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Texting Etiquette

Texting Etiquette
Texting Etiquette for SMS Texting

Business texting, as well as SMS marketing, are growing industries. Unfortunately, this communication medium is easily abused by many businesses. Stop texting just because it’s convenient for you, and start texting because people want and need to hear from your business. Check out our tips on texting etiquette to respect your customers and keep the integrity of your business. 

Texting Etiquette Tips:

  1. Include Opt-Out Options
  2. Keep it Professional
  3. Beware of Timing
  4. Include Your Name
  5. Proofread

Include Opt-Out Options

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) creates rules and regulations for how businesses can contact people. The only thing necessary to comply with the TCPA rules for texting is to gain consent before sending text messages. This can be done by sending a message that includes “Text YES to Subscribe” or “Text STOP to Opt-Out.” If someone replies with STOP you no longer have permission to text them and they should be removed from your list immediately.

Keep it Professional

Text messages are a very short interaction between you and the person receiving the messages. It’s a good idea to avoid using abbreviations or slang in your business text messages. For example, “u” instead of “you” or “r” instead of “are.” Slang or abbreviations could hurt your professional reputation. Since these interactions are so short, you want the first message received to convey everything you need to convince your customers to buy your product or service.

Beware of Timing

It’s easy to abuse your text marketing abilities by sending an overload of messages at the wrong time. Gnymble recommends you keep your business texting to normal business hours. This means avoiding sending messages too early in the morning or too late in the evening. Respecting your customers’ time is an important piece to business texting communication.

Include Your Name

Always include your name or your business name somewhere in your text messages– unless it’s obvious who the sender is. Unless the recipient has saved your contact information, they will only see your phone number when you text them. Don’t make your customers guess who’s texting them.

Proofread

Always proofread your text messages at least once before sending them. It’s even better to have another person look over the text message before hitting send. Autocorrect or speech to text can change your spelling, grammar, or messaging. Simple spelling or grammar mistakes can turn your customers off– so it’s worth the extra effort to proofread your texts.

Always remember that SMS marketing is a wonderful tool that should not be abused. You should continue to work towards positive attraction instead of annoyance. Keep your customers, clients, and patients happy by following simple texting etiquette. If you’d like to learn more about how you can start texting, text 757-818-8010 or email [email protected].

Sources:

https://www.allbusiness.com/7-rules-etiquette-sms-marketing-22128-1.html

https://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2018/03/10-etiquette-tips-for-business-text-messages.html

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Do I Need a Separate Business Number?

Gnymble business texting
Separate Business and Personal Texts

At Gnymble we like to emphasize the importance of creating a wonderful work-life balance by separating your personal and business phone numbers– because Mom and Customer Joe shouldn’t be next to each other in your texting app. There are many reasons to make the switch, but we will be discussing the top four: time management, privacy, useability, and a few other concerns. 

  1. Time Management

Many people dread the idea of having two different phone numbers. I’m here to tell you– don’t knock it until you try it. For example, after a long workday, you might go meet a friend for dinner when you receive several work texts. Your mind starts running through all you need to get done for work and the whole relaxed mood is ruined for you as well as your friend. If you opt for separate phone numbers for personal and business matters, you can turn off business notifications after hours. This offers you the ability to manage your time however you would like while also keeping a great work-life balance.

  1. Privacy

A separate business phone number also enhances the privacy of your business. While it may be unlikely, your company might need to check some business-related text-message exchanges. If you have a separate business and personal number, there’s no chance of personal material being accessed. In the event of business material needing to be deleted, you won’t lose any personal information. Lastly, keeping your personal number private also creates boundaries that are necessary for privacy.

  1. Useability

In many cases, certain cell phone carriers have better service in different areas. This can be an issue when traveling for business. Gnymble provides a web-based texting platform. This means you can access your Gnymble texting account from any device that has access to either data or the internet. Nowadays most airports, hotels, and convention centers offer free wifi. Gnymble gives you multiple options to help you stay connected to your business conversations.

  1. Ridding Other Concerns

Unfortunately, if you share a phone number for business and personal uses this limits the amount of your cell phone expenses you can deduct from your income taxes. This can be a concern for small business owners. Another concern with sharing a personal and business number is taking a lot of time to create records of minutes used and text messages sent to give to your employer. 

