by Murph Krajewski | Sep 28, 2018 | Call Centers
As text messaging has become the most effective way of reaching your customer base, businesses and call centers have begun adding it to their communication strategy to create an omni-channel contact system.
Business call centers have, in turn, discovered advantages and disadvantages of choosing an SMS Short Code strategy vs. a SMS Long Code strategy for their marketing and customer texting outreach/response.
We’ll uncover the main points of difference across cost, timing, two-way vs. one-way texting and using your existing number vs. a new one.
Let’s compare how (and when) businesses can utilize short code texting vs. long code texting and ensure they are reaching the right audience at the right time.
SMS Short Codes
This is the ideal platform to reach a large audience quickly. You can send SMS Short codes to thousands of contacts at once, which makes mass marketing efforts easier as well as broadcasting brand announcements across your customer-base in one fell swoop.
It often looks something like this: For a pizza parlor, customers can receive the latest deal by texting PIZZA to the business.
Disadvantages of Using SMS Short Code
DELIVERY:
As expected, however, short codes face a clear disadvantage in how their delivery is perceived as impersonal by the customer since “one-way texting” can only be used for marketing purposes. It limits “conversation” and is only useful as a response to the business promotion.
TIMING:
Also, the approval process for setting up an SMS short code number can take months. After all that waiting, you still only have one-way communication with your customer.
COST:
Additionally, dedicated short code numbers can prove very expensive for business call centers. Before messaging fees, your business costs can reach $500 – $1,500 a month for short code texting.
Overall, SMS short code has its advantages as long as you don’t need two-way texting and if you have time andbudget for promoting outbound messages.
Top Benefits of Using SMS Short Code:
- When you want to reach thousands of customers at once
- When you’re promoting a sweepstakes or contest
- When you’re sending out a survey
- When you want to target a keyword for your business
SMS Long Codes
Call centers use long code texting to reach their customer-base with their existing business phone number and keep a consistent communication channel. Customers only need to remember one phone number and they can contact your business for any matter, promotion or otherwise with free-form text.
This feels more personal and better connects your customer with your brand. They can associate (and save) the number as your business and have a more direct line of contact with your people.
Ultimately, this improves the customer experience by routing it to the appropriate call center agent who works in the appropriate department or who handled the previous conversation with that customer.
Advantages of Using SMS Long Code
DELIVERY:
Long codes model their delivery to support natural customer conversation. Replies don’t have to be keyword-centric and offer the chance for an open dialogue with the business. Using the business phone number helps humanize the call center and improve the customer experience with “two-way texting”.
TIMING:
Unlike the two months it may take to setup a dedicated short code, SMS long codes can be spun up the same day they’re ordered. Customers can immediately begin reaching your business by phone or text.
COST:
SMS long codes have been proven to make more financial sense for a company looking to reach its customers across multiple communication channels. Text enabling your existing business phone number (long code)can cost as little as $100 a month and includes messaging fees.
Overall, SMS Long Codes can replace a phone call, whereas short codes cannot. And long codes create a more personalized experience for the customer while offeringa natural communication channel they already use every day.
Top Benefits of Using SMS Long Code:
- When you need to text two-way with your customers
- When you want an affordable and fast way to integrate texting into your call center
- When you want to keep your contact numbers consistent across all channels
- When you want texting to decrease call volume and lower the cost of interaction in your call center
Textel’s call center texting solution uses your existing business number to send and receive high-volume text messages and is supported with platform-level consent controls, CALEA compliance and carrier-grade security trusted by all Tier 1 wireless operators.
Discover Textel’s Enterprise Business Texting Solutions and find out how easy it is to incorporate texting into your existing workflow.
by Murph Krajewski | Sep 12, 2018 | Call Centers, How To
At the second annual DEVone Partner Conference, Textel, a St. Louis-based software startup, was honored to receive the Rising Star Award as part of the 2018 DEVone Partner Awards ceremony.
