Why your business should text customers

Phone calls were once the best option for businesses to communicate with their customers. But times have changed and so have the habits of most customers.

Nowadays, phone calls end up being a hassle for both customers and business owners. I’m sure you’re probably familiar with “playing phone tag”. It works like this: you call your customer and you get voicemail, they call you and they get voicemail, and so on and so on until everybody is just frustrated. Sometimes, it doesn’t even get to that point. The customer might just get your voicemail the first time they call you, then call your competitor instead.

But there is a medium that customers are now using more than ever: text messaging. Let’s talk about why getting started with texting is a great move for your business.

A few fun facts about texting

Here are a few statistics that show why text messaging works.

● 97% of American adults use text messaging on a weekly basis.
● Text is the most used form of communication for Americans under the age of 50.
● Text messaging has a 98% open rate.

These days, Americans are relying on text more than any other form of communication. Since so many people use their phones to communicate with friends and family, check the weather, and browse the Internet, a message that’s sent directly to their phone has a very high chance of being seen immediately.

Three reasons why you should start texting

Here’s why you should start texting your customers.

It’s what your customers want
While just a few years ago texting a business might have seemed strange, that’s no longer the case. Since texting is such an integral part of how we communicate with each other, it’s now what customers expect.

A study by Twilio found that 89% of customers want to be texted by businesses.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you should be sending texts to your customers every day. Just like any other method of communication, customers will be annoyed if you text them too much. We recommend that you limit the number of text messages that you send to about 1-2 a week.

It’s convenient
Texting is convenient for your customers. All they have to do to read one of your messages is to just pull up your phone. There’s no need to drop whatever it is they are doing to take one of your phone calls. All they have to do is respond to your message on their own time.

Plus, it’s easy for your employees. Chances are that your team members, no matter what age demographic they’re in, use texting in their day-to-day lives. While you might need to take a little bit of time to help them understand the brand voice that they can use to communicate with customers, it’s not as if you’ll need to teach them how to send a text message.

It’s a great way to collect feedback
Texting is a great way to collect feedback that can help your business improve. For example, if a business wants to collect a review on a site like Facebook and Google, they can do so by simply sending a customer a short message and a link to relevant review sites. The reason why this works is that it makes the process of leaving a review convenient for the customer.

You can also use text messaging to send surveys to customers. This gives you the opportunity to quickly gauge overall customer satisfaction with simple questions like “How likely are you to recommend this business to family and friends on a scale of 0-10?”

A few best practices for text messaging

Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when you are texting your customers.

● Experiment with the best times for texting
There’s no one perfect time to send a text message. We’ve seen that different times convert best for different businesses. Feel free to experiment and see if earlier or later times have higher conversation rates.

There is one caveat here. Remember not to contact your customers too late. If you interrupt them while they’re sleeping, they probably won’t respond to your text and might even end up unsubscribing.

● Take a minute to check for typos
While text messaging might feel a little more casual than email, it’s important to remember that you should still maintain a professional tone because you are representing your business. Make sure that you’re taking the time to read over your messages before a send to make sure that there are no typos or grammatical errors.

● Use a text messaging software
The biggest reason why most businesses aren’t texting their customers is that they simply don’t have the time. Between phone calls, emails, and Facebook Messenger, employees are already swamped with customer communications.

There’s a way to make the process easier. A good text messaging software can help with this simplify the process. You won’t need to communicate with customers through their cell phones and run the risk of having customer questions getting lost in the shuffle.

In conclusion
Text messaging can help your business connect with customers quickly and easily. So make sure that you get set up with the right software that can help you reach customers the way that they prefer.