Text Is The New Voicemail

While voicemail might seem like a quick and convenient ideal, low-quality audio and garbled or incomplete messages may leave the recipient wishing for a clear communication in plain text.

SMS and other forms of text messaging are now being seen as a preferable option to voicemail – and there’s evidence to back this up. Recent studies indicate that 90% or more of SMS messages are read within the first three minutes. And according to FranchiseHelp, 90% of business leads would rather receive a text message than a phone call.

It’s now a fact of life that if you’re serious about doing business, you’ll need to consider alternatives to more traditional or established forms of communication. Why? Well…

Your Email Messages And Voicemail Are Being Ignored!

According to CTIA.org, the average response time for an email is 90 minutes. And some might consider this an optimistic estimate, with email open rates at only about 18%.

Once celebrated as the only way to seriously communicate online, email messages for small business operations will typically take anywhere from six to 48 hours to get a response. This is assuming that they’re read in the first place – which in today’s faster paced digital economy really isn’t a given.

The phone lines don’t often fare much better. Only 15%-20% of calls to prospective customers are actually answered. According to the 2017 State of Inbound report by HubSpot, 90% of people would rather be texted than called. And text messages have a 205% higher response rate than phone calls.

As for voicemail, you can safely assume that those same potential consumers who decline to answer the phone won’t be bothered to spend the time deciphering then responding to any voicemail messages they might receive in the same vein. Figures from 2015 suggest that over 90% of people who text prefer text messages to voice mail. And fewer than 20% of people actually check their voicemail within a week.

Text Resonates Across The Board

Trading in text messages is something that the Millennial generation has taken to in earnest. But texting gets a favorable response from people of all age brackets. And it’s not hard to see why.

With today’s message displays, if someone sends you a text, it’s more than likely that you’ll get a written record of everything you need to know, including the best phone number, email, or other contact method you can use to reach that person. This is information that you’d otherwise have to jot down from a voicemail (assuming you could hear it), or scroll around to find in an email.

Little wonder then that text messages have a 205% higher response rate than phone calls. What’s more, for commercial organizations, text messages convert 295% more prospective buyers into actual customers, than phone calls.

Conclusion: You Need A Text Messaging Solution

For businesses, the immediacy and clarity of text serves the enterprise in a number of ways. These include:

• Making early contact with prospects, enabling organizations to get a jump on their rivals.
• Following up.
• Customer service contact.
• Setting and managing appointments.
• Asking prospects or confirmed clients to review or recommend products and services.

To effectively manage your messages, you’ll need a business communications platform that’s capable of handling your anticipated message volume, and operating across all the various channels (websites, eCommerce portals, mobile phones, etc.) that messages might originate from.

The new net2phone is fully integrated with Web Real-Time Communications or WebRTC. This is a powerful technology standard which allows the cross-platform development of applications, web resources, and user interfaces that support instantaneous peer-to-peer (P2P) contact. This may be used for audio, video, Live Chat, and various text messaging formats.

On net2phone’s platform, email support, Live Chat, voicemail, text, and instant messages may be brought together over multiple devices and multiple channels – all of which can be easily administered from a single dashboard.

If you’d like to move your business communications beyond email or voicemail, and realize the benefits that text messages can bring, get in touch with net2phone.