These partner awards highlighted the innovative companies who are designing cloud-based applications that bring additional value to the NICE inContact CXone cloud customer experience platform. The event was attended by more than 350 partners and NICE inContact employees and featured product displays from various DEVone partners.
“It’s exciting to see so many innovative applications integrated with the NICE inContact CXone platform, empowering customers to deliver exceptional customer experiences,” said Paul Jarman, CEO of NICE inContact. “The annual DEVone Partner Conference provides a great look into how the customer journey can be enhanced with CXone, and the awards highlight the most outstanding achievements by DEVone partners.”
The Rising Star Award specifically calls out Textel’s exceptional partnership role in NICE inContact’s success. This active engagement stems from a deep collaboration across co-marketing activities, sponsorships and various other sales and marketing efforts.
While being recognized at the 2018 DEVone Partner Awards, Textel’s advanced mobile customer service features were highlighted as a leading driver of CXone’s positive customer service experience, giving them the ability to reach users effectively and efficiently via their mobile device.
Among the many benefits of this enterprise texting software, Textel creates customizable enterprise solutions that lower call volume, increase net promoter scores and generate more leads.
4 Key Benefits to a Faster, More Reliable Business Texting Experience:
- Connect Faster
Communicate with your customers the way they will most likely respond. - Drive Sales
Close more deals by reaching prospects more efficiently. - Elevate Productivity
Save time by reducing voicemails and getting information out faster. - Reduce No-Shows
Recapture lost revenue by quickly confirming and rescheduling.
Textel and NICE inContact have worked hard to design a Customer-First Call Center Texting Solution and are pleased to see measurable results from the collaboration.
“It’s a great privilege to empower contact centers with a simple platform that connects their customers in a fast, modern way,” said Textel CMO, Mike Mixon. “By texting with customers from existing contact center phone numbers, Textel answers an increasing customer communication demand and securely powers the resulting high-volume traffic through the call center software. We’re honored to receive the Rising Star Award from NICE inContact for our work together.”
Essentially, Textel’s SMS capabilities improve the experience of the customer via two-way text and proactive text notifications. Textel reaches customers at their preferred method of contact and keeps historic conversations saved to help carry the next interaction forward without making the customer start from a scratch.
This is all implemented through programmable SMS via Textel’s API and is a big step forward for call centers pursuing true omni-channel communication.
As Textel continues to cement their place as an innovator in the enterprise texting space, their focus will be on making communication with a contact center as easy as sending an emoji.
Discover more ways Textel can seamlessly implement texting into your call center communication.
by Murph Krajewski | Aug 30, 2018 | Auto Dealerships
Everything’s easier when you have your customer’s attention. In the auto industry, dealerships are always looking for a practical solution to better connect with prospective and current customers.
In fact, the ability to reach customers quickly and get a fast response doesn’t just streamline communication for auto dealerships – it improves internal productivity, provides more accurate scheduling and increases revenue by not only driving more traffic but also closing deals faster.
Business texting for dealerships from Textel offers an easy solution.
Instead of trading voicemails and sending marketing emails that may get swept up in spam filters, texting from the dealership’s existing phone number connects with customers in a timely manner.
On average, texts are read within 5 seconds of being received, according to SlickText. By targeting customers where they prefer to communicate, service departments are replacing phone tag and turnaround delays with quick approvals for additional work while their sales floor is getting real-time updates on the pulse of their potential buyer.
4 Ways Business Texting for Dealerships Saves You Time & Money:
- Expect an improved customer service index by staying in front of the customer experience. Textel’s scheduled texting tool makes it simple to schedule automated appointment reminders and service follow-ups.
- Text your customers a picture of their vehicle to expedite the approval process. Customers are 7 times more likely to text back after receiving a text than call back after receiving a voicemail.
- Thanks to a user-friendly portal from Textel, dealerships don’t need to worry about missing a text thanks to a desktop inbox view that provides notifications to their support team. For the on-the-go service team, a free cell phone app is also available to make communication simple yet effective.
- To help navigate bigger auto dealerships, Textel’s management controls give teams the ability to oversee and manage all conversations from their computer and assign permissions to each user as needed. To improve customer experience continuity, conversations are time stamped and can be saved to a PDF file or printed for your records.
CASE STUDY: How Textel Improved the Customer Experience at Suntrup Ford
When Textel was approached by the Service Director at Suntrup Ford in St. Louis, MO, they recognized the issue right away. Service advisors were spending too much time following up with customers and not getting approvals efficiently. This would skew the service schedule and affect additional customers’ experience.
At the end of the day, customers don’t want their car being taken off the line due to a missed call or email. Additionally, they want to see the issue at hand via a photo to understand why the extra work is needed.
After implementing Textel’s business texting solution and using this new channel to connect with customers, Suntrup Ford felt immediate results.
“The Customer Service Index (CSI) at Suntrup’s service departments has increased by 40 points on average!”
– Elliot Slik, Service Director, Sunset Ford, St. Louis, MO.
The Service Department is now able to reach customers quickly and easily and can even schedule texts as needed to remind customers about oil changes or other important, upcoming service needs. Suntrup even sends gifs via text to customers to thank them for their service, which has produced an overwhelmingly positive result.
After more than half a century of servicing and selling cars in the St. Louis area, Suntrup is just one of many dealerships looking for innovative, practical ways to connect with their customers and improve their bottom line.
See what a texting solution from Textel will do for your auto dealership with a risk-free, 14-day free trial. As Suntrup’s Elliot Slik noted, “Nothing is better than a personal note via text message to make a customer happy.”
by Murph Krajewski | Aug 13, 2018 | Call Centers, Partnership
A seamless, easy-to-manage texting integration is the last thing standing in the way of delivering the quality customer support your call center deserves.
Studies have shown that customers prefer to text:
- 81% of consumers are frustrated being tied to a call or computer for support service
- 64% of consumers would prefer to use texting over voice as their service channel
- 77% of consumers have a better perception of a company that offers texting
Along with email, phone and chat features, is texting part of your customer communication strategy?
Let’s look at how Textel’s business texting for call centers rounds out your communication efforts by offering an exceptional brand experience, which translates to increased profits and employee efficiencies.
Since using Textel’s integration with NICE inContact Call Center solution, end users have significantly lowered their call volumes, increased net promoter scores and even generated more leads.
Meet Your Customers Where They’re Most Comfortable
“Texting plays a large role in your customer’s day to day life,” says Textel CMO, Mike Mixon. “While email has reached a fever pitch of spam and calls from unknown numbers are never answered, texts cut through the noise and are almost always read.”
Textel’s business texting tool provides the unique benefit of texting from your existing call center phone numbers. This not only adds credibility to the text and establishes trust, it allows you to take full advantage of the contact numbers you’ve already published.
As a business texting tool for call centers, Textel supports platform-level consent controls, CALEA compliance, message archiving and more to make two-way SMSa robust solution for call centers.
Working Smart with Business Texting Features for Call Centers
Along with using your existing call center numbers to send texts, Textel has built-in many impressive features that put the customer first, including:
- Inbound Texts: Customer texts can be routed to agents based on agent skill.
- Outbound Texts: Agents can initiate conversations or send out reminders.
- Last Agent Routing: Besides viewing entire conversation history, you can route an inbound text to the last agent who supported the customer.
- Mass Outbound Texting: Toll-free numbers can rapidly deploy mass text campaigns.
- Multiple Conversations: Agents can manage multiple conversations across an easy-to-use interface.
- In-depth Reporting: Measure volume, performance and trends
- MMS: Add pictures, PDFs, gifs and even emojis to your messages
Implementing an SMS texting solution for your call center is easy. Simply choose your package and get started usingTextelto power A2P call center texting on your existing phone numbers..
Call or text 844-483-9835 to learn more about Textel’s simple to integrate, easy to activate call center texting solution.
by Murph Krajewski | Jul 26, 2018 | Call Centers, Partnership
“Today’s mobile customers look for the convenience of text messaging instead of phone calls for simple customer service requests.” – Paul Jarman, CEO of NICE inContact.
It’s the driving principle behind an exciting integration that pairs two powerful cloud-based platforms, Textel and NICE inContact, and it’s catching the attention of call centers and their customers across the globe.
One particular highlight of Textel’s feature-rich business texting platform caught the eye of NICE (Nasdaq:NICE), a cloud contact center software leader that helps organizations of all sizes deliver better customer service, ensure compliance, combat fraud and safeguard citizens. The Textel SMS application’s ability to provide organizations the convenience and efficiency of using their existing business phone number proved the perfect addition to NICE inContact CXone’s cloud customer experience platform. Paired together, Textel and NICE have architected a customer-first call center solution.
Blending Business Texting Features with a Premier Cloud Platform
Already the world’s #1 cloud customer experience platform, CXone now boasts Textel’s two-way SMS functionality and powers toll-free mass texting capabilities that let organizations respond to their customers’ increasing demand to communicate faster and easier. Call Centers see this as the perfect opportunity to manage and secure high-volume traffic, even sending 60K texts per minute across industry-leading security measures, controls, compliances and backups.
Thanks to programmable SMS via Textel’s API, NICE inContact CXone can now serve organizations of all sizes by harnessing this added functionality against best-in-class Omnichannel Routing, Workforce Optimization, Analytics, Automation and Artificial Intelligence—across their entire Open Cloud Foundation.
“Textel is excited for this partnership with NICE inContact and being part of CXexchange,” said James Diel, CEO of Textel. “Our technology helps brands easily connect with their customers via the preferred medium of text. Texting significantly lowers call volumes, increases Net Promoter and Customer Service Index (CSI) scores as well as generates leads. Textel is now proudly integrated with CXone.”
Textel SMS Application Offers Multiple Customer-First Capabilities
Customers of NICE inContact see immediate benefits across their customer experience, leading to increased loyalty and significant cost savings. Additionally, the seamless integration into the existing NICE inContact interface erases any change management concerns while boosting user adoption.
Now multiple conversations can be managed from a call center inbox based on custom controls and permissions – and, unlike phone calls, a message is never missed and can even be saved to help inform where the conversation left off.
Customers can even initiate and open support tickets just by sending an SMS message and receiving a delivery receipt. This enhanced customer experience makes it easy to check on an order, receive a mass update, confirm appointments, reset a password, etc.
Call Centers Increase Employee Retention and Collaboration
Enterprise traffic is now easily managed across a chat interface making it easier for call center employees to collaborate with their teammates and contact their customers in an efficient manner. And while outbound texts can be used to initiate conversations or send reminders, inbound texts can quickly be routed to the last agent they spoke with or, alternatively, introduce their entire conversation history to bring the new agent up to speed.
By improving the customer experience, Textel and NICE inContact have created an exceptional brand experience that produces brand advocates from outside and within the organization.
End users see significant reduction in call volume and increases in net promotor scores and leads. Because, as much as customers like to text, so do employees. The SMS functionality can even improve staff communications by sending internal memos and alerts.
Explore How Textel Works with NICE inContact CXone
“The customer experience includes much more than voice interactions,” said Jarman. “With Textel’s SMS functionality, NICE inContact customers can improve customer experience by providing service for customers via two-way text or proactive text notifications. We welcome Textel as part of the CXexchange marketplace.”
To learn more about why the CXone platform uses Textel’s business texting features and read in depth reviews, visit CXexchange, a centralized, state-of-the-art marketplace where developers market and sell CXone-based applications.
Discover how Textel API integrations can power your business by scheduling a free demo today. Call or Text us at 844-483-9835
