SMS App: What Features to Look For in There

When you are first starting up as a business, there are a lot of questions and concerns you likely have, as well as many worries.

And that makes perfect sense.

After all, if you aren’t careful, even one small error could snowball into a giant one.

 

 

You want to pick out the best of the best in any technology that you can reasonably afford.

Thankfully, picking out a good Short Message Service (SMS) app is not going to be costly at all.

However, just what kinds of features should you look for in an SMS app for your small business?

 

Ease of Use (For Both You and Your Customers)

Just because you have started a small business does not mean that you can do anything under the sun.

Thankfully, if you pick the right app, an SMS app should be no trouble for most people.

It should be both in terms of you and your potential customer base.

You should be able to set up your business through an SMS app with no trouble at all.

When picking out an SMS app, make sure to read reviews, particularly about their usability.

Depending on the app, you may find one is easier to use than another.

Two-Way Messaging

Communication is a deeply important thing in a good small business.

And SMS apps are a good way to facilitate that.

2 way sms messaging both allows and encourages communication between you and your customers.

This is helpful, because you can get feedback from your prospective customer.

Or they can ask questions about the message more easily.

Bulk Messaging

Say you are a small business, and thus will not have as much need for such a function.

So there may be times when you need to be able to send bulk messages at one time.

An SMS app that is able to send out many messages at one time without issue is good.

Though note that you should be cautious to make sure it’s helpful before you decide to pay for that feature.

Some smaller businesses are still big enough to benefit from this feature, however.

App Integration

App integration does a world of good to help with usability, and when picking out the ideal SMS app, this should be a top factor.

Integration helps you with setting up automated reminders, such as doctor and reservation reminders for example.

Automated SMS

When your small business reaches a certain size, sending out SMS messages individually can be quite the difficult process.

As such, eventually you will reasonably have to start automating your SMS messaging.

This does not necessarily mean that you have to go completely no-contact with your customers through this method.

But a lot of SMS messaging may see no contact from your customers anyway.

If someone does decide to reply to one of the automated messages, you can just as well directly message them this time.

The nice thing about automated SMS messages is that they do not have to be done at certain times.

Instead, you can schedule when the message is sent, meaning that you don’t have to be on the ball all the time.

Scalability

When you’re first starting out, it’s a good idea to make sure you pick out an SMS app that is easily used.

However, when you are just starting out, you will obviously want a lower-cost plan to get started.

If you tried to pick a less affordable option, this could hurt your company’s bottom line.

This can be without creating any tangible benefit as a result of that additional expense.

Thus, you want to make sure that when you pick out your app, that the plans you can choose in the future are ones that will be beneficial to you and your small business.

This is a common refrain you will hear from people skeptical or otherwise unsure of using SMS, and it’s not a strange concern to have.

After all, a lot of businesses are already used to email, and may thus wish to stick with what they know.

The problem is that email is just too broad for you to properly communicate, at least for the sake of your small business.

A lot of emails sort emails sent to you in such a way that makes promotional emails essentially already deleted.

For example, Gmail sorts emails by Primary, Social, Updates, Forums and Promotions.

All these are pretty self-explanatory, but one of these folders notably gets much less attention.

Even when people sign up to receive promotional emails, they tend to get too many emails of that nature and just ignore that folder.

Thus, even if you have an important email to send them, it may well be lost among the weeds.