Appointment Reminders with Text-Messaging.

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text messaging offers business and organisations a way to boost sales & reduce costs with appointment reminders.

The Text-Connect computer based system is operated directly from your desktop computer, with no need for an office mobile.  This means your staff can use text-messaging to complement their administrative tasks but also means that messages and information can be easily shared across your organisation.

Missed Appointments Cost.

Missed appointments cost your organisation money. This is either in the form of lost revenue or incurred cost through contractors being unable to complete their work.

As a way of delivering personal communication, irrespective of their location, Text Messaging is hard to beat.  According to Ofcom 94% of adults now own a mobile phone1, while most smart phone users never switch them off.2

Appointment Reminders by SMS Text Work.

There has been much research in to the effectiveness of SMS text appointment reminders. Much of this has been done in the healthcare arena due to the potential savings on offer.  For instance a research article by the organisation Health Services Research concludes:

“Short message service reminders in health care settings substantially increase the likelihood of attending clinic appointments. SMS reminders appear to be a simple and efficient option for health services to use to improve service delivery, as well as resulting in health benefits for the patients who receive the reminders.” 3

 

While a research article published by BMC Ophthalmology concludes:

“The use of SMS reminders for ophthalmology outpatient appointments was associated with a reduction of 38% in the likelihood of patients not attending their appointments, compared to no appointment reminder.” 4

 

Sending appointment reminders is a key application of Text-Connect among our clients and their anecdotal reports suggest that the research conclusions noted above equally apply to business and organisations.

Text-Connect gives you the ideal tool to add text message reminders to your business. There is no hardware or software to install and little or no training is required. Costs are low which gives you a rapid return on investment.

Our clients typically choose our ‘2 way’ Business text messaging package.

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Text messaging for Charities

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text messaging gives your Charity a low cost & effective way of improving the accessibility of it’s services to your  target demographic. Importantly text messaging also streamlines and simplifies communication with volunteers and staff.

The Text-Connect ‘2 way’ text messaging system gives your organisation all the tools it needs to send and receive text messages to staff, volunteers and the users of your service.

Text messaging helps make your services more accessible to users, including those with some types of disabilities. The easy & discrete nature of texting combined with the wide scale ownership of mobile phones helps removes many of the ‘blocks’ potential users of your services may face when making initial contact.

Your dedicated Text-Connect Text number ensures that all your messages will be delivered to your email and\or inbox, removing the need for the sender to use key words and removing the chance of a misrouted confidential message that exists with shared text numbers.

Text-Connect will also save time for your administration staff when coordinating volunteers. Sending text messages to groups of volunteers is quick and easy and their replies are delivered back to your email and\or inbox.  It’s ideal for requesting help or confirming details.

Off site staff will appreciate Text-Connect as an easy way to confirm their location for Lone Worker protection.  Out going text messages are a great way of distributing urgent & critical information to staff who are geographically dispersed.

Here at Text-Connect we supply text messaging services to charities, government agencies and social organisation of all sizes.  Some case studies detailing how some of our clients are using text messaging in their organisation are here.

For more information email us at info@text-connect.co.uk or call us on 01952 820 453.

 

Near Miss Reporting with text-messaging

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text messaging is an ideal Near Miss reporting tool.  A Text-Connect text-number makes implementation quick, easy and very cost effective.

For your employee making the report, sending a text message is discrete and can be done in the moment. With mobile phones now ubiquitous, reporting a Near Miss with a text message is fast and easy, which means your employees are more likely to make reports.

For your senior management, Near Miss reports can be discreetly copied to their email account so plugging them into the raw near miss report as they come in, directly from the scene.

text messaging for Near Miss Reporting.

Text-Connect is a key tool for Near Miss reporting and Facilities Management.

For your Health and Safety team the individual incoming Near Miss reports are consolidated into your on-line Text-Connect in-box. Additionally Reports can be automatically forwarded to email addresses and\or the mobile phone of team members for immediate action.   A confirmation message may also be triggered to confirm to your employee that their report has been received.

Use Text-Connect‘s sending functionality to prompt your employee’s to save your Near Miss number to their phones so that it can be easily found when needed. Upload your employee names and numbers to your Text-Connect account  to make sending reminders and information as outgoing text messages quick and easy, sending to groups or individuals as needed.

Once uploaded Text-Connect resolves your phone numbers & contact information so that you have an employee name to associate with an the incoming report.

Text-Connect has many applications in Health and Safety and facility management and is particularly adept at delivering critical information to & from individuals in the field ‘right now’.

Contact us now for pricing and further information.

Text messaging for community and internet radio stations

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text-Connect has been adopted by community radio stations as a cost effective way of adding text messaging to serve their audience.

Text messaging is a proven way of promoting audience participation and was introduced by the national broadcasters years ago. However costs can prove prohibitive for small community or internet radio stations operating on a limited budget.

