Text Messaging for Small Business
The world is swiftly going mobile, and so are your clients. Similarly, you should consider automating the use of text messages in your business.
For some business owners, the mention of the word ‘mobile” and “text message” may seem unprofessional. But after a long day of dealing with multiple clients and running the daily operations of a business, having to sit in front of a computer to respond to client’s queries one by one can be daunting.
Well, the time for team text messaging as a marketing tool has come. Text messaging for small business encompasses sending personalized or public promotions using SMS directly to a customer’s mobile device once the customer has chosen to receive the texts from the business.
How does text messaging for small business work?
A business owner enables a five- or six-digit phone number known as a “short code” used to accept messages from customers. The customer can then text a particular keyword to the shortcode to opt-in to receive the messages from the business.
In this article, we look at text messaging as an essential marketing tool for small businesses.
Why Text Messaging for Small Business?
Text messaging marketing is not only useful because it’s easy to reach a large population within a short time, but research shows 90 percent of SMS are opened within the first few minutes of receipt, which is high compared to email access rate at 22 percent. In fact, team text messaging can accomplish great results than online forms of advertising especially in creating brand recognition and awareness to help increase sales. This can be coupled up by SMS-coupons and text message campaigns to reach out to a large number of people across the globe.
How Small Businesses Can Benefit from a Messaging Software.
The growth of messaging apps as unified communication avenues has been faster than most of us expected. The main reason being that the potential messaging platforms are virtually unlimited. We are in constant communication with individuals and businesses, and over the past few years, messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and more have become commonplace.
In this section, we look at some key benefits messaging apps and how they have transformed and improved communication between consumers and business owners.
Open Communication
If you’re running a business with a team that mostly works remotely, then it’s important to ensure everyone stays in touch to foster the feeling of being part of the team. Integrating business messaging apps in your business make it easy for your team, no matter where they are, to stay in touch with what is happening in the business, and for you to monitor what they are doing. This makes it one of the main reasons why business owners use messaging apps. It’s an avenue to ensure everyone is connected thus bridging the gap of time and space in the business. Doing so ensures that employees know what to do and deliver as expected.
Unified Communication in Public and Private
Providing your customers with an easier way to reach out to your business allows you to exchange important information privately. In this case, a customer can ask detailed questions when they are dissatisfied with your services and share their address and other personal details. Having a private means outlet for customer relationship is a crucial step for your business to help improve customer experience, and increase brand awareness.
Increase Customer Support with Chatbots
Business messaging apps provide an ideal platform to use chatbots. These chatbots can be used in your business to assist in better management of workflows and automate customer response using text messages. Similarly, they can solve customer queries in real time and keep the customers engaged. For businesses, it is important to identify specific tasks that the chatbot is expected to do. This makes it easy to identify the reason for which you want a certain customer to turn to the chatbot. It’s also important to identify a platform for your chatbot where you can find users who are interested in your business.
Conclusion
Ultimately, getting a business messaging app may cost a considerate amount, but it’s an investment worth the risk to help keep everyone updated on what’s happening within the company, boost morale, and save you time and resources. In addition, you also keep in touch with everyone in your team from anywhere and deepen the relationship with customers. That’s more than enough reasons to find a messaging app for your business.
Collaboration is key to the success of any business. Whether you are using the Virtual Office Mobile app or the 8x8 Virtual Office desktop app, 8x8 makes collaboration quick and simple. Call 1-866-879-8647 or fill out an online form to request a no-obligation quote from an 8x8 product specialist.
