Friday Poll: Do You Use Texting to Communicate with Clients?

    • 1373 posts
    August 15, 2019 11:20 PM PDT

    Happy Friday, everyone!

    Earlier this month, sales trainer Tom Black shared an infographic from InsideSales.com (at right) about the growth of texting in sales. Among other things, it notes that:

    • the use of text messages at work has increased 62% since 2014
    • 61% of people recommend texting them at work
    • 95% of text messages from businesses are read within 3 minutes of being sent
    • the average response time to a text message is 90 seconds

    Six years ago, we asked our members about their use of texting to communicate with clients and colleagues, and while there were a variety of responses, several members stated that in their opinion, texting was unprofessional, while others said that if texting was the customer's preferred method of communication, they would honor that and communicate by text.

    So I thought it would be a topic worth revisiting this week:

    Do you use texting to communicate with clients and prospects?  What do you feel are the pros and cons of texting as a form of business communication?

    Looking forward to reading your replies!


    This post was edited by Rebecca Hunt at August 15, 2019 11:33 PM PDT
    • 4 posts
    August 16, 2019 8:28 AM PDT

    I will use all forms of communication if the customer prefers text then so be it, but I prefer to use Text to confirm appointments and simple questions. IE: "did you get my email?" "Will we be meeting at...?" Anything further can get miss construed. Have you ever taken a text the wrong way? Of course, you have. Can you risk that with a client? Of course not. Tread lightly here... IMO

     

    • 1373 posts
    August 16, 2019 10:13 AM PDT

    From Kimmy Henglefelt : Absolutely! I have some that prefer it because they have their phones on them at all times and will respond almost immediately. I of course ask them about it, if they want to be contacted per email, text, phone etc. I have found the younger generation and bar/restaurant owners are almost an always

    • 9 posts
    August 16, 2019 11:12 AM PDT

    Yes i do!  I have clients that prefer a text message.  I will ask a new client how they prefer to communicate and make note of that.