Text Messaging Featured Article

For years, many adults dismissed text messaging technology as the provenance of chatty teenagers. Articles showing that the average teenager sends thousands of texts each month reinforce this belief, with 12- to 15-year-olds being the most prolific texting group. But the truth of the matter is that nearly every age demographic in the U.S. uses text messaging to some extent today, and the numbers are growing. In fact, text messaging has reportedly overtaken both voice calls on mobile phones and face-to-face contact as the No. 1 most-used method of daily communication between friends and family. According to comScore (News - Alert), text messaging or SMS is used regularly by 75 percent of all Americans.

The technology of text messaging turned 21 yesterday, although few of us were aware of it at its inception. The very first text message was sent on Dec. 3, 1992, when U.K. engineer Neil Papwell used his desktop computer to relay the holiday greeting "Merry Christmas" to an Orbitel 901 mobile phone. We have come a long way since then and, increasingly, text messaging today isn’t simply for personal communications—it’s seeing an ever widening array of business applications, including customer support.

As people spend more time and are more comfortable texting on their smartphones, they increasingly expect to be able to interact with companies via this channel as well. For this reason, it’s important for companies offering multichannel customer support programs to ensure that text messaging is fully integrated into the media mix, according to an article by Forbes contributor Jabez LeBret.  LeBret notes that the danger is when customers choose automated outbound texts to try and reply to, and those replies get lost.

“When a company chooses to engage in customer service via SMS, an appropriate communication strategy must be in place,” wrote LeBret. “If done properly, SMS campaigns can build a strong relationship with your customer base. There are, however, some rules to follow when texting your customers. The risk of disregarding these rules is customers getting frustrated with your service or disengaging themselves from your brand.”

These rules include always asking for permission to send text messages to customers (federal law requires it), ensuring that texting is always a two-way communications media (in other words, don’t blast out automated texts and expect that you won’t have to reply to responses from customers) and provide an easy way to opt out for customers who are no longer want the messages. Another final tip is to watch the quantity of the texts you send out. While you may be so proud of your newest product, service or campaign that you’d like to tell your customers about it four times a day, chances are they won’t be quite so keen.