Take back control of your personal cell phone number. Feel the power of being able to transition from work to home life without work distractions. If you want to learn more about how Gnymble can help you separate personal and business numbers please text 757-818-8010 or contact us here.

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Can Workplace Wellness Make an Impact on Employee Retention?

Business texting is changing the way employers are attracting and retaining top talent. In one use case, a customer of Gnymble provides a healthcare wellness benefit for corporations that includes texting. In this model, the employees have direct access to a physician via text, paid for by their employer. This means the employer doesn’t have to lose their talent for the day to allow the employee to go to the doctor for a routine issue and the employee doesn’t have to take PTO. That’s what we call a win-win for technology helping people!

Why are workplace wellness programs important?

Studies have shown that supporting the physical and mental health of your employees creates a happier and more productive environment. Workplace wellness has definitely impacted employee retention over the last few decades. After all, most people spend up to ⅓ of their life at work. Your workplace is like your second home.

Over 45% of Americans say that they would stay at their workplace longer if they were provided with an employee-sponsored wellness program. Employee-sponsored wellness programs resulted in 40% of employees saying that they were encouraged to work harder and take less time off.

10 Reasons to Provide Workplace Wellness Programs:

1. Improves Employee Health Behavior

Wellness programs are a great way to help your employees adopt healthier behaviors such as more physical activity, eating healthier, and lower alcohol intake.

2. Increases Employee Physical Wellness

Studies have shown that workplace wellness programs have shown increased rates of positive self reported physical wellness.

3. Productivity Increases

Employees with poor health are less likely to perform their best at work. Smokers are 28% more likely to have lower productivity at work. Those not eating healthy are 66% more likely and those that don’t exercise are 50% more likely to have lower productivity at work than those that do.

4. Employee Engagement Increases

Healthy habits lead to increased happiness which leads to increased engagement among employees.

5. Increase in Morale

Workplace wellness increases morale because employees feel valued and appreciated.

6. Lower Stress Levels

Many stressors include personal health, financial worries, and more. Workplace wellness programs can lower stress levels by helping with healthcare costs and providing healthcare.

7. Attendance Increases

Employees spend less time scheduling appointments, traveling to the doctor, and more. This increases attendance when wellness programs are offered on site.

8. Teamwork is Improved

Encouraging and taking part in wellness activities such as walking or yoga improve employee relationships. This makes employees more comfortable around one another and teamwork is improved.

9. Attracts New Talent

Many potential employees are drawn to companies that offer workplace wellness programs.

10. Reduces Healthcare Cost

Companies that offer a workplace wellness program typically see a trend in healthcare costs being lower for employees. The savings from workplace wellness program participation will be greater than the actual cost of the program.

Workplace wellness looks different at every company

These programs can consist of things such as on-site health clinics, weight loss and stress management coaching, corporate yoga, and more. If your business is considering providing workplace wellness, you will most likely see employee retention increase.

How can technology, like business texting, help workplace wellness?

Technology, like business texting, is a great way to deliver workplace wellness. For example, bringing a virtual doctor onboard can help employees by saving them time from not having to leave work for routine issues. Now, asking their physician quick questions, receiving follow-up care, or even refilling prescriptions can all be done via text message with a business texting platform, like Gnymble. Gnymble allows the employee to use their normal texting app on their phone to text with a doctor and receive medical care.

Texting has become the normal way we communicate with each other. Now that health and wellness are becoming a normal benefit for employees, more and more companies are using texting with their health and wellness partners and within their own company.

Interested in learning more about using business texting to strengthen your business and allow your employees a convenient way to communicate with you? Contact us to learn more!

Sources

https://www.wellsteps.com/blog/2020/01/02/reasons-to-have-a-wellness-program-benefits-of-wellness/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2730614

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Can Texting Be HIPAA Compliant?

doctors texting
Doctors and patients both want to text. Is texting HIPAA compliant? What's the difference in a phone call vs. a text message.

Many healthcare providers would rather use SMS than other communication methods to communicate with patients because it’s convenient and easy. With sensitive information being shared, there are many rules and regulations when it comes to texting in the healthcare industry. This has many healthcare providers wondering if texting can be HIPAA compliant.

The short answer is yes. Texting can be HIPAA compliant under certain circumstances. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 was revised to acknowledge that texting was a technological advancement now used to communicate private health information, also known as PHI. 

Patients can communicate any PHI to you via text. That is their own personal information, and they have the right to share it with whomever they please. Texting is not as easy for the healthcare provider. You must make sure you follow the rules set in place when sharing PHI with patients.

Here are some of the HIPAA rules around texting:

  • Create rules and procedures to manage who is authorized to access PHI when texting.
  • Execute audit and reporting controls for HIPAA compliant texting.
  • Make sure PHI is not improperly changed or deleted while texting.
  • Authenticate your identity before sending or receiving messages.
  • Protect the integrity of PHI during transmission.

What is the difference between encryption and compliance?

Encryption is simply the process of encoding information. Secure messaging solutions adhere to HIPAA encryption requirements by encrypting PHI while at rest and in transit. In laymen’s terms- PHI becomes unreadable and undecipherable. Texting is HIPAA compliant if you are not sending PHI via text. Texting is also HIPAA compliant if you receive consent from the patient to send PHI. 

Texting Features to Boost HIPAA Compliance

One of our favorite features is SPAM prevention. You can enable SPAM prevention in your Gnymble inbox to receive consent before the patient ever receives any medical information via text. This is an easy process, and the consent messages can be stored under the patient’s profile to be easily retrieved if needed.

HIPAA requires you to make patients aware of the risk of communicating their PHI in an unsecured channel and to obtain their consent prior to doing so. This can be done easily with a message like the following: “Dr. John Doe’s office complies with HIPAA and wants to exchange text messages with you. Text messaging may not be fully secure. To consent, reply YES.” This type of consent is a great way to protect your business by documenting permission from patients. 

Over 80% of doctors already use smartphones and unlike waiting at the doctor’s office or completing treatment plans, texting is quick. There are plenty of valid concerns when it comes to texting your physician, but some people use the argument that texting is more confidential than phone calling because the messages cannot be overheard. 

We All Get Calls From Our Doctor, Is That HIPAA Compliant?

Most medical practices in the United States still use phone calls as a form of communication. The use of mobile devices in the healthcare industry is not HIPAA compliant without consent, however, patients still accept phone calls every day. Like our SPAM prevention- you are typically asked your name and date of birth before beginning a conversation. The phone call continues like normal and is HIPAA compliant by consent, just like texting. A few other ways to text smartly and securely include: keeping an eye on the device you’re using to text, reviewing the content of your messages before sending them and deleting message history after the correct medical records have been documented. 

Texting for the healthcare industry is continuing to grow as we learn more about how to keep PHI secure. If you’d like to learn more contact us or text 757-818-8010

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10 Useful Texting Templates You Can Use Right Now

In the realm of digital marketing, content is king. But many small business owners don’t have the time to invest in either hiring a content marketing writer, nor do it themselves. This means they’re missing out on the many opportunities to connect with the customers and communities that are out there. Traditionally, a content plan is built through developing high-impact, incisive, and relevant content on the company’s website, and then building a communication strategy to drive engagement through various channels such as emails, social media posts, advertising, and organic searches on search engines.

One of the advantages of business texting is that you have a dedicated, opt-in channel for your one-to-one conversations. This allows you to not only provide practical customer service, but also reach out with marketing messages in a personal and relevant way.

In this article, we’ve assembled a short list of ten typical question areas that you can use right now to start building your own business texting template.

Why you Need Business Texting Templates

Many small businesses still struggle to create business texting content for SMS texts, which can be a roadblock to communication. By establishing a set of business texting templates, you can create your own templates for quick responses to frequently asked questions. Not only will your team be able to respond quickly to queries, you can ensure that your brand voice is consistent across all channels of marketing communication.

Business texting is a radically different medium than phone conversations. Not everyone on your team will possess the same voice and some may find it difficult to compose customer-facing messages. It’s important that your SMS text be read as professional and friendly, but not intrusive and uncomfortable.

Start with a Strategy

Your employees have likely faced many situations and fielded numerous questions about your business. Before you build a set of responses, it’s a good idea to uncover the top FAQs that you’re likely to encounter through business texting. Part of your early strategy should include research through consultation with your frontline staff or customer-facing team members. Together you’ll be able to determine the types of questions that will require responses. 

