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Texting is a quick and effective communications tool. However, when it is being used for business, there are some important rules you should observe. A new infographic by hosting company and URL registrar GoDaddy titled, “Text Etiquette for Business Owners” provides four tips to make sure you don’t offend your customers or business partners while texting.
Since the introduction of digital technology, the way we communicate has changed. Whether it is email, texting or video conferencing, each platform carries with it a set of guidelines that should be followed.
Maxym Martineau, copy editor and staff writer for GoDaddy, who authored the infographic, recommends you, “Keep an eye out for auto-correct and voice-to-text errors and don’t change set dates, meeting times or events via text. If your client misses that important information, you could cost yourself a customer.”
Text Message Etiquette Rules
Here are the four text message etiquette tips in the infographic.
Respect Business Hours and Be Prompt
Even though texting might seem informal and give you a sense of comfort, you can’t text your clients past business hours. Unless you have permission to do so, respect the boundaries of the people you text.
Time also extends to the way you respond. The quicker you respond to texts, the better results you will have in the long run with your customers.
Use a Courteous but Not Too Casual Tone
Again, this goes to the appearance of the informality when texting. Don’t use the same tone with your customers as you would with your friends or family. According to Marineau, you have to avoid using all caps and emoji as they mean something and they could also be misinterpreted.
Be respectful. Don’t write something you wouldn’t say to a person if they were in front of you.
Don’t Overtext Customers
Just as you must avoid texting at every hour of the day, you should also avoid over texting, since this also shows lack of respect for your customers. Just as you should make sure to text during business hours, use every text wisely and limit the number.
If you time your text just right, you will have greater success in getting a response.
Be Generally Professional
Being professional brings all of the above recommendations together. Once you do those things, carefully write your text, make sure you haven’t misspelled words, names or titles, double-check your text and press send.
Texting for Business
According to research cited by Adobe in an official blog post, SMS has a 98 percent open rate and 90 percent are read within three seconds. Those are numbers that are much better than any other marketing method.
As a small business owner, using texting can deliver ROI you can live with because of the high engagement rate. In the same blog post, Adobe says consumers that respond to SMS offers with texted coupons redeemed them 10 times more often than traditional coupons.
See the entire infographic below:
Images: GoDaddy
Aira Bongco
Your character can say a lot about who you are. And it can be the only basis on why people should transact with you. So more than etiquette, strive to have better character.
Right. So many people think that they can just send text messages just because they feel like it. But it has an etiquette that it follows.
It should be done sparingly. Think of it as sending a message to a friend. You don’t want to spam them with messages.