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Landline Texting is a wonderful resource for your business to stay in touch with customers, but there are some guidelines you should follow to show proper texting etiquette and professionalism.

Whether you’re just getting started with business texting, or you’ve been doing it for awhile, it’s easy to forget some of the important guidelines that every business should follow when it comes to text message communications with their clients and customers.

Luckily, services like Text My Main Number, make it easy and affordable to set up a professional business text messaging service that your customers will find fun and useful.

In this post, we’ll go through a few things that you should be sure to do if you use business texting.

1. Get consent to text

Before you sign your clients or customers up for your text message announcements, be sure they know about your text messages and agree to receive messages from you. If you don’t get consent beforehand, you could be sending them unwanted information, or spam. Businesses that send spam could be fined or violating federal communications regulations.

You can ask your customers when they purchase a good or service with your company if they would like to receive future text messages from your business. You can also give customers the opportunity to sign up to receive text messages on your website or branded social media platforms.

If a customer sends you a text, you do not need to get verbal or written permission to text with that person since you can reasonably imply that they want you to text them.

2. Give your customers a clear opt-out method

Sometimes people change their minds, move away, or no longer need to receive text messages from your business. In case that happens, be sure you give your customers a clear and effective way to opt out of receiving messages from you in the future. The easiest way to provide an opt out method this by allowing recipients to reply “Stop” to a text, which should prompt you to remove their phone number from your contact list.

With Text My Main Number, mobile users who reply “STOP” to a message are automatically placed on a do-not-contact list. If a business does send a group text to that user’s number, the message is automatically not sent to that user.

3. Don’t share overly personal information via text

Be sure that your text communications do not include overly personal information about your clients, such as their full address, credit card numbers, social security numbers, or health information. Although texting is a secure way to communicate, it is in everyone’s best interest to avoid sharing sensitive information unless it’s absolutely necessary.

4. Make sure your texts fulfill a specific mission

Before you hit send, think about why it’s a good idea for your business to be sending that mass text message out. Are you announcing an important special? Is there a big change happening with your company that you think every customer or client should know about? If you think that the message will be useful for the majority of its recipients, go ahead and send it. However, if the message is best suited for more of a specific audience, think about creating sub-lists of contacts so you can tailor messages to certain groups of customers and clients.

5. Respond to business texts in a timely manner

The phone works both ways when it comes to landline texting. Always be sure that you pay attention to the messages you receive, and respond to messages as soon as possible. Responding to text messages promptly lets people know that their text message went through and that their issue is being addressed.

Many business text messaging platforms, like Text My Main Number, offer a variety of options for you to create auto-reply messages for certain times of day or in response to messages that contain specific keywords. For example, someone can text, “What are your hours?” Instead of typing the response out yourself, you can have an automated message respond to give them your hours and perhaps a link to your website for more information. 

6. Keep your messages consistent

Remember that every text message you send from your business’s main number is a reflection of you and your company. You want to clearly present your business’s brand, provide functional links, timely information, and maintain a professional demeanor and tone. If you tell your customers that they can expect daily or weekly texts from you to give them a specific piece of information, be sure you follow through and send those texts when you say you will. With Text My Main Number, you can create text message templates and schedules to make it easier to follow a consistent schedule and preplan your messages ahead of time.

7. Keep text messages short

Your text messages should be short and easy to read. A general rule of thumb is to keep messages shorter than 160 characters. Keeping your text messages short also helps you keep the message focused on one important topic or announcement, so you’re communicating clearly with your customers. Keep in mind that your clients or customers might be busy or distracted when they receive a text, so it’s best to keep messages short enough to read in a few seconds. You can also include abbreviated URLs to direct your customers to a link with more complete information.

In conclusion

Sending unwanted or unprofessional text messages from your business’s main phone number can damage your reputation and result in steep fines.

Landline texting should be offered as an added convenience for your customers rather than an annoyance that they don’t want. Always use your best judgment when sending out text messages and be sure to proofread your texts before hitting send. Also, find a good way to manage an up-to-date contact list that makes it easy to add and remove phone numbers.

You can learn all about how landline texting can work for your business at the Text My Main Number blog.

