14 Insider Tips to Skyrocket Your Business with Text Messaging
Among the myriad of communication tools available, text messaging (although not a new technology) stands out as one of the most efficient and effective ways to connect with customers.
Text messaging is a versatile communication tool, you can tailor your strategy to suit the needs and objectives of your business.
Take Bike Works Beach & Sports from Waikoloa, Hawaii as an example. During race season, they are so busy that in order to be efficient, they text customers payment links ahead of time.
This allows them to streamline the handover process on race day for customers that just want to grab and go – helping them avoid long queues of people waiting around to pay with their card.
They even take it one step further by providing top-notch service for out of town customers.
How?
Customers participating in races or those that need a bike when they arrive at Waikoloa can get their bike shipped to the shop ahead of time, pay via text and coordinate to have the bike dropped off at their hotel just in time for the rider when they check-in.
The goal is to make the experience as seamless as possible. Another benefit of doing it all via text?
Breaking language barriers.
Given all the international traffic they get in Waikoloa, Hawaii, language barriers are common. Text messaging alleviates this issue by eliminating the pressure of immediate in-person responses, this helps both parties because it gives them a chance to communicate more effectively despite language differences.
This is just one example of how text messaging can be molded to fit your business needs.
Until you get there, let’s get some basics out of the way, some tips you should start embracing right from the start.
#1 Understand Your Metrics
As you get acquainted with text messaging and all of the tools that Ikeono has to offer, it’s important to understand the metrics that represent success in the world of text messaging. This way you can pivot and iterate when something is not working.
How open rates are calculated
Open rates refer to how many customers have opened the message you sent. This can be measured for email, text message, and other forms of communication.
Let’s say you send 100 text messages, making the assumption that all 100 messages were delivered to the recipient, if 90 of them opened your message, then you have an open rate of 90/100 = 90%.
How to click-through rates are calculated
Click-through rates (CTR) are also a metric that can be measured for both email and text message. This time instead of referring to whether or not the message was opened by the recipient, we’re looking at whether or not the link, which is usually the call to action in the message, was opened.
Taking that same example, even though the assumption is that a message needs to be opened in order for the link to be clicked, we still take the total number of messages sent to calculate the CTR.
If you sent 100 text messages and 70 recipients clicked on the link, then you have a 70% CTR.
How Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are calculated
NPS is based around the question of whether or not a customer would recommend your product or service to friends and family.
A customer that had a positive experience would naturally gloat about your business to the closest people in their life – these customers are considered promoters and would give you a score of 9 or 10 on the 1-10 NPS scale.
Anyone that gives you a score below 7 is considered a detractor and those in-between are passives.
Your NPS score = % of promoters - % of detractors
#2 Avoid Sounding Too Formal (it’s not an email)
Keeping your tone informal helps build rapport with customers, making the conversation engaging and authentic.
#3 Introduce Your Business in (most) Text Messages
While you’re avoiding sounding too formal, you are still a business and customers likely won't have your phone number saved.
Ideally they look up your phone number, match it to your Google Business Profile, and save it. A benefit of text-enabling your business phone number is exactly this – customers will be able to easily identify you when you use one phone number for both voice and text.
In case you don’t become a new contact in their phones, then it’s important to introduce your business, especially for automated messages like after hours or automated work order status updates, and even more so during those initial interactions.
#4 Personalize Text Messages with Smart Fields
Just important as it is in email, personalizing text messages goes a long way.
Including the customer's first name is a small yet impactful touch that can make customers feel recognized. It contributes to the organic feel of conversational text messaging because it feels less transactional and more human.
#5 Make Texts Pop with Emojis
Pinning down best practices for emojis is not always clear or straightforward. There are three variables at play: your brand, your team, and your customers.
One might believe that emojis are less professional or cater only to a younger audience, but when used thoughtfully, they can enhance communication in a way that is both casual and professional.
Emojis can convey friendliness, relatability, and help humanize your brand.
It's important to align emoji usage with your brand's tone and the preferences of your customers.
#6 Watch Your Character Count
When it comes to text messaging, the rules around character counts have an interesting history.
A German engineer by the name of Friedhelm Hillebrand is responsible for setting character count standards after doing research on what the optimal length of a text message should be.
How did he perform such research?
After typing out random sentences on his typewriter, he decided that most messages can be conveyed in a short sentence of 160 characters or less. Simple as that.
This decision then led to many inventions we use today, such as emojis, everyday abbreviations like ‘btw’ or ‘fyi’, and even Twitter!
The original character count limit of 140 characters for Twitter was inspired by the character count limits for text messaging. In its early days, Twitter was an SMS text-based service where 140 characters were reserved for a short message and the other 20 characters for usernames and commands.
