Impersonal transactional text messaging. Is that the best we can do?

Over the last several months, I have generously said yes to many businesses that have asked for my cell phone number. The obvious reason is so they can contact me via text messaging. In response, I have received many receipts and automated “thank-you’s” but only one text message from a live person - and other than the one person, virtually zero follow-up beyond the immediate transactional thank you. And keep in mind this is from businesses as wide ranging as restaurants, health care providers, industrial gas manufacturers, state governments, auto repair shops and shopping services.

In a world where marketers talk non-stop about the customer journey, life-time-value, social engagement and customer relationships, I am left woefully under-impressed and wondering why?

Text messaging is a highly personal form of communication. It is usually private and most often is conversational between two people or a small group of people. Privacy is always present and must be appropriately considered. Any intrusion into that private phone space must be carefully considered. However, If a company honestly believes in building relationships between the company and their customer, what better medium is there than text messaging between two people? Enabling and encouraging conversation between your customer and a qualified and authorized representative of your company is a good thing!

We use a text messaging platform (LeadSticker) that is conversational at the simplest level. Yes, we can batch blast and send text messages to hundreds and thousands of people all at once.. More importantly we can mass send a personalized and individual message to many individuals and all responses come back only to the person that sent the message and the ongoing conversation is one-to-one and private. The texting conversation is saved and stored with that individual contact record, much like a CRM system for later review and use. Talk about efficiency - and effective.

I have used this system in non-profit settings and it has worked wonders to rally people to a common cause and to get stuff done!

In a commercial setting, consider how a restaurant might might use it to create nearly instant walk-in traffic during slow times, or rounding out reservations for the night. Or think of a bakery and how perishable the product is and the need to sell when the bread is hot, right out of the oven. The options are nearly endless!

One of the more interesting transactional text messages came from a national cookie company. I was in their retail bake shop, bought some cookies and the cashier asked me, “Do you want to start a phone number"?” I paused said no, then changed my answer to “yes.” A few minutes later I received the typical thank you text with an embedded receipt link and an invitation to earn loyalty points by completing a survey. More interesting was a second SMS received five hours later, sending me a “verification code” that I needed to input and to verify either my identity or my sign-up to their list. That’s a new one - and I’ll need to redo the sign-up process so I can carefully note the steps and track how they market to me.

I believe most companies underutilize texting technology and as a marketing industry, transactional activities grossly overshadow the conversational nature of relationships. It has been said that people buy from people. This may not be as true as it once was with the rise of Amazon and ubiquitous ecommerce, however, the customer journey is not much of a journey if companies treat their customers more like objects to be marketed to, rather than people and businesses to serve and help with their wants and needs. Text messaging is an obvious choice to quote “grease the skids” and enable the give and take of healthy and more personal relationships - even in business.