The coronavirus pandemic quickly changed how many companies are doing business, especially stores and restaurants that have begun using landline texting to offer curbside pickup to accommodate their customers during the pandemic. 

Although Curbside Pickup helps prevent the spread of COVID-19, it can pose extra logistical challenges to busy managers who need to stay on top of pickup orders, strict health protocols, and their usual duties.

Smart business owners know that to keep their customers coming back, they’ll need to offer a seamless experience. One answer has been landline texting – an option that allows you to send and receive text messages with your current landline phone number. 

Instead of investing in an expensive mobile app, or asking customers to submit orders through a website, businesses can offer the option to text their main number to place orders and coordinate pickups. 

Amazing, right? 

Here’s more info on the reasons why businesses are turning to text messaging during COVID-19 and offer seamless curbside pickup services in 2021: 

1. Landline Texting is an affordable business investment

It’s 2021 and text messaging has never been more accessible. You don’t need a smartphone or even a new phone number to send and receive text messages on your business phone number. You simply need to subscribe to a reliable business texting service to get started.

2. Business Text Messaging is easy to set up and use

Setting up a texting option for your business is a breeze. You will not have to get a new phone number or any special equipment, simply tell your staff and customers that they can now send and receive text messages using your main business landline phone number.

Landline texting will work across your business’s other digital devices such as computers and tablets using remote access technology. You can also send and receive text messages with an email address.

3. Texting saves your business valuable time while keeping lines of communication open 

Imagine you are the owner of a small but popular downtown restaurant. The lunch rush is heating up, and the phone is ringing off the hook as orders pour in. All this business would be great on an average day, but two employees already called in sick today, and lunch is barely getting started. 

You need to keep your remaining staff available to prepare orders and greet customers, but you also don’t want to miss out on potential business by ignoring the phone calls.  

This is just the situation in which landline texting could make the difference between your restaurant making $500 during the lunch rush, or $2,000. 

Instead of keeping your employees tied up answering the phones and taking down orders by hand, they could view landline text message orders as they come in and communicate with customers without needing to stop what they are doing to make a phone call. 

4. Your landline calls will not be interrupted by text messages 

Like a cell phone, your landline calling service will not be affected by incoming text messages to your business phone. Landline texting allows you to consistently communicate with customers who prefer to call as well as customers who are comfortable with texting. 

That means a local bookshop owner can be on the phone with a customer or vendor as they receive a text from another phone number about a curbside pickup order. The telephone call will not be interrupted, and the business owner or clerk can return the text message during the call or when they get done talking.

5. Businesses can connect with their loyal customers from afar 

It has been difficult, to say the least, for businesses to keep in contact with their customers during social distancing and other virus precautions. 

Landline texting is a simple way to stay in contact with customers and let them know about what is going on with your business. 

Business texting allows you to communicate with customers and send out mass, short messages. Landline texting can be ideal for: 

• Receiving curbside pickup orders or appointments
• Confirming appointment details
• Announcing your weekly specials or special promotions
• Confirming billing or monthly payments
• Sending birthday or anniversary messages 
• Spread the word about a special event  

Landline texting versus calling or emailing is a smart strategy considering 85% of consumers say they prefer text messaging over other forms of communication. Plus, studies show that people read 95% of text messages within just three minutes of receiving them. 

6. Landline Texting gives small businesses a better opportunity to compete with large chains

Big box stores like Walmart, Target, and many large grocers have seen huge jumps in sales since the start of the pandemic thanks to their curbside delivery options, according to an article in USA Today. The added convenience of curbside pickup helps customers feel safe and still get out of the house to head to the store. 

Small businesses can offer the same type of service by adopting a business text messaging program to allow customers to place orders from their phones without physically entering a store or restaurant. 

In conclusion

The coronavirus pandemic has created new challenges that business owners have needed to overcome. Curbside pickup has been an effective solution if businesses can effectively implement it. Curbside pickup at retail stores jumped 208% in the early days of the pandemic, and online orders remain high a year later, according to an article by CNBC. 

Now has never been a better time to invest in landline texting so your business can continue operating during the pandemic while keeping employees and customers safe. 

Landline texting helps your business save time and money, work more efficiently, and keep in contact with customers during a challenging time. Landline texting does not require any special equipment or a new phone number – instead, it is through a business texting service.