Our ‘Text-Numbers‘ give your radio station an affordable option to receive text messages from listeners. Your station simply pays an affordable annual fee and there is no charge to you for receiving messages. Your listeners pay their usual fee’s for sending a message and messages are in no way charged at a premium rate.

A Text-Connect Text-Number is dedicated to your station and is not shared with any other organisation. This is important to your listeners because it saves them having to prefix their message to you with a specific key word.

Our Text-Numbers are 07 style ‘long’ format and existing radio station clients report excellent response. Compared to the alternative shared short code text numbers they are easier for the listener to use as they don’t have to prefix a key word to each message.  Compared to a 5 digit short code and key word our numbers are easier to use, especially once the listener has your number in their phone.

Your listeners text messages are delivered to your studio email account or via your text-connect on-line ‘inbox’ accessed from a web browser.  Competitions are easy to administer with the built in key word function you control.

Text-Connect is the ideal choice for Community and Internet radio stations. Affordable, simple to use and reliable. Have a look at the case study covering how our existing radio station clients use text numbers here.

Please email or call 01952 820 453 for pricing and more information.

Reporting. Know your text message has been delivered.

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Your Text-connect account comes with built in reporting functions making it easy to manage your text messaging and reduce your text messaging costs.

Access your reports by clicking on the ‘Reports‘ link in the left  hand menu section of your Text-Connect account when logged in.

The resulting page lets you choose:

  • The report type
  • Where to display the results (On screen or save to a .csv file which you can open in a spreadsheet.)
  • The dates which the report will cover.
  • A tick box to trigger the inclusion of contact information.

The most useful and popular Report types are noted below.

Message Report:

The ‘Message’ report returns the content of the actual messages sent so that you can monitor message content, and the delivery status of individual messages.

The status of each message is returned for the given time period with the time sent, time of the last update and the current status. The message content is also given along with the sender and destination numbers.

Save money by using the Message Report to remove ‘bad’ from your contacts or lists.

 

Usage Report:

This report gives you a count of messages sent over a period of time, broken down into delivery categories so you can see how many of you messages have been delivered, and if not why not.

Use this report to track your credits usage and pre plan buying the correct number of credits in advance.

 

Inbound Message Report:

If you need to see messages that have come in to your inbox via your Text-Number run the Inbound Message Report. This is useful when  messages have been deleted from the Inbox prematurely.

See the web site for an overview of Text-Connect or email us for a quote for your business. Let us know how you plan to use text messaging in your business and we’ll respond with a quote.

 

Mail Merge Text Messaging.

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text-Connect make it easy to create personalised text messages using mail merge.  This simplifies bulk text messaging and gives you the option of including unique information in each recipients message.

The first step is to create and upload your list.  Your list contains your contact’s mobile number, name, email address plus up to 5 optional mail merge data fields. A typical row of contact data would look like this:
447777777777,Name,Email,Merge 1,Merge 2,Merge 3

You can use your favourite spreadsheet software to build and edit your list and save it as a .csv or .txt file. Click here for more information on uploading contact lists.

Once you have your list uploaded you are ready to set up your text shot and mail merge.

  •  Click ‘Send’ using the left side menu.

The first step is to tell the system who you want to send your text message to.  In the case of a bulk, personalised text shot:

  • Click the ‘Distribution List‘ radio button and choose your list from the drop down selection.

Next you define your ‘from’ detail which will tell your recipient where the message originated from. You have a couple of options:

  • Use the text box to specify a name. Eg.  ‘Your Name’.  In this case your recipient will not be able to directly reply.
  • To enable your recipients to reply, select your ‘Text-Number’ from the Number drop down selector.

The final step is to draft your message using in the Body section box.

  • Draft your message.
  • Mail merge fields should be surrounded with the # character.
  • Example:  Dear #Name#, your policy number #PolicyNumber# is due for renewal.
  • Note that #Name# and #Email# are standard mail merge fields that exist for all lists.
  • Note also that the  PolicyNumber field would be defined when you uploaded your List.

You are now ready to send.

Top Tip !   To test your test message shot and check everything is as it should be, schedule your messages to go out in 1 hours time.   Pre Scheduled text messages are sent to the Outbox where you can view them and confirm all is OK.  If they are not OK, delete them from the Outbox before they are sent and you can then try again. Your message credits will be refunded.

Text-Connect gives you a fully featured computer text messaging system for sending messages from your computer.

Text-Numbers. It’s best not to share!

Posted on by July 3, 2015

A Text-Number or MSISDN is the doorway by which you can receive text messages to your computers.

Also known as a ‘Virtual Mobile Number’, it’s your number to which your client sends their message to and usually takes for form of an 11 character mobile number that looks for all intents to be a normal mobile number (with the exception of short code numbers.)

When choosing a provider for a Text-Number it’s critical to understand how your messages are going to be routed to you.

