We’ve all been there. You’ve been on hold with your insurance company for ten minutes, passed around to different departments, and no one has the answer to your question. Did you know that the average person will spend 43 days of his or her life on hold waiting for a call? (PR Newswire). Responsiveness is key to the satisfaction of customers, and timely responses can greatly influence your customers’ happiness. As texting is now the most prevalent form of communication in the country, there are important reasons your business should be texting customers. SMS text messages have an off-the-chart 98 percent open rate (Mobile Marketing Watch). In addition, 90 percent of these messages are read within a 3 minutes of delivery (Forbes). Intrigued by the impact texting could have on your business yet? Keep reading.
- Texting is Efficient.
Time is of the essence. Barry Greene, President and CEO of Med Practice Informatics based in Connecticut, says that texting has the ability to dramatically increase office efficiency. On average, practices can reduce staff time from one hour, per doctor, per day to less than 10 minutes by using text messaging (American Medical News). With texting, employees can minimize long, lingering conversations that eat up time. If a customer has a question, he or she can simply send a text message to a business’ dedicated text number. This system is a win for both parties. While that customer is skipping the annoying period of being put on hold, the employee is answering the customer’s question quickly while continuing the work that’s right in front of them. If multiple clients are trying to access the same phone line, waiting on hold makes it easy for customers to give up or search for a faster response elsewhere. Texting is an easy solution to this problem. With far less phone tag and long voicemails, businesses can save time and energy and in turn, increase revenues.
- Texting is Convenient.
Did you know that 85 percent of people find SMS text messaging more convenient than voicemails? (Alert Solutions). In a society where work is fast-paced and often hectic, convenience is a must. Many times, employees are in situations where stepping out to take phone calls is not easy for them. Whether it be sitting in on a company meeting or interacting face to face with a client, sometimes, it’s just easier to reach a person with a quick text.
The same principle applies to customers. Countless customers have jobs and busy schedules. A customer misses a call from your business while in the shower? They might call back in an hour later when they are done getting ready – if they remember. A customer misses a text in that same situation? It takes mere seconds to respond back upon opening that text. Additionally, if a customer desires a conversation to be private, it can take a lot more effort to find a quiet space to make a call than to quickly reply to a text message. The bottom line is this: the convenience of texting a business brings value to customers.
- Texting is Prevalent.
Just about everyone is texting these days. Fifty-seven (57) percent of people are contacted via text more than any other form of communication (Alert Solutions). Cell phone owners ages 18 to 24 send and receive an average of 109.5 messages on a given day, accumulating to over 3,200 texts per month (Pew Research Center). If everyone is texting, why isn’t your business? Why not reach people in a way that is easy and comfortable for them? As technology continues to advance, businesses will sustain competitive advantage by progressing along with the times. Texting can give your business the edge that it needs because it’s communicating with customers in their language.
Now that you are mindful of the value texting can add to your business, here’s where we come in! Captivated is an enterprise text platform. It is a simple, yet powerful tool that acts as a trusted communication channel between your customers and your business. Captivated enables your clients to communicate with your business the same way they do with friends and family. Our software is used within your browser or our mobile application. It runs in the background with notifications, keeping your day-to-day software that runs your business front and center. Think of Captivated as your silent assistant, empowering you to easily manage conversations with your customers.
We live in a tech-savvy world. Texting is pervasive, and people gravitate toward fast and simple solutions. Texting presents an opportunity to improve responsiveness and reach new levels of customer satisfaction. Happy customers equal greater revenue for your business, so what are you waiting for? Your customers are texting. Join in.
“What we’ve got here is… failure to communicate. Some men you just can’t reach.” -Captain, Cool Hand Luke