To Text or Not to Text: Best Practices for Customer Text Communications

Marketing, Technology Trends

If you’ve been in the business for a while, you’ve seen communication methods evolve. From in-person meetings to phone calls to email, the methods for staying in touch with customers have changed throughout the years. The most recent evolution is texting – a technique used for insurance customer retention and prospecting alike.

Yet, with all new technology, challenges go hand-in-hand with benefits.

Texting Problem #1: Capturing the Conversation

Texting transmits information quickly and can get business done fast, but these interactions are difficult to capture. Many agencies struggle to save such valuable conversations in their management system as a permanent record.

Similar to email, customers text outside of business hours, meaning most conversations are on a personal cell phone or tablet. In these instances, the agent needs to remember to screenshot their exchange, email it to themselves, and attach the screenshots to their management system the next day. This is a cumbersome process, giving agency owners serious concerns about E&O exposures.

Though third-party solutions are available, even these are limited. Some require to text using email – an equally cumbersome process. Suffice to say too often precious customer data is lost during a text exchange.

Gain best practices for capturing communication in your agency management system here

Texting Problem #2: Opting Out

Many agencies have adopted highly effective mass texting to prospects and clients. Though these methods yield great results, there is concern around allowing recipients to opt-out of receiving messages.

Similar to emails, if the recipient no longer wants to be sent content, the agency must offer and track opt-outs. Most email systems are set for opt-outs but with texting it is not so easy. And, once appropriate language is created, it can be challenging to remember to include the required opt-out language at the end of each text. Such barriers can cause an agency to forgo texting altogether.

Find out how to ramp up your agency messaging in our Improving Agency Communications eGuide

The Partner XE Texting Solution

At SIS, we know these texting issues well. That’s why, with input from our partner agencies, we’ve put together the best solutions in our Partner XE agency management system.

With Partner XE, users can text right from the system, saving each conversation automatically. Texts can be sent manually at any time, or marketing texts can be scheduled to be sent to a list of recipients in the future. Plus, we automatically add opt-out reminders, making it easy for the recipient to reply “STOP” to stop receiving text messages moving forward.

Get best practices on texting in ACT’s best practices guide for independent agencies

In fact, Partner XE will automatically check the opt-out box for clients and prospects when they opt-out of messages. Then, if a marketing text is scheduled, Partner XE will skip over them and not send the message to that user.

There are a lot of agencies in the market that would like to leverage texting but are held back with these issues. Or, they just don’t feel comfortable using such new technology. We can help. Get in touch with us today at [email protected] or 800.747.7005, Option 6 to learn more.