You’ve experienced it before. A customer comes to your tire shop and selects a new set of snow tires. You go above and beyond, not only replacing the tires but performing an alignment check and complimentary cleaning that leaves your customer elated.

You ask the customer to leave a review, and they readily agree onsite, but you fail to send a review invite until a week later when the customer has already forgotten about the experience. They never write one. Another opportunity down the drain.

Using automated text messages to their full capacity

This is just one of many pain points businesses without automated text messaging experience. Without the ability to mass text, many businesses miss out on valuable revenue because they can’t send relevant promotions at the right times, are unable to engage customers outside of work hours and cause their employees to waste valuable time on menial tasks like appointment setting and scheduling. All things automated text messages could do.

Perhaps you think automated text messaging software is too expensive. Or that it’s not worth the hassle. However, this article will show why it’s crucial for businesses who want to get ahead and MUCH more affordable than you might think.

What are automated text messages?

Automated text messages give local businesses the ability to automatically text consumers, clients, patients, and patrons. With the right platform, these SMS messages can be timed based on a triggered event or some other source, so customers get messaged at the right time every time.

Automated text messages have many purposes. You can use them to engage with customers after hours, send relevant promotions at just the right moment, and gather hundreds of stellar reviews.

With the right tools, they can be customized for appointments, product delivery, lead conversion, or customer follow-up in order to win more business, keep more appointments, convert more leads, and keep customers coming back. It’s like having another employee 24/7.

Why send automated text messages?

Sending messages manually may still be doable when you’re only texting a few customers. But it’s a completely different story if you need to send hundreds of text messages daily. If you don’t want to waste any resources, an automated text messaging tool is worth considering.

Sending automated text messages can do more good things for your business. It will allow you to enjoy the following benefits:

Save time: Your staff only needs to use text message templates and then schedule the message to be sent. Your employees won’t have to spend a lot of time creating and sending text messages to hundreds of contacts and responding to common customer issues.
Increase efficiency: With automated text tools, businesses can send out mass messages to their customers or employees with just a few clicks. Such efficient workflows help businesses save time and resources. Additionally, automated tools can provide real-time responses to frequently asked questions.
Boost engagement: Customers prefer texting over other communication channels. As such, text messaging offers a massive opportunity for improving customer engagement. When you actively engage with customers, they will likely stay loyal to your brand.
Improve customer satisfaction: With automated text messaging, you offer your customers unparalleled convenience. Over 85% of consumers expect local businesses to offer more convenient communication now than they did prior to COVID-19.
Drive sales and revenue: Customers who are engaged and satisfied with your business will likely make repeat purchases and recommend your business to other potential customers.

The possibilities of what you can use automated text messages for are endless and can optimize your entire customer journey. From payments to reviews to feedback, automated messaging takes care of the menial tasks, so your employees have more time for the things that matter—your customers.

8 Ways to Make the Most of Automated Text Messages for Your Business

Once you get an opt-in from customers, automated messaging saves businesses time, effort, and resources. It increases productivity, revenue, and customer engagement. And local businesses around the world are using it in various ways to optimize their customer journey.

1. Text Message Surveys

Data about your customers can help you find out what they want, how you can serve them better, and how to improve your marketing campaigns. You can use your automated text messaging platform to create and send surveys to your target audience. The most common types of text message surveys are web-based surveys, net promoter scores, polls, and text-to-vote.

2. Repeating Messages

In cases where you need to send the same text message at regular intervals to your customers, leads, employees, and any other contacts, you can use an automated text messaging platform to make the job easier and faster.

Most automated text messaging platforms feature repeating or recurring text messages, allowing users to schedule SMS messages to be sent repeatedly at different times. This can be useful when launching drip campaigns.

3. Automated Birthday Gifts

Sending birthday text messages is one of the most personal and fun ways to engage with your audience or customers. Such personalized text messages show your customers you care about more than the business they give you. This also helps encourage brand loyalty and goes a long way in turning loyal customers into brand advocates.

4. Autoresponders

No one enjoys phone tag, being kept on hold, or waiting on customer service. Yet concerns and questions are bound to arise, and your customers want answers in real-time. They also want convenience in all of their interactions. SMS autoresponders answer these needs.

Most customers these days expect to see a chat option when they land on your website. But not all live chats are built equally. You want a feature that feels human and allows you to engage customers regardless of when they contact you. When it comes to things like confirming appointments and offering updates, messages feel more human when sent between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. (when employees would normally be working).

However, many businesses successfully use automated messaging specifically for after-hours communication. You might consider actively sending texts during business hours and using automated SMS messages when leads engage with you after-hours.

An after-hours automated text might look something like this:

Thank you for contacting Belview Tires. These messages are not regularly monitored on weekends & evenings. We will reply during business hours. We appreciate your business!