As well, this is a good time to begin to open up the conversation around your brand tone. In other words, what does your business “sound like” in an SMS text? Is your brand playful or quirky? Is it conservative and respectful? Once you understand the most effective tone to take with customers, you’ll be able to determine the kind of language to use when business texting.

Consider building a list of customer personas. Usually businesses encounter up to three to four personas (or types of customers) in their daily business. These can be identified in a number ways and segmented based on a variety of identifiers including:

  • Income range
  • Geographic location
  • Age demographic

Setting the Tone of Your Brand

Once you’ve identified the types of customer your team will encounter, you can build templates around each persona to provide a more personalized business texting experience for each. For example, if your product or service is relevant to baby boomers as well as Gen Zs, consider the different ways that you can communicate, the kind of vocabulary that’s relevant, and the reasons for showing interest in your product.

The benefit of business texting is the ability to engage in a one-to-one conversation and provide personalized communication. This is why it’s always a good idea to begin your texts with a salutation, such as “Hi, <first name>.” Then be sure to answer the question clearly and use as few characters as possible. Opening texts with your customer’s name is highly effective at catching their eye and also reduces the likelihood that your text will be viewed as spam, or worse—a phishing attempt or scam.

Business Texting Templates You Can Use

Location and Hours

Hi <first name>, thanks for reaching out to us. We’re located at <your address> and we’re open Monday to Friday from 8am to 5pm. If you’re driving, we offer rear parking located between 1st and 2nd Avenue.

Confirmation of Appointments

Hello Mr/Ms <last name>, thank you for scheduling an appointment with us. You are confirmed to meet with <name> at <date and time>. For future questions, you can text him/her directly at <number.>

Reminder of Appointment

Hi <first name>, this is a friendly reminder about your appointment with <business name> for tomorrow at 2pm. You can manage your booking <here> or respond to this text.

Follow Up for Feedback

Hey <first name>, thanks for purchasing <product>. I wanted to know if you had any questions and see how it’s working for you. If you’d like to learn more about <product>, let’s set up a time to meet.

Request for Reviews

Hey <first name>, I hope you’re enjoying your recent purchase of <product>. If you’re into it, I’d love it if you could leave us a review: <hyperlink>

Birthday Promotions

Happy Birthday <first name>! As our gift to you, we’d like to offer you 10% off your next purchase. Check out our <products or services>: <hyperlink to website>

Sharing Information or Resources

Hey <first name>, did you know that over 80% of customers read and respond to a text in 30 minutes or less? Check out our latest blog post to read more about how business texting can drive engagement with your brand: <hyperlink to post>

Health and Safety Alerts

Thank you for reaching out. Due to recent COVID-19 restrictions we are reducing in-store shopping capacity to 50%. We advise you text us before visiting our shop. We appreciate your continued business during this difficult time!

Sales and Promotions

Hi <first name>, don’t miss our upcoming sale! For a limited time, save up to 25% on everything in store. For more info visit: <hyperlink>

Events

We’re having a party! Join us for our open house on <date> at <time>. We look forward to seeing you here!

Don’t Forget a Call-to-action

The great thing about business texting is that it’s an active form of communication. You have a golden opportunity to generate excitement about an event or promotion. By adding a call to action (to the appropriate text messages), you tell your customers the next steps they can do to get closer to what they want. When you provide relevant hyperlinks, you’re making it easier for them to click through. As well, you’re encouraging future communication with your business and building a foundation of “texting trust” that will leave the door open to an unlimited number of possibilities as your business relationship evolves.

If you’d like to know more about how business texting can transform your marketing strategy and create deep levels of engagement with your customers, Contact or text us at 757-818-8010 today. We’d love to show you how you can develop your own business texting template strategy and introduce you to the tools and technology to empower your team to provide the ultimate in personalized customer service. 


Looking for help improving or implementing your text message marketing blasts? We can help! Let the Gnymble team of experts become an extension of your team. Contact us today to learn more about our marketing services available.

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Using Business Texting to Improve Conversions to Your Website

Most small businesses have websites, but aren’t realizing the full value from them. In today’s modern world of internet searches and e-commerce, you need to be “found” online. You need to be discovered through organic searches made by potential customers looking for you. Understanding the value your website can bring to your business, and how to turn it into a marketing and sales machine, is key to driving new business.

