“I was working for a hosted IT company, I was managing a rather large region. So what I was initially looking for was a solution that would enable me to contact my customers and prospects because managing half the country, there was just not enough of me to go around the state up top of mind with my customers and have them accurately kind of follow-up with me, set appointments, and just maintain those touch points. So I started looking around for developers and business partners that could either build this for me, were working on a similar solution, or some way to collaborate on that.”
— Chris Moreira, CEO and Founder of TeleDrip
Chris Moreira (LinkedIn: @christopherjmoreira, Website: TeleDrip.com) is an entrepreneur at the helm of the fastest growing company in the booming SMS industry. Founded by Chris in 2017, TeