Alma Duffey 6/17/2025

With so many ways to communicate these days, businesses have to be flexible when they are trying to reach their audience. This can be difficult. Juggling online socials, emails, and calls is a lot to keep up with; having SMS automation is definitely helpful in this situation. Let’s dive into why text automation is a channel of communication that should be more widely used.

Calling a business is seen as a hassle for most people; there are customers who will avoid it when at all possible. Two of the reasons calls are seen as a hassle are unknown wait time and the call tree merry-go-round. Everyone’s time is precious to them, so when the wait time is a question mark, calls can lead to anxiety and annoyance before they even begin. Businesses will answer calls in the order they were received, so you almost have to clear your calendar depending on who you are calling. We recently canceled our security system to switch to another, and the wait time was 45 minutes. And when our internet went down, I was on the phone for an hour and a half before they would accept my plea for a technician to come out. By using text automation, both of these hassles can be minimized.

Call trees can also be an unpleasant experience. The prompts won’t cover all use cases, so you can easily get lost in the tree. Starting over is often the only solution because the setup doesn’t usually allow you to go back to the previous menu. Call trees and IVRs also create a longer-than-necessary experience. Listening to all of the prompts on all of the menus feels like it’s never ending when you’re in the middle of it. Streamlining interactions is a great way to keep customers happy and SMS can help.

Even when businesses have the capability to return calls in the order they were received, customers don’t know when that call will come so they wait anxiously to get their problem resolved. SMS is less urgent than a call, so people can respond on their own time. When you value someone’s time, they value you. Depending on the study, around 90% of customers prefer texting to direct calls, and listening to what people what is how businesses thrive and grow.

By setting up texts to answer commonly asked questions, you can relieve some of the burden of calls and emails. When you have an SMS channel available, people can text when they need fast support. Password resets, cancelling an order, payment questions. These are all things that can be automated. Always add a way to communicate to a person so the experience doesn’t become frustrating for some people, but otherwise it’s a great, stand-alone tool. Other common things that can lighten the load are appointment reminders, shipping updates, and order confirmations. It gives people confidence in your business when they can get these things.

Text automation can give your business a big boost. If you’re considering it, contact us so we can tell you more about how we can help your specific business.