Marketers and salespeople used cold emails and email drip campaigns to engage prospects and customers for decades. The problem is that email’s average open rate is a mere 20%.
It typically leaves your efforts unnoticed in your prospect’s inbox four out of five times. It’s safe to say that email campaigns aren’t the most effective marketing approach. If you’re looking for a way to reach your prospects and customers with a high open-rate, consider text messaging instead.
With a 98% open rate, software management systems with a text messaging feature, such as the one offered by Jobber, are an absolute must for any service business that needs to keep on top of job scheduling and operations out in the field.
Text messaging gives modern service businesses, such as those engaged in plumbing for example where technicians are engaged in on-site visits, a chance to effectively connect, communicate, and interact with their customers. Specifically, short message service (SMS) works for service-based companies for these reasons:
SMS text messaging allows for quick initial consultations
An obvious reason text messaging works for service businesses is that it makes fast, straightforward queries possible. The ability to obtain a quick consultation is invaluable for your customers if they’re unsure about their specific issue’s seriousness. It also allows service providers to get answers from clients quickly if something comes up while working on the client’s property.
It also helps that SMS texting doesn’t require an Internet connection. This makes it idea for all types of text marketing. Even if you or your customer is out of a Wi-Fi signal’s range, texts can still be sent and received.
Texting can make scheduling appointments easier for clients
Appointments are a critical component of service-based businesses. What many service providers fail to recognise is that text messaging can help them improve their scheduling process. In fact, texting is proven to save time by increasing the number of kept appointments.
But how does text messaging make scheduling appointments easier for you and your customers? For one, 99% of texts are read, and the average response time for a text message is 90 seconds. There’s no doubt that texting gives service-based businesses the engagement they need to book and retain more appointments.
Service business owners will also be glad to know that modern SMS platforms already have a text autoresponder function. Such a feature can be used to encourage self-serve appointment bookings. As you probably already know, the less human intervention needed to book an appointment, the more likely a consumer will schedule for your service.
Automation makes it possible to wake up in the morning to multiple new appointments even without doing anything extra work your end. Who wouldn’t love that?
A text message can be an effective appointment reminder
It seems that there’s an endless number of things to remember in today’s busy modern society. As a service-based business owner, you’re well aware of how frustrating and costly missed appointments can be. They’ll cost your company both money and time. In fact, research has shown that businesses with over USD$120,000 annual revenue have been found to lose up to USD$26,000 each year in missed appointments — don’t let you be one of them!
That’s why the decision to send appointment reminder text messages should be a no-brainer for service providers.
By sending out a text message appointment reminder with enough time before the appointment, clients can be given the opportunity to confirm, cancel or reschedule your service. It’s convenient for them and your business, too!
Texting can help keep your client in the loop with a progress update
Clients often don’t have control over a specific service’s completion as it’s the provider that often decides how long a project will take to complete based on a number of factors.
The problem is that lack of control can sometimes cause anxiety among consumers, even more so when the service is expensive or is needed urgently. It’s especially true for projects that don’t require customer supervision.
The best service-based companies don’t just leave clients in the lurch. Instead, they send progress updates to ensure customer satisfaction.
One of the best ways to keep your customers in the loop in the work your business is doing for them is text messaging. With SMS texts, you can send a short helpful report every few hours or every day quickly. Depending on your progress reports, clients can also reply to your messages with some positive or corrective feedback.
Final Thoughts
In the service industry, business owners and managers need to be able to contact their customers quickly and in a timely manner.
The best way for service businesses to ensure that their messages are seen by their customers almost instantly and responded to with the same level of promptness is with text messages.
SMS text messaging allows service providers to carry out quick initial consultations, schedule appointments, remind clients about any upcoming appointments, and send progress updates.
