For years now, we’ve seen texting rise to become the dominant communication medium. This trend points to a new way of reaching the workforce, and modern companies are wisely evolving to keep pace with it. As a business owner, you can now expect your clients to largely prefer communicating via SMS. This goes for your workers as well. The ubiquity of mobile phones means you can almost always rely on your employees being accessible while on shift. This is a game changer in itself, but in this article we will explore the entire extent of benefits in leveraging SMS. This includes streamlining your company’s internal communication, better reach for your clients and cutting down on costs.
Texting is well-established as the most prevalent form of communication
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Texting is the way to communicate today. This trend has been visible since the end of the 2010s and has only been growing since. On top of its prevalence, texting has a few qualities that make it better-suited for many types of communication:
Texting is immediate. 95% of texts sent by businesses are read within three minutes. (Forbes)
Texting is personal. People see texting as a more intimate way to communicate than calls. Engagement with texts is generally higher than with other means of communication.
Texting can cast wide nets. You can reach many more people with a single text than you can with a single call.
Texting is reliable. People frequently decline or ignore calls, especially with the ongoing epidemic of caller ID spoofing robocalls. Voicemail usage has also been steadily falling over the past few decades. With texting, your message will always reach your sender whether or not they choose to accept it. You can therefore always rely on your information being communicated.
Texting is ubiquitous. Unlike proprietary or third-party applications (like your company app), texting is available to all mobile phone users. Texting also doesn’t require a download to access or patches to keep up with OS updates. 95% of people have cellphones and this near-universal access to SMS communication means you can count on your employees, and your clients, being able to engage over this medium.
Texting is much more efficient than calling for many types of work
If we are to look at the domain of dispatching, we can see clear improvements to many familiar workflows. Traditionally, dispatching relies heavily on phone calls between dispatcher and agent. What’s more, workers are often contacted over the same medium for all types of communication: relaying one’s schedule, changes in workflow for that day, and even simple confirmations. Due to this, there are many opportunities to lose time. Phone calls are much more time-consuming and aren’t the ideal medium to convey all information to your workers. Dispatchers can try to coordinate all information into a single phone call but as dispatching is often a dynamic role, they won’t always be able to do so.
The solution is to use the medium best suited for the type of information being relayed. Have to relay the same information to many employees at once? Want to send out the new schedule to your workers as it becomes available? Need to send an “all hands on deck” type message to your team? You can see where we’re going with this.
All of these are ideal use-cases for automated texting. In doing so you’ll be saving time, money, and stress.
Modern companies use SMS/texting
Companies are increasingly leveraging the benefits of texting to improve their operations. This has the effect of making your brand appear more modern to both consumers and workers. A new generation of socially conscious workers want to know their employer is progressive and forward-looking. Implementing texting in your workplace is one way to attract the people currently making up the gig workforce.
Conveniently, SMS is also unusually amenable to full automation. As a relatively simple, text-based medium, there’s been a surge of automated tools in the past few years. Many companies already use texting to:
- Automate logistics and scheduling for their employees
- Automate onboarding messages for workers and clients
- Automate logging in to the company app with an added level of security (two-factor authentication)
Businesses may need to convey information or interact with workers dozens of times a day for shift confirmation, scheduling notifications, availability updates, and so on. These lightweight interactions are perfect candidates for automated text communication.
Final Thoughts
SMS is changing the working landscape for the better. Leveraging texting effectively will transform your business for the better. The speed and personal touch of texting allow business owners to engage with their clients and workers faster and more successfully than ever before.
Is your company saving time, streamlining shift-booking, and controlling spending by leveraging SMS yet?