Franchisors and Franchisees Can Benefit in Many Ways from Implementing a Comprehensive Texting Strategy
Maintaining fast communication between your corporate office, franchisees, and customer base is a priority if you want to make the most impact as a franchise. Relying solely on traditional channels, like email and phone, leaves room for:
- Staggered response times
- Missed opportunities for engagement and sales
- The potential to lose out to competitors who have already incorporated SMS into their workflows
Integrating text messaging into your franchise’s overall communication strategy offers a scalable and convenient way for franchisors to stay in contact with franchisees, as well as for franchisees to communicate with their customers to improve engagement and increase sales.
Here are 5 research-backed trends in franchise texting your brand should hop on this year.
1. Bring the Whole Brand Under the Same Operations
Getting all of your locations on the same page with texting helps with brand consistency, while eliminating communication barriers. You’ll be able to coordinate faster and increase productivity when any location is accessible just by a text away.
So how do you roll out texting to your locations?
- Have your best performing locations test it out first
- Showcase texting at brand conferences
- Implement text reminders, to demonstrate how useful texting can be
From important announcements to SMS newsletters, there are plenty of ways to implement mass texting for your brand. Keywords are a way for consumers to subscribe to updates they want to receive, and your franchise can have a handful of keywords for different updates.
For example, franchisees can opt into your headquarters’ weekly updates by texting a keyword such as NEWS. Get them to engage with your brand while letting them see how it works up close.
2. Text for Payments
Customers want a quick, contactless way to pay, which is why your franchise needs to have the option to pay by text. 69% of consumers want to receive texts related to making payments for things like:
- Placing an order on your online storefront
- Paying for products in-store
- Settling a bill
- Paying upfront for an appointment
- So how does it work?
Your business sends a text payment request to a customer with a link to a third-party payment processor, connected to your business’s bank account. From there, the customer will follow the link and pay via the third-party. SMS payments are processed securely, and the transaction details are encrypted.
Text a receipt after receiving their payment, along with the option to opt into marketing promotions so that they’re always in the loop. Your franchise can use SMS payments as another way to build relationships and drive revenue for your business.
SMS payments minimize overhead costs and help franchise owners get paid on time. It’s a safe, secure way to facilitate your franchise’s cash flow in real-time while meeting your customers where they’re at.
3. Text to Replace Customer Service Phone Calls
Simply put, texts are seen and responded to quicker than a phone call or email. It takes less effort to respond to a text, plus it can be done from anywhere. It also takes a fraction of the time to send a text to a large group of people, compared to calling everyone or sending a mass email that might get lost in a bogged-down inbox.
Busy franchisees won’t have to step away from what they’re doing to answer a quick question via text. The flexibility of texting allows for communication at any time and from any location, making it a convenient option for customers and employees.
Text conversations will stay organized within a texting hub, allowing franchisees to track and sort conversations by the customer, and their needs. This will help your franchise as a whole keep customer data in one centralized place and off personal devices.
Texting improves customer satisfaction by providing a fast and convenient way for customers to ask questions and get answers on the spot.
4. Text for Proactive Customer Service and Feedback
Your franchise needs to address a customer’s needs quickly. The time it takes to resolve an issue has the potential to impact the overall reputation of your brand.
For starters, make it easy for customers to find your support text line, prepare templates for FAQs, and set up automated responses that either direct customers to your knowledge base or an answer to their problem, especially if they text in after office hours.
A stellar customer support experience often hinges heavily on how quickly you resolve their issue, and texting bridges that gap. With texting as an option to reach you, customers can text you around the clock.
5. Text for Lead Generation and Sales
Grow your franchise by advertising that potential franchisees can text you directly to learn more about joining your brand.
All it takes is displaying your corporate number with the call-to-action “Text us!” on:
- Billboards
- Corporate social media accounts
- Digital ads
- Corporate website
Another way to capture leads is through an SMS Chat widget on your corporate website. Franchisees can use this widget to start a text conversation from your site and continue the same conversation on their mobile devices.
SMS Chat also helps you automate the start of the application process, giving you less work and more time to focus on expanding your brand. This process works just as well between franchisees and their customers, too. When customers know that they can text your franchise, you’ll be able to answer their questions as they come in, leading to a better chance of capturing a lead and closing a sale on the spot.
Stay Connected with Your Locations Via SMS
Business texting continues to emerge as an essential communication tool across all industries. Texting will become more of an expectation in the future, since 42% of businesses not currently texting in their organizations are actively working to implement it.
Your franchise has the potential to reap significant benefits from texting before your competitors. That’s why it’s crucial to stay in tune with the many ways texting can transform your communication strategy.
Ready to implement texting for your franchise? Find a business texting solution that’s right for you.
About the Author
Jessica Ayre is a content marketing specialist at Text Request, a business texting solution that offers tools and resources to create a successful text messaging strategy.