By Stephanie Snyder,
Should your business use text or voice-calling for its communications? This is often asked by small businesses, organizations, and service companies. The answer is that the best decision depends on the business and its needs. There are plenty of benefits to doing either voice-calling or text messaging, so which type of communication is right for your business depends on your goals, expectations, and audience.
The Value of Speed and Convenience
Your customers can access your messages 24 hours a day and send you quick responses in return with text messaging.
Sms api cost can come in handy. This convenience is important for many businesses because it means response times are shorter, and clients are satisfied with the service they receive. A study by the Global Language Monitor found that more than 50% of businesses chose to reach out to clients via text message simply because it was convenient; this high percentage shows just how important convenience is when communicating with clients. In many cases, clients will respond immediately to a text message because they are already in front of their computers or have the mobile application open.
In addition to being convenient, text messaging is speedier than calling an individual. The first time a person receives the message, the time it takes for you to get a response might be short—but once it's been read, it's gone forever. Text messages can also give your business an element of surprise in its communications because they're completely unannounced and unexpected. Clients can get messages on their computers, mobile devices, and tablets in the middle of the night, and they'll typically see your text message as soon as they log on.
The Value of Stronger Connections
Text messaging isn't just convenient and fast—it's also personal. Unlike voice-calling, text messaging allows for greater development of a business relationship by leaving more room for personality, feelings, emotions, and humor to be displayed. This type of personalization can make clients and customers feel that your business is more sincere and trustworthy.
While a text message doesn't allow the use of speech, the other forms of expression—such as punctuation, abbreviations, emoticons, sentence structure and length, spelling, and capitalization—can help you get your point across more clearly. There is also greater control over how the message is delivered.
Voice-calling allows the sender to decide when and how their message is delivered, but with text messaging, you can choose when and where the message will appear. You can let it push from your accounts to customers' phones with a scheduled message or send a notification in advance without them having to sign up for your lists.
For many businesses, notifying customers of events and promotions is more important than informing them about urgent changes in their account status. This is why text-calling can be beneficial since you can give clients the message in advance of your schedule and send an alert to their phones if they value timely communication.
The Value of Personalization
You can customize how and when your messages appear to your customer with text messaging. For example, you can schedule your message to appear at a specific time, like in the middle of the night when they are less likely to be on their computer or mobile devices. You can also send an alert so that your message is delivered if it's urgent, or you can confirm that they want to receive messages.
With text-calling, you can send instant replies and even turn the responses into a two-way conversation with clients. On the other hand, if you email your clients, they won't even know that you've sent them a message. They'll be surprised when they check their inboxes and see your email in the morning.
The Value of Efficiency
Many people view text messaging as an inefficient method of communication. With voice-calling, you have to spend time calling your clients and listening to them say "hello" before you can get in a sentence. However, with text-calling, the message is sent, and the response is given simultaneously. Texting allows for conversations that take 10 seconds instead of 5 minutes.
Conclusively, voice-calling has many benefits and can be useful for businesses that want to send urgent messages or give their clients an alternative way to communicate. However, these benefits aren't always useful for every business, and your company might be better off sending text messages instead. The decision is ultimately up to you. If your customer list isn't too big and you need direct responses at a specific time of day, text messaging will work well for you.
