How Can Our Business Text Message Customers and Prospects?
These days, there are many tools that allow businesses to form a direct line of communication with customers. Whether you’re responding to sales inquiries, sending service update notifications, or asking for feedback, your customers expect to hear from you. While emails and phone calls are both valid options, text messages have become a quick, easy, and effective way for businesses to connect with customers.
How Do Businesses Send Text Messages?
Many of our existing clients have asked whether they can send text messages to customers and prospects using their business phone system. In most cases, the answer is yes. Many modern business phone systems allow users to send and receive SMS and MMS messages. Before we get into how to activate text messaging on your phone system, let’s explore what SMS and MMS mean and how businesses use them.
- SMS - Short message service, or SMS, is the most common type of text message. SMS messages contain plain text only and are limited to 160 alphanumeric characters per message, making them ideal for sending quick product or service updates, appointment reminders, and other simple messages.
- MMS - Multimedia service, or MMS, is a text message that contains more than plain text, such as a picture, video, or emoji. Unlike SMS, these messages don't have a standard length and are often used by businesses to send more creative texts that enhance the customer experience or sales engagement.
We’ve helped our clients use text messaging in several aspects of their marketing and customer service efforts. You can use SMS or MMS to:
- Let customers know their order is ready
- Send costs and details of a service request
- Offer coupons – and make the coupon scannable directly from their device
- Confirm scheduled appointments
- Send thank you or holiday messages
- Share instructional videos or audio clips
There are many creative ways to use text messages to connect with your customers, keep them informed, and create a better customer service experience. And because customers prefer working with businesses that use their preferred channel of communication,1 enabling SMS and MMS through your business line opens the door for more customers to engage with your company.
Start Using SMS/MMS in Your Business With TeleCloud
Most modern business phone systems allow users to send and receive text messages within a web portal or mobile application, making it simple for your employees to respond to inbound questions, create text message campaigns, send notifications, and more. Setting your phone system up to use texting should be painless if you’re using a newer system, so contact your service provider or an expert like TeleCloud if you’re not sure how to get started.
TeleCloud has delivered innovative communications solutions to more than five thousand clients in our forty-year history. We’re your on-the-ground, hands-on phone system provider that focuses on providing the best technology and service. If you’d like some expert guidance to help you determine if using SMS and MMS is a good fit for your business, contact TeleCloud today.
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