With the right technology, like Webchat, you can auto reply to FAQs with automated messages. As the conversation continues, if the consumer asks a question that requires live assistance, the platform can trigger an employee to respond back. This saves a tremendous amount of time for you and your employees.

5. Abandoned Cart SMS

If you own an online store, you probably have encountered customers adding products to their cart but never buying them. You can use an abandoned cart SMS or notification to remind customers that they’ve left items in their cart. An automated text messaging tool can prove useful in this case.

6. Text Review Requests

Reviews influence 88% of consumers in discovering a local business. They are 2x more likely to be an important factor in choosing a local business than loyalty and 7.4x more likely to be an important factor than traditional marketing. And the reality is most consumers have read a review in the last week. With such high stakes, how do you manage your reputation?

Many local businesses use automated text messaging to stay at the top of online search results. The optimum moment to ask for a review in every industry is different. However, it’s essential that invites arrive at the moment of highest satisfaction—whether that’s immediately after purchase, right after a fitting, or a little later down the road.

With automated messaging, businesses improve their review collection rate significantly by ensuring that every customer receives a review invite at the right time. No customers fall through the cracks.

Automated messages also improve your customer reviews by elevating your entire customer experience. Businesses use SMS messages to collect feedback, inform customers of relevant promotions, offer convenience in payments, and send scheduled text messages—the list goes on and on.

7. Text-to-Pay

Speaking of payments, it’s easy to assume that letting customers swipe credit cards or pay in cash will cover the bases. After all, they’ve been the de-facto options for decades. However, if those are the only two options you provide, you miss 31% of consumers’ top choices.

Many local businesses are getting ahead of the game by using automated messages to collect payments. With SMS automation, you can text customers their invoices and have them pay directly from a text link, decreasing bill wait time significantly and increasing ease for consumers. This has significant benefits, especially for businesses where bill collection is typically difficult in industries like healthcare.

With Podium Payments text-to-pay, Adam’s Pest Control was able to stop using their collection agency and lower their collection APR consistently month over month. Using text-to-pay, Genesis Dental generated $130,000 dollars in revenue in 12 months and recently reported that sending and collecting payments has only taken a fourth of the time it used to.

Text messaging also answers new consumer expectations. The top two factors consumers take into consideration when making a purchase from a local business or service provider are customer service (60%) and convenient payment options (41%).

According to a recent report, two-thirds of high-income consumers who have tried text payments either liked or strongly liked it. Through text, you enable customers to pay immediately via SMS. And you make your business more appealing.

With text, you also have the opportunity to continue the conversation beyond check out, staying top-of-mind and increasing your customers’ lifetime value.

8. Scheduled Text Messages

It’s similar to repeating messages, but you only schedule a text message to be sent at a specific time. It can be conducive when you need to send customers appointment reminders or updates about their orders.

FAQs

How do I set up automatic text messages?

Automatic text messaging requires the right type of software and messaging tools. It’s only possible for local businesses through the use of a platform. However, not all platforms will do the job.

When looking for a platform, you should perform extensive research and find one that is purpose-built for local businesses with the ability to send multiple messages and report consistently on data and performance.

As a champion of 90,000+ local businesses, Podium is the only platform that provides the full functionality to do it all—execute effective SMS promotional campaigns, take care of payments in-person or remotely, engage customers through Webchat, invite customers to leave a review at the right time every time, and set appointments while tracking data effectively. And with Podium Starter, you can see the success of automatic text messaging for free.

How much does an automated SMS service cost?

Podium pricing starts at $249 per month and already includes an easy-to-use text-marketing tool. However, it is limited to 1000 contacts and can only be used by up to 3 team members. A free trial is available if you want to know whether an automated workflow for texting is right for your business. Please visit the pricing page for more information.

Are automated text messages illegal?

Automated text messages can only be illegal if you send messages without written consent from the recipient and when your business does not comply with the rules and regulations required by the law. Learn about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) before sending automated messages to your customers and to avoid any legal consequences.

What number can I use for automated text messages?

After signing up for an automated text service, the platform will give you a toll-free phone number from which you can send your SMS messages. In most cases, you can send these texts from a computer, too.

Use Podium’s Text Marketing Tool

Many businesses don’t give much thought to automated messaging/mass texting or messaging in general. However, as demonstrated, automated text messaging isn’t just a way to free up a little more time for your employees. It certainly doesn’t just affect an isolated portion of your business.

An automated text message can elevate every aspect of your customer experience and company processes by increasing convenience and making your efforts go further. It is a proven way to increase revenue, convert more leads, and keep them coming back. If you automate texting, you’ll be able to meet consumer expectations in ways other businesses can’t. And in doing so, you’ll stay ahead of the competition with SMS marketing.