In this article, we give a short overview of how to design a marketing-driven website and some tips on generating traffic. As you’ll discover, there are many channels and avenues that you can use to engage potential customers. And one of the new exciting ways that businesses are seeing success is through an unlikely source: Business texting. 

Website Marketing 101

20 years ago, most businesses set up websites because they believed, “that’s just what everyone does.” It was seen as simply a brochure that lists basic information. They may not have realized the value in building an effective website, nor understood anything about SEO (search engine optimization) or SEM (search engine marketing.) The world has undergone a digital transformation and businesses are now dependent upon search engines to drum up new business. They’re advertising on social sites to catch potential customers where they hang out. A website is now a critical piece of your business marketing strategy. Your website is a tool to convert potential customers who have found you via social media, word-of-mouth, advertisements, internet searches, and more.

Your goal should be to drive as much traffic as possible to your website, keep visitors there as long as possible, and collect contact information. Why? Because digital marketing requires intense engagement with visitors to understand what they’re looking for and when they most likely want to make a purchase.

Your website needs to be a hub for content, resources, information, and community. By supporting your visitors with valuable content, you’re demonstrating your credibility and authority in your particular industry, which makes selling products or services that much easier to sell. The added bonus of building a strong web presence is that search engines will favor your site over others, raising your score to eventually appear on the first page of results (the gold standard of SEM.)

Are you sold on the value of your website yet?

If so, then you understand why it’s so important to drive traffic to your site. Once you’ve captured your audience’s attention, you have ample opportunity to market to them, to nurture their interests, and to keep them coming back time and again until they’re ready to convert to being your customer.

Business Texting Versus Other Ad Channels

Traditional digital marketing uses various channels to advertise and/or create “click worthy” content to drive traffic to a website. Depending on your industry, you may want to advertise or promote content such as blog posts, guides, infographics, etc. on social media sites such as Instagram or LinkedIn. On your website, you need to build landing pages where you can promote specific products or services with the goal to gather contact information using a form.

Is Social Media Advertising Worth It?

Social media conversion rates are pretty unremarkable and have an industry standard of between 2-5%. This means that marketers would need to pay for and publish an enormous amount of advertising pieces to gain any real traction with prospects. And while social sites allow for targeting of demographics based on job roles, industries, age ranges, location etc., it’s still taking a “spray and pray” approach to marketing where quantity is favored over quality. Considering the expense of advertising on social sites, it’s difficult for many small businesses to justify the ROI.

Email Marketing is Becoming Obsolete

Email open rates have held steady across various industries for the past decade with an average of around 20%. This isn’t bad, but remember that an email recipient can easily scan a subject line and either delete the email entirely or ignore it, without the email being opened. This means that your emails can easily get disregarded before they’ve had a chance to make an impression. And with the inundation of marketing emails that most people receive, yours are likely to end up in the trash. Again, this means you’re faced with producing quantity over quality to get your message across.

Business Texting is More Reliable

When considering the amount of time and resources many companies put towards their email and social marketing strategies, they aren’t getting the most bang for their buck. Now consider that nearly 100% of people are likely to open a text (and read it within the first 5 minutes of receiving it!)

This is why marketers are paying attention and are seeing business texting as the next big thing in digital advertising to drive website traffic. What’s even better is that once you’ve started engaging one-on-one with customers via text, they’re more likely to keep communicating that way. This allows you to open up conversations that can drive leads to your site and improve sales.

How You Can Use Business Texting to Drive Traffic

Traditional marketing can be expensive. Social media ad campaigns and pay-per-click campaigns on search engines can be cost prohibitive to many small businesses. Business texting is relatively inexpensive and it offers more bang for your buck. Whereas traditional marketing is broad and generic, business texting can be targeted and specific. You can choose to send highly personalized messages directly to prospects and existing customers and drive them to your site.

By embedding links and pictures in business texting communication, you can reach out directly with highly attractive and click-worthy messages. Perhaps you’ve launched a new product. Text a picture and a call to action with a link to a product page on your site. Or else text a prospect an exclusive offer for a limited time and include a link to a landing page with a form embedded. 

There are many opportunities to open conversations with your potential customers and improve customer service to existing ones. Contact or text us at 757-818-8010 today to learn more about how you can build business texting into your marketing strategy to improve sales conversion rates, drive website traffic, and super-charge your customer experience.

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How Business Texting can Boost Customer Experience

Even before the exponential rise of ecommerce due to the pandemic, Customer Experience (CX) has been a priority for small to medium-sized businesses. Statistics demonstrate that 75% of customers are more inclined to buy from companies that provide a good customer experience. And 80% of customers are likely to switch to a competitor after only a single bad experience.

What we learn from these stats is how important it is to make your customers feel acknowledged and appreciated. Your margin for error is slim. It’s not enough to have a quality product, you also need to support and nurture your customer relationships. Communicate too little and they may feel neglected. Communicate too much and they may feel suffocated. The balance comes from understanding what each of your customers require to feel confident in their relationship to your business.

What Does Exceptional Customer Service Look Like?

Interactions with a business need to be smooth and painless. Friction in doing business with you is likely your number one hurdle to conversion. Good customer service begins with empathizing with the specific needs of your customers and addressing their questions and concerns with speed and reliability. Imagine a restaurant having menus but no serving staff to guide patrons through the many options. A server’s main job is to provide personalized and professional consultation to ensure the guest gets exactly what they want. 

The same principles apply to all businesses in the digital era. Websites need to be user-friendly by following user experience (UX) best practices. They need to be easy to navigate, with accessible information.

Emails and social media posts need to have a clear message with a clear call to action to ensure they’re meeting customer needs and expectations. But where these digital experiences end, one-on-one service needs to begin. This is where direct contact either through phone calls or business texting is essential to providing that last piece of quality service. Your team needs to respond to customer interactions with messaging that is personalized, professional, reliable, meaningful, fast, and convenient to your customers.

Business Texting For Superior Customer Experience

While phone calls may provide a channel for personalized service, they’re not convenient. Many people don’t have the time to wait on the phone and many find the experience of voice communication to be a bit nerve wracking. This is one of the top reasons why business texting has become a preferred method of communication. Customers can reach out in the same way they are used to communicating in their day-to-day lives. 

Business texting addresses the most important elements of quality customer service:

  • Personalized. Customers can ask specific questions to get detailed answers regarding the information they need to make an informed buying decision. Messages can be tailored to each individual and be addressed personally. 
  • Professional. Your customers can connect to your entire team so responses can be generated from every level of your organization. This ensures that answers can carry the full weight of your team’s expertise.
  • Reliable. Rather than a call center employee, your team has a deeper understanding around your products and your customer needs. By providing accurate responses to customer queries, your customers can be assured that all information is reliable and valuable.
  • Meaningful. By providing customized business texting communications, you can reach out directly to your customers with messaging specific to their interests. Sales and promotions can be more meaningfully targeted across your database and analytics can supply critical details about the effectiveness of every communication and campaign.
  • Fast. Websites can take time to navigate. Phone calls may not get answered in a comfortable time frame. Business texting occurs in real time and is ideal for getting messages out quickly. This means your customers can get answers to timely questions and help them make faster buying decisions. 
  • Convenient. Since your customers have their mobile devices with them most of the time, it’s an easy way for them to reach out to you, or vice versa. However, they can also take the time they need to respond or read your messages. When you allow customers the freedom to communicate on their own timeline, they are more likely to follow through with both the communication and the sale.

How Business Texting Can Drive Engagement

The more that your customers feel connected to you, the more they will come to trust and depend upon your messages to keep them informed and supported. This allows you to reach out to customers with personalized messages and direct marketing content. The key here is to remain relevant by providing messaging that actually matters to your customers and prospects. The benefit of business texting is that it can create an immediate conversation that requires a response. This gives you an opportunity to build a relationship with your customers and open up avenues of communication where you can not only demonstrate exceptional service, but you’ll have more opportunity to communicate marketing messaging as well.

Here are a few business texting examples that can drive engagement and sales. 

  • Follow up with a customer after a purchase to get any feedback or to ask for a review
  • Promote similar products based on purchase history
  • Alert customers to upcoming events or promotions
  • Share exciting news or helpful resources and provide a link to your site
  • Get the word out and advertise new product offerings, services, or features 
  • Offer limited time deals that require immediate action
  • Build interest in joining your social sites for a multichannel customer experience

Quality customer experience requires strong communication. And it’s a two-way street. Your customers want to be listened to as much as you do. The more you can get involved in ongoing conversations within your industry and your customers’ communities, the more likely you’ll be seen as a trusted source of information.