Our Text-Numbers are dedicated, so we allocate a new number for each client. This means that any and all text messages sent to your account are delivered to your Text-Connect inbox and forwarded to your email.

However not all suppliers operate in the same way. Some text-number suppliers work with ‘key words’. This means that your sender needs to prefix their message with a specific key word which is the trigger for the message to be directed to you. If your client gets it wrong their message will not reach you and could be delivered to another company.

Other suppliers share text-numbers across many users by referencing senders & receivers via a database. Again because the number is shared your messages could be misdirected or lost if things go wrong.

The moral of the story is, if your clients’ message is important to you, use a Text-connect dedicated text number and be sure you receive their message!

Call or email us for pricing or more information on 01952 820 453 or info@text-connect.co.uk

Text messaging for conference organisers.

Posted on by July 3, 2015

In recent months Text-Connect has been adopted by leading conference organisers to give delegates a direct link to Speakers. Text-Connect gives event managers a way of getting important information and updates to delegates almost instantly.

A dedicated Text-Number delivers incoming SMS text messages from your delegates to your inbox as either Email or via our on-line Inbox.  Out going text messages are quick and easy to draft on your  computer and are delivered to delegates almost instantly.

This opens up opportunities to engage delegates before and during the conference, plus gain feedback post event.

Delegates find that texting questions for speakers pre event quick and easy while organisers use the instant nature of SMS text messaging an excellent way to encourage audience participation in open forums. Delegates text ‘questions from the floor’ which are then displayed ‘text to screen’.

Post event text messaging is a very effective way to collect event feedback from delegates.

Outgoing text messages give Event organisers an invaluable tool for keeping delegates informed about changes in the program or reminders for key events. This is not to mention the housekeeping and emergency Health and Safety applications.

A case study covering:  Text messaging for conference organisers.

Information on: Low cost text to screen options.

Text-Connect needs no hardware or software and is easy to use. Our text messaging solution is affordable and scalable to suit businesses and organisations of all sizes.

Text-Numbers. Long, short code & shared. The Differences.

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Text numbers are the route by which you can receive text messages on your computer.  A sender sends a message to your text number and that message is delivered to you by email or web ‘inbox’.

Here at Text-Connect our clients usually choose to use one of our standard Text-Numbers which give them the following advantages:

Good Value. A years rental costs as much as 1 months use of a shared short code.

Dedicated. All messages sent to your number are delivered to your Text-Connect account. No need for key words and your number is not shared with many other organisations so no lost or misdirected message traffic.

Good for your clients. Our text-numbers are UK mobile numbers so your clients or staff pay as per their normal contract to send messages. No premium fee’s and we don’t take any cut.

Our Text-Numbers are 11 characters long. For example our company text-number is 07781472088. Sometimes these numbers are known as ‘Long Code’ numbers.

Other text-number types to be aware of include:

Long Code UK text numbers which are based outside of the mainland UK. Senders on some networks may pay International texting rates.

Dedicated Short Code Text Numbers. These are typically 5 digit numbers. For example the BBC text number is 61124.  Large media organisations will use a dedicated short code number, the costs for which are usually prohibitive for small or medium sized business.

Shared Short Code Text Numbers. Typically 5 digit numbers which are shared between hundreds or thousands of organisations. Messages are routed by the sender prefixing a ‘Key Word’ to their message. Software interprets the keyword and sends the text message as email to the correct company. Numbers are rented on a monthly basis with costs typically less than £100 per month. Please call for our pricing.

Both short code variants can be set up as Revenue Share. The sender pays a premium rate for sending a text to the number and the revenue is shared between you and the mobile networks.

Other generic terms used to cover Text-Numbers include ‘Virtual Reply Numbers’ and ‘MSISDNs’.

Sending Pre Scheduled text messages

Posted on by July 3, 2015

Sending Appointment Reminder texts is one of the ‘real world’ applications which makes text messaging an indispensable tool for businesses and organisations of all sizes.

Text-Connect’s fully featured & easy to use web based system makes appointment reminders easy to draft, schedule and send. The pre-scheduling feature means that you can set-up appointment reminder text messages as the appointment is made, yet schedule a reminder text message to send weeks or months in the future, just when you need.

For those clients who have larger batches of reminder text messages to schedule and send, Text-Connect gives you a bulk ‘list’ upload and schedule option. Lists of contact numbers, variable data and reminder dates are easy to upload and schedule using simple text \ .CSV files which can be output from most applications or created in your spreadsheet.

Finally, scheduling a text message shot for the future is a great way of testing your text message shot before going live. Scheduled messages are sent to your Outbox where your recipient and message content can be double checked. Ideal for checking that variable, ‘mail merge’ data is working as intended. Once you are happy with the result, simply delete the Outbox messages. Credits are refunded to your account and you can resend your text shot immediately.

Pre scheduled text messaging is available with all Text-Connect ‘send‘ or ‘send and receive‘ text messaging accounts.