Text Message Enquiries From the Website

A photo instead of a description

A customer with a cracked screen, a dripping tap or a strange noise from the furnace has a phone in hand and the problem in front of them.

Calling means describing it, often badly, to someone who then asks questions the customer cannot answer. Texting means taking a photo and pressing send.

Many customers would rather text anyway. They are at work or on a bus, or they simply prefer something they can do in thirty seconds and come back to later.

A website offering only a phone number and a form leaves those customers to use a method they like less, or to find a business that offers the one they like.

Why customers text

• A photograph explains the problem better than words.
• They cannot talk at work or on transit.
• They want a record of what was said and quoted.
• It fits around their day, not around office hours.
• Phone calls make some people anxious, more than owners tend to assume.

The first matters most for any business that has to see a problem before pricing it. A photo of a model number or an error message saves a visit, a call back and a wrong guess.

What the photo does for the business

A text with a photo lets the business sort enquiries before anyone commits time.

It shows whether the job is the kind you do, roughly how big it is, and which part or tool to bring.

It usually arrives with an address and a sentence of context, which is more than most voicemails manage.

The trade-off is that people who text expect a quicker reply than people who email, so the number needs someone behind it.

Which number to use

Not anyone's personal mobile. A personal number ends up in every customer's contacts, rings through evenings off, and takes the conversations with it when the person leaves.

A separate mobile line for the business is the simplest choice. Some phone providers and business texting services can also add texting to a number the business already has.

Once more than one person answers, a texting service that several people can read from a computer or a phone helps. Whoever looks after your phones or website can advise on what fits.

A worked example

A computer repair shop on a suburban high street found customers texting the owner's personal number, which had been printed on the shop's first business cards.

They sent photos of error messages, cracked laptop screens and the labels underneath, which made quoting much easier. They also texted at eleven at night and on Sundays.

The shop moved texting to a business texting service with its own number, readable on the counter computer and a shop phone.

The website now shows that number beside the phone number, with the words Text us a photo, and an automatic reply after hours says when the shop opens.

The owner's own number now goes only to friends, and customer photos arrive where everyone at the counter can see them.

Putting the text number on the site

On phones, a text link opens the messaging app with your number already filled in. It is a small piece of code, much like the link that makes a phone number tappable.

Label it with what to send, not just the word text: Text us a photo of the problem, or Text us your address and the job.

Show it beside the phone number, not instead of it. Some customers will still want to call.

On larger screens, show the number as plain text with the words texts welcome, since a text link does nothing on most office computers.

Who answers, and when

Decide who reads texts during opening hours, and who checks them first thing in the morning.

Publish a reply time you can keep, such as within the hour while the shop is open, and say on the site when texts are not read.

An automatic reply outside hours, saying when someone will answer and giving a number for emergencies, stops customers wondering whether the text arrived.

Texts answered late, or not at all, undo the convenience that made people text in the first place.

Keeping it off personal phones

Conversations with customers are business records. They hold addresses, quotes and sometimes complaints, and the business needs them when a job is disputed months later.

On a personal phone they vanish when the employee leaves, and they sit among family messages in the meantime.

Customer details on personal phones are also harder to protect, and privacy law expects a business to safeguard the personal information it collects, wherever it is kept.

A business number, owned by the business and readable by more than one person, solves all three.

What not to handle by text

Never ask for card numbers or passwords by text. Messages sit on phones and in backups, readable by anyone holding the device, and customers should never be trained to send them that way.

Avoid firm prices for complicated work. A photo shows a lot but not everything, and a price in a text is easy to screenshot and hold you to.

And a text asking about a repair is not permission to send promotions later. CASL treats text messages much like email.

The counter-case

Texting does not suit every business. An emergency service needs calls, because a text read twenty minutes later is twenty minutes too late.

Work that needs a site visit and a detailed quote may still start best with a form that asks the right questions.

A business with nobody free during the day should start smaller, with texts answered at set times and the site saying so, rather than promising speed it cannot give.

Where someone can answer, a clearly labelled text number is one of the simplest ways to make enquiring easier.

Before you add the number

1. Get a business number for texts.
2. Decide who answers during opening hours.
3. Set an automatic reply for after hours.
4. Add a labelled text link for phones.
5. Say what to send, such as a photo.
6. Publish the reply time beside the number.
7. Keep card numbers out of texts.

Step two makes the rest work. A text number without a named reader becomes one more inbox nobody answers, and it fails faster, because people who text expect a quick reply.

What to ask for in the first message, and what to leave until later, follows the same logic as quote forms that ask for a budget.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.