Interested in building a business texting strategy to drive engagement with your customers? Contact or text us at 757-818-8010  to learn more about how to apply the tools, technology, and marketing strategy to get the most from this effective channel of business communication.

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Business Texting in 2022

The first text message was sent in 1992 by a man named Neil Papworth. He sent the words “Merry Christmas” from his computer to his colleague who received the message on a cordless phone. Fast forward a few years– most of us remember the time of the dreaded flip phone or at least when “QWERTY” keyboards were added to cell phones in early 2000. Soon enough mobile phones evolved to modern touch screen keyboards. Now we can even text by speaking into our phones. 

What Does Business Texting Look Like in 2022?

In 2020, COVID-19 affected every business in some way, shape, or form. Businesses were changing safety measures, their business hours, and more. Throughout the pandemic businesses needed to stay connected to customers as well as employees. Texting became an important piece of business communication for direct interactions. Business texting was a preferred method of communication before the pandemic, but it has maintained its traction among businesses as the preferred communication method.

There are many key takeaways from business texting during COVID-19. As this continues to grow as a medium of communication, here are some recommended tips:

  • Keep Texts Between 20-30 Words: Clear and concise text messages have a higher engagement rate.
  • Text Early in the Morning or Late at Night: Insights have shown that engagement is 50% higher before 9 AM or after 9 PM.
  • Include a Call to Action: Text messages that have a positive tone and include a CTA have a much higher engagement rate.

There are 23 billion text messages sent every day across the world. 2.52 billion people text using apps on their mobile phones. That means 270,000 messages are sent every second. Consumer expectations are shifting as text-based communication continues to rise. Trust between businesses and consumers is growing. People are starting to expect businesses to text them sharing updates and information. Truth is, your competitors are most likely already using business texting.

Why Should My Business Text?

Besides getting ahead of competitors, there are plenty of reasons for your business to text. Statistics show that:

  • Text messages have a 99% open rate. 
  • 45% of text messages receive a reply.
  • Texting is 10x quicker than a phone call.
  • 78% of consumers wish they could text a business.
  • 33% of American adults prefer texting over other forms of communication.

What Are Common Texts From Businesses?

Business texting can be used in a variety of ways. One-to-one communication happens when someone may text you asking questions about location, hours, or inventory. People are typically looking for a quick response to a simple question. In other cases, employees may be texting about potential vacation days, if they’re running late, and more. There’s blast texting where you can promote an upcoming event, product, or special offering. People most likely will not reply to these, however, 99% of them will be opened and read. 

As business texting continues to become more popular, more and more businesses will start looking into this method of communication. Is your business up to date? Want to see it in action? Text us at 757-810-8010 or email [email protected] and visit www.gnymble.com to learn more.

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Features

3 Reasons to Love an Actionable Dashboard

There are many reasons to love Gnymble’s actionable dashboard. But what is an actionable dashboard? It’s an easy way to stay organized, answer all inbound inquiries, and keep employees “in the know.” Gnymble has implemented features such as hide, snooze, and assign to keep your dashboard clean and effective.

The end goal of an actionable dashboard is to have zero messages in your inbox at the end of the day. If you want to see it in action, check out our YouTube video here. Now, why do people love Gnymble’s actionable dashboard?

1. It Keeps You Organized

Email inboxes can become cluttered and voicemail boxes become full. Before you know it, important emails are buried and you’ve missed valuable phone calls. That’s where Gnymble’s actionable dashboard comes in to help. Respond to incoming messages like normal then, you can “hide” each of your conversations when you’re done with them. This just moves the conversation off of the home dashboard. This way your inbox doesn’t become cluttered and you know that person has been answered. If they send you another message, don’t worry, it will pop back up in your inbox on your dashboard. Say goodbye to buried emails and full voicemail boxes and say hello to organized, conversational text messaging.

2. Nobody Goes Unanswered

One of our favorite things about Gnymble’s actionable dashboard is the ability to “snooze” conversations. This will hide the conversation until midnight each night and the conversation will appear on the dashboard again. This is a great reminder for following up with conversations, keeping track of inquiries, and completing Gnymblits–aka tasks.

Gnymble has also implemented a feature to mark messages as “unread” after you’ve read them. The message will appear at the top of the inbox as if no one has opened it. This feature is helpful especially among teams that share an inbox. If there’s an unread message, someone knows they need to read that information or respond to the message. 

3. Employees Know Who’s Been Handled

Our Gnymble customer support team has found that the most used feature on our actionable dashboard is the assign feature. There is a circle on the right side of each conversation where the conversation can be assigned to each user. For example, we received an IT question in our customer support inbox. I can assign that conversation to John, our CTO and he will receive an email notification that the conversation has been assigned to him. 

Why is this helpful? Each of your employees will be able to maintain their conversations among the shared inbox. If an inquiry is tailored towards a certain topic or division you are not familiar with– you can assign the conversation to someone that will be able to better assist them. 

These are just a few of the many reasons to love Gnymble’s actionable dashboard. It is designed to keep you and your business organized, help all inquiries receive an answer, and allows you to assign messages to the people with the most knowledge about a topic. Gnymble’s development team has worked hard to create relevant metrics and dimensions that are tied to your day-to-day responsibilities. Does this sound like something that can benefit you and your team? You can learn more about our actionable dashboard by reaching out via text at 757-818-8010 or email us at [email protected]. 

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Features

The Importance of Broadcast Messages

What is a Broadcast Message?

A few years ago I volunteered at a food bank. On the first day, they asked me for my cell phone number. The organization leader added me into a group chat where he sent out texts about the location of the meetings, updates, and what items were needed. Instant annoyance. I needed to know this information, but I didn’t need to see all 37 people in the group chat respond with a thumbs-up emoji. 

This organization needed a better solution to group chats– they needed to learn how to broadcast messages. But what is broadcast messaging? Gnymble understands the struggle when it comes to group communication. Our solution is a feature that allows you to type and send a message and it can go to as many people as necessary. The key is, each person will receive the message individually. Cue the applause for no more annoying group chats.

How Are Broadcast Messages Used?

Broadcast messages can be used in a variety of industries. These messages can simply share information, send documents, provide updates, and more. Here are a few examples from our current clients: Note: Company names have been changed to ensure our clients’ privacy.

  • “Come by The Cigar Lounge this Friday for 10% off all cigars from 8-10 PM. We will have live music and craft brews!”
  • “Thank you for submitting your application to Work Connections. We will be contacting you in the next 24 hours if we decide to move forward with your application.”
  • “Are you in need of more funding? CGM Funding can help you achieve your goals in 2022.”
  • “There is a shift available (1/13/21) 7 AM-7 PM at facility #31. Please reply to this message if you would like to take this shift.”

How Does Broadcast Messaging Help Me?

Broadcast messaging can help your business in multiple ways. This feature allows you to share information with a large group of people. While this can be done with email, text messages have a 99% open rate leaving the email open rate at only 18%. Nearly all of your recipients will be reading the information you send. You won’t have to worry about low open rates any longer. 

Text messages have eight times the response rate of email. Texts are typically replied to within 90 seconds while emails are replied to in 90+ minutes. This means your texts are being opened and responded to faster than email. Over 91% of consumers say they would want to receive SMS from businesses. This makes texting a more efficient way of sharing information with your clients, customers, patients, and more!

Since your normal texting app won’t allow you to send broadcast messages, you’ll need a business texting provider like Gnymble. If you like the idea of broadcasting, you may enjoy some of Gnymble’s other features like templates, custom fields, and auto-response. Are you not sure if Gnymble is right for you? Read about how some of our clients are using Gnymble here. Gnymble offers three plans to fit your business texting needs. Ready to get started? Check out our website or text one of our customer success representatives at 757-818-8010. 

Using the Broadcast Feature in Gnymble: 

  1. Log in to your Gnymble Dashboard.
  2. Click the broadcast button at the bottom, middle of the screen.
  3. Type your message in the box and add any attachments you want to include.
  4. On the left-hand column add the people you want to receive this broadcast. Note: you can filter by different groups during this step.
  5. Click send at the bottom of the message.
  6. Wait for replies to come in!

Group communication is important. If you want to send out messages to a large group of people where they can receive the messages individually, broadcast is for you. Want to learn more about all of the awesome feature Gnymble offers? Text 757-818-8010 or email [email protected].