Startups are going strong in the U.S.; an astonishing 13% of the U.S. population is involved in a startup today. But as every savvy founder knows, high growth startups have to run sleek operations in order to make a profit or break even. Luckily, there are many scalable tools available to startups that empower them to nurture and grow their companies quickly—like business text messaging.
Long a favorite communications channel for individuals, business SMS is becoming more and more popular for companies and consumers, 89% of whom want to message with their favorite brands.
Read on to learn how top startups use business texting, from within customer service departments to internal operations.
Providing Fast SMS Customer Service
While it can feel counterintuitive, spending time and effort on existing customer bases can help grow startups faster. Increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%, and business text messaging helps startups cultivate those strong customer relationships with fast, personalized customer service.
Quick resolution. Because 90% of texts are read within the first three seconds of receipt, customer service agents can resolve customer inquiries far more quickly than they could by email, which can take days for customers to see and respond to.
Personalized mass messages. A text service for business empowers businesses to send a single message to multiple recipients—while recipients receive highly personalized messages in return. This saves time for customer service and operations teams, empowering them to spend more time with critical follow-ups and other personal interactions with customers.
Immediate support. Today’s messaging etiquette says that waiting more than 20 minutes to respond to a text can be seen as rude. Business texting platforms empower startups to arrange sophisticated auto-replies for after-hours situations—including auto-replies that change based on the words included in an incoming text. Even if a startup can’t staff 24-hour customer service teams, their customer communications can seem like they’re always on.
SMS customer service use cases: appointment scheduling and reminders, order notifications, query resolution, auto-replies, follow-ups, feedback requests
Offering Appealing SMS Marketing And Sales Content
As per TCPA regulations, customers have to opt in to a startups’ business SMS services to receive texts. However, once customers opt in, marketers have access to a group of individuals who are willing—often even excited—to receive content from your brand. High-growth startups capitalize on this primed audience to promote their content and boost sales.
Continued engagement. One of the keys to gaining loyal customers and nurturing leads is by encouraging frequent engagement. One meal kit startup found that weekly menus shared though business texting received far more responses than those sent through email—increasing retention rate and overall customer satisfaction.
Lead nurturing. An astonishing 90% of leads would rather be texted than called. By using business SMS to connect with leads, startup salespeople can form relationships through channels that customers prefer. This can lead to warmer interactions— and more conversions in the long run.
Sharing deals. While customers don’t want to feel bombarded with coupons, sending the occasional special product or service update can help startups bump up revenue. In order to be effective, these updates must be timely or only applicable to a specific SMS list of targeted recipients.
SMS marketing and sales use cases: weekly check-ins, sharing local events, setting up pitches or networking events, sending details or pictures about products, sharing flash sale information, offering an SMS-only coupon
Streamlining Operations With SMS Internal Communications
Eighty-six percent of employees and executives cite lack of collaboration or ineffective communication for workplace problems—which is why top startups often focus on strong communications and alignment. In many different ways, business text messaging empowers teams to stay on the same page as they navigate the fast-paced startup world.
Uniform notifications. It can be easy to forget to tell each team member something important in person, or even to email everyone. With business text messaging, startup leaders can send the same text to their entire company—or to certain departments in segmented lists. This way, no one receives a different message from anyone else, and everyone is clear on any instructions or information. One high-growth food delivery startup uses business text messaging to quickly notify couriers about any unplanned surge in orders.
Training support. Onboarding and training are key to cultivating the best employees possible. In fact, research by Glassdoor found that businesses with a strong onboarding process improve overall productivity by over 70%. High-growth startups take onboarding seriously, providing their employees with business SMS guidance when they need quick answers, and even careful guided SMS interactions with customers with the help of business texting platforms.
Sleek workflows. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, SMS integrations connect startups’ most popular cloud-based apps, empowering teams to use valuable data from existing platforms and integrate business text messaging into their workflows. Any business text messaging platform a high-growth startup uses should integrate with internal chat apps (Slack), customer service platforms (Zendesk), over-the-top messaging channels, document systems (G Suite), voice platforms, cloud call centers (Aircall), mobile apps, native websites (WordPress and Squarespace), and CRM systems (Salesforce).
Use cases: emergency notifications, meeting reminders, in-field training tips, SMS customer service training, texting from within other third-party apps
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