Due to carrier limitations, Ikeono has a 1,000 character limit, however, we recommend saving text messages for short and quick messages – we will further discuss this in #8 Use Text Message With Other Modes of Communication.
#7 Familiarize Customers with Text-to-Pay
Quicker transactions and improved cash flow – who doesn’t want that?
Integrating text-to-pay in all your workflows is essential to create familiarity around the process.
The best part? Invoices are paid within 24 hours. Given that the payment link is only valid for 24 hours, it not only serves as a security feature but also ensures timely payments, benefiting the business.
Whether it's a way to have customers prepay for products and services like Bike Works Beach & Sports or getting in the habit of collecting payment ahead of time for any special orders placed, the more you integrate it in your workflows the more you can take advantage of the benefits of text-to-pay.
#8 Use Text Message With Other Modes of Communication
Text messaging will not replace all modes of communication, it is there to enhance them.
Depending on the interaction and the customer, it’s important to identify the most appropriate communication channel for that situation.
But to be able to even reach your customer and not play phone tag, you can use text messaging to find the right time to call them and follow up with a summary of your conversation to ensure you’re both on the same page.
#9 Focus on Reviews
The organic nature of conversations that can happen between you and your customers via text message are invaluable.
This means you should be using all tools at your disposal when it comes to text messaging. Not only should you use text messaging for capturing payments but you should also be taking advantage of the organic nature of the conversation and grow your reviews.
Remember more reviews = more information for Google’s algorithm.
Focusing on growing your Google review count is not only beneficial from an SEO standpoint but the more descriptive customers are about their experience, the more information Google’s algorithm has about your business.
💡PRO TIP: Be conscious of your timing, give customers a few days before requesting a review, this way they get a chance to actually use their purchase. Based on Ikeono data, the sweet spot is 1-3 days.
#10 Organize Your Inbox
Once centralized, it’s important to keep them organized.
Your sales team, service department, and management need to be able to stay focused and not get distracted.
You can use the sub-inbox feature to organize messages by department, by team member, or anything that makes sense for your business.
#11 Avoid Spamming
What does spamming your customers look like?
Sending frequent or irrelevant messages, and turning the text message thread into another marketing channel.
Spamming can break trust and lead to communication fatigue. Overloading customers with messages, especially if they are not responding can lead to annoyance.
Instead, focus on sending well-timed, relevant, and valuable messages that benefit them, because at the end of the day their engagement will benefit your business.
💡PRO TIP: Using a tool like Ikeono ensures you won't accidentally send a review request to the same customer if they shop at your store on consecutive days. We have added a feature to prevent customers from receiving a review request if they have already received one within a customizable timeframe.
#12 Maintain a Consistent Brand Voice
Text message threads are tangible examples that can be used to provide constructive feedback to staff, unlike in-person interactions or phone calls that are just a moment in time and difficult to pinpoint.
By being able to observe interactions between staff and customers, managers can identify strengths and areas for improvement in communication skills, service etiquette, and alignment on brand voice.
Leveraging text message threads and using them as part of your training and feedback mechanism makes it easier to have a customer-centric approach to the way you run your business.
#13 Avoid Abbreviations and Acronyms (even heavy industry jargon)
When communicating with customers via text messages, it's important to remember that they might not always understand industry jargon.
Many customers (especially new ones) may not be familiar with specialized terminology or abbreviations, and using them in text messages can lead to confusion and frustration.
Make sure to prioritize simplicity and clarity in your text communications, and although Ikeono can be used as an internal communication tool, don’t forget to adapt your language accordingly when addressing customers versus staff.
#14 Beyond a Marketing Channel
Our mission is to help businesses build strong relationships with their customers via text message – and one of our core beliefs is that we don’t want text messaging to become a dumping ground for any and all communication.
Let’s take an Ikeono customer as an example – they are heavy users of our campaign feature which at first glance sounds like a standard marketing tool where you might be inclined to think that the best you can do is send a 10% coupon to a segment of customers.
Instead, where we see more success is in a campaign that actually does not openly market to the customer instead truly focuses on their experience and a perfect example of that are post-service check-ins.
Seven days after every service, this bike shop sends a text message checking in on the customer to make sure everything is running smoothly.
What often happens is that the customer ends up reconsidering an upgrade, or giving a positive response which can lead to an opportunity to ask for a review, and sometimes it leads to a discussion on how the service could have been better.
But the most important part is that they get 13% return business out of this simple text message campaign that on the surface had no intention to sell. That’s the key to building strong customer relationships and simultaneously growing your business.