforms emphasizes the popularity and need for texting among consumers.
Having understood the importance of messaging, it would benefit your contact center to learn how to leverage texting over calling.
This article will touch on the following:
- What is business texting?
- Why business texting?
- Why do customers prefer business texting?
- How can businesses leverage texting over calling?
Table of Contents
What is Business Texting?
Business texting is when your company uses texting to connect with customers, clients, or prospects.
It’s basically text messaging on your phone, but this time, for business purposes.
Text messaging is often used for communication because it’s a convenient and quick way to reach others without making a phone call.
Commonly referred to as SMS (short message service) or texting, Neil Papworth sent the first text message on December 3, 1992.
A year later, defunct mobile phone producer Nokia followed up with the first handset supporting user-sending of SMS text messages in 1993. The popularity of texting has since caught on with multiple platforms.
The average American smartphone user sends and receives five times more texts than they make and receive calls. (Source: TextMagic)
Business texting combines the speed of reaching consumers, customer service options, and personalization to deliver customer satisfaction.
Why Business Texting?
If you are still on the fence about ramping up your call center efforts on business texting or applying a text messaging strategy better, here are 8 reasons to consider SMS text messaging for your business.
- High engagement
- Simple, Fast, and Concise
- Personalization
- Cost-effective
- More sales opportunities
- Reliable
- Data collection
- Global Marketing
High engagement
Text messaging has an open rate of over 98%, meaning that your recipients read nearly all texts. This can result in higher engagement and better response rates than other communication channels.
Simple, Fast, and Concise
Text messaging is a simple and fast way of communicating with consumers in a world of information overload.
With every business fighting for the consumer’s attention, business texting provides a 160-character limit channel to reach prospects with straight-to-the-point messages that are concise and convincing.
Personalization
Personalization is an excellent way to build a better business-customer relationship or sway a prospect. Integrating your call center software with CRM can help you achieve this.
SMS allows you the opportunity to personalize the consumer experience. This common way is through name mentions or previous interactions with your business.
An example:
“Hi {Name}. Your donation of {Sum} has made a difference in helping flood victims. Learn more about how your donation is impacting lives: Savecolorado.org/impact. “
Cost-effective
Text messaging is often less expensive than other communication channels, such as phone calls or direct mail.
It provides an affordable way to maximize your ROI on outreach efforts.
More sales opportunities
Texting allows your business to reach prospects where they are actively engaged.
You can see tailored bulk promotional texts and offers which can increase sales and generate more revenue.
Reliable
Unlike email, texting gives you fewer headaches about spam. There are no spam filters or spam boxes that prevent your messages from reaching a prospect.
However, you must comply with the industry-standard STIR/SHAKEN and A2P 10DLC, so you always reach consumers with the proper business name and verified number.
Data collection
By text messaging, you can collect valuable data and feedback from customers.
For example, you can send out surveys or polls through text to find out what they think about your service.
You can track how many people respond and look at the data to see customer behavior and trends. This helps you understand their behavior and preferences, which can help you make your products and services better.
Global Marketing
With over 6 billion people worldwide using mobile phones, you can reach many people through text message marketing.
And since texting is a universal feature every cell phone has, your market potential is enormous.
With Aloware, you can establish local connections with customers in any country. You can text them using local numbers, which helps you stand out from the competition and connect with customers on a personal level.
Why do customers prefer business texting?
As earlier noted, consumers are moving away from calls to texting businesses, with 3 out of 10 consumers willing to give up phone calls to use messaging.
Let’s look at a couple of reasons influencing the change in consumer preference.
- Convenience
- Streamline communication
- Less intrusive
Convenience
Customers want to reach out to businesses anytime and anywhere without bothering about the conditions around them. Text messaging makes it possible.
Phone calls can be disruptive and inconvenient, but with text messaging, consumers can reach out to businesses without worrying about the timing.
Customers can reach you anytime, anywhere, and you can send them essential messages without annoying or inconveniencing them.
Streamline communication
Text messaging can be beneficial for customers as it allows them to record conversations.
This can help them track issues, appointments, orders, or any other important information they need to reference. It also eliminates miscommunications between them and the business.
Furthermore, a consumer with a complaint can easily text and receive responses from agents without having to wait on hold or navigate complex phone menus.
By offering text messaging as a communication channel, you can improve the customer experience by providing a fast, convenient, and documented way for customers to communicate with your business.
Less intrusive
When people are out in public, they may not want to talk about personal or sensitive topics, like their health issues or money situation. That’s why some of them choose to text over calling.
By texting, they can keep their conversation private and ensure nobody else knows what they’re saying. It’s a great way to keep things confidential and protect their privacy.
If you’re running a business, you can use business texting software to help your customers feel safe and secure when communicating with you.
Check out: 6 practical reasons why consumers prefer text over calls
How can businesses leverage texting over calling?
Using SMS text messaging for your business can help the following:
- Improve customer satisfaction.
- Customer retention.
- Build better brand loyalty.
- Increase acquisition of prospects.
Improve customer satisfaction
By offering consumers the convenience of reaching your business, you can improve overall customer satisfaction and build stronger relationships with their customers.
Also, setting up on-demand services will allow prospects to get answers to questions without speaking to a live agent.
On-demand service could include a short code for automated replies to frequently asked questions.
Customer retention
Satisfied customers are more likely to return and recommend your business to others.
Also, implementing marketing behavioral texts can trigger messages to subscriber activity, such as making a reservation, abandoning a shopping cart, or requesting customer service.
You could also send customers’ goodwill wishes on special days to stay top of mind.
Build better brand loyalty.
Building brand loyalty requires treating customers like they are your one and only. With CRM integration, you can personalize interaction, follow up, and timely resolve complaints.
Your contact center software plays a vital role in building brand loyalty. Complicated software only leaves your agents dealing with unanswered consumer challenges.
Also, you wouldn’t want to get on the bad books of prospects by texting them at 3 AM due to the wrong timing. Aloware helps you avoid these mishaps with calendar and text scheduling features.
You can craft the perfect message, send it immediately, and build better business-consumer relationships.
Increase acquisition of prospects.
According to data from Gartner, SMS boasts a superior open rate of 98%, while email lags at 20%. Additionally, SMS outperforms email in response rate, with 45% of SMS messages eliciting a response, compared to only 6% for email. Moreover, responding to an SMS takes only 90 seconds, while responding to an email takes 90 minutes.
These findings suggest that SMS is a more efficient and effective way to communicate with your audience, particularly if you want to ensure that your outreach campaigns are read and acted upon promptly.
Final thoughts
Texting is a highly effective method to connect with customers and boost sales while also providing consumers with a convenient and efficient way to reach your business.
Its unique ability to deliver direct content makes it an unparalleled communication channel for customer engagement.
Check out Aloware’s Business Texting feature to get started.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why customers hate business calling
Customers often prefer to avoid business calling for various reasons such as inconvenience, intrusion on personal time, and the pressure to respond immediately. Moreover, some customers may view business calls as sales pitches or unsolicited marketing attempts, which can be annoying and frustrating.
How is texting better than calling?
Texting is a more personalized and efficient way to communicate with customers, saving time and money. Text messages can be tailored to specific needs and preferences, increasing engagement and customer satisfaction. Additionally, texting is convenient, cost-effective, and immediately responds to customers’ needs.
Why should businesses use texting?
The advantages of texting for business include personalized and efficient customer communication, increased engagement and satisfaction, and cost savings compared to traditional calling methods.
