How to use business text messaging across the customer journey

Customers want to text with businesses. Here’s how to start connecting with them.

Texting has become a crucial tool for businesses. More and more companies are adopting it. But before you start messaging customers, you need to learn what business text messaging is all about—and the various ways you can use it.

Click the links below to navigate to each question, or keep reading to learn the ins and outs of using business text messaging.

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Getting started with business text messaging

Business text messaging use cases across the customer journey

Business text messaging is best used for engaging customers in one-on-one chats and building long-term, genuine relationships—not for sharing coupons or boosting short-term sales. This focus on creating personalized conversations to build brand loyalty is also known as conversational support, sales, and marketing.

Customer service and support

One of the best ways to use business texting is for conversational service and support. In fact, 80% of customer service organizations are projected to make messaging their preferred channel by 2025. Use SMS customer service to answer queries, schedule appointments, send alerts, share invoices, quotes, and directions, or troubleshoot problems. And, don’t forget to send survey requests to ensure you always have a good sense of customer needs.

Sales

Ninety percent of leads would rather receive a text than a phone call. SMS is the future of the sales follow-up, as leads are more likely to read and respond to follow-up texts than follow-up emails or calls. Use conversational sales to connect with customers who have questions, give expert advice, offer VIP gift suggestion services during the holidays, and send follow-ups.

Don’t engage in “spray and pray” sales, or sending mass texts to large SMS sales lists. The more targeted your messages and lists, the more they’ll resonate with your leads and move your relationships forward. You want to start conversations with customers, not think of each message as a means of conversion. Engaging with customers in an authentic, empathetic way helps create relationships, draw repeat customers, and increase long-term loyalty.

Marketing

Conversational marketing helps increase customer engagement. Encourage customers to interact with you by sending targeted SMS marketing campaigns to lists of opted-in contacts. You might share unique product tips, use cases, and opinion polls. You can even run SMS-only competitions, asking customers to send pictures of your product in use. Always let customers know that you’d love for them to respond. Giving customers opportunities to share their experiences increases interest in your brand.

Operations

Operations teams can use texting for dispatch and field workers, especially in industries like food delivery and home services. Use it to remind field workers about upcoming job details. Navigate sudden logistical problems in the field. Coordinate directly with customers, keeping them updated about upcoming house visits, personal deliveries, and invoices.

Business text messaging examples and types

You should be sending a few types of messages regularly. They will help you answer customer questions, streamline their experiences, and foster personal connections. Create an SMS template (or two) for each of your most-used message types, then use your SMS templates whenever the same situation comes up.

Inbound responses

When leads and customers reach out to you, you should reply with uniform, on-brand messages. These messages are called inbound responses. You want to send more inbound responses than outbound messages (more on those in the next section). Here’s an example of an inbound response to a customer question: