A couple decades ago, reaching customers digitally was hard. Flash forward 15-20 years and you’ll find that brands are now communicating with you through your emails and cell phones more frequently than your loved ones. You may even receive a Costco coupon on your birthday before you get a call from mom…
Before SMS, there is Email. Email is the primary digital communication channel for businesses.
But Email has its problems.
1. Spam issue. Over 50% of emails are spam per this research [1]. The spam email is causing customers missing legitimate emails, like your business office’s email.
2. Delivery issue. Email can get undelivered from time to time. Many times your email goes to spam folder by the email provider, such as Gmail
3. Open rate. Because of the two above reasons, people tend to not open email at all. The average email open rate is about 20%.
4. Slow response. It takes average 90 minutes to respond to an email.
Luckily, SMS is here to the rescue.
SMS almost solves all of the issues with regards to Email.
Research shows that SMS open rates are as high as 98%, comparing that to just 20% of all emails. And, on average, it takes 90 seconds for someone to respond to a text and 90 minutes to respond to an email.
Further, customers have mobile phone on hand and SMS/texting is always on. SMS never catches you off-guard, and doesn’t interrupt daily flow. It’s the preferred way of people connecting with family and friends. Texting is also appealing because it is personal and convenient.
There is little doubt that SMS is more effective than Email. Business owners may already use their personal mobile phone to send SMS to customers. This is ok. But using personal phones for SMS has a few inherit issues:
- It is not convenient. It is hard to send text to hundreds of customers with a small device.
- It is not secure. If your business associates use their personal cell phone for business contact, the business contacts go with them.
- It is not available. The information can not be accessed by other team members. If a business has a few employees, team can not easily find the client information in one personal cell phone.
WikiPro business texting feature solves the personal cell phone SMS issue.
- Landline texting: WikiPro enables the existing landline number for SMS texting. A separate cellphone specifically for business is more convenient and secure.
- Shared Inbox: Share messages across a team and reply with a shared inbox.
- Private comment: Make quicker decisions with in-line discussions within customer messages.
I am not saying that you shouldn’t use Email. Email still has its merit if you want to send out a newsletter. Otherwise, you should look into WikiPro Business Texting. You’ll see how WikiPro can grow your business, guaranteed.
Reference:
- https://www.statista.com/statistics/420391/spam-email-traffic-share/