Businesses need a quick, reliable means of communicating with customers and clients. Social media and email campaigns are excellent, but text messaging can be even better.
Texting apps are the most widely and commonly used apps on a smartphone. 97% of smartphone users text at least once a day, and 90% of text are read within 3 minutes of being received. (You can find more texting statistics on OneReach and in this YouTube video, Numbers Don’t Lie)
Businesses can take advantage of consumers’ love of texting to improve customer service and offer conveniences that their competitors don’t offer.
Appointment Confirmations and Other Reminders
Private Medical Practices – Salons – Restaurants – Hotels
Resorts – Travel Agencies – Car Rental Companies
There are a lot of businesses that can use text messaging to send and receive appointment confirmations or reservation reminders. This is a quick and easy way to help customers keep track of their schedules. They can easily confirm an appointment by responding with ‘Y’ or ‘N’ depending on whether they can keep it. These reminders can include helpful information such as a phone number, address, or the name of the person with whom the appointment was made.
Travel agencies or resorts could use texting to send daily itineraries reminding travelers of what activities they schedule. Vacation-goers who likely booked reservations months in advance and don’t remember the dates and times of dinners, spa treatments, and other vacation activities would probably find this very helpful. They wouldn’t have to carry around an extra piece of paper, which they might lose, and they won’t have to sort through their inboxes to find the original booking confirmations.
Financial Services can use SMS messaging for services such as:
- Payment due date alerts
- Money transfers
- Deposit notifications
- Balance updates to help customers track spending
Online Retail Stores and Other eCommerce Businesses can use texting to send customers alerts when orders were received, shipped, and delivered.
Additional
Businesses can also use texting to promote sales and special offers if customers would rather receive promotion notifications via text rather than email. They can also share alerts for new product releases or when out-of-stock products come back.
Another use for text messaging is user authentication to confirm new accounts, alert customers of unauthorized access, or to reset passwords.
If you think about your business, you might be able to come up with a unique, creative way to use SMS text messaging services. An answering service for small businesses can help you develop a text messaging strategy to become more in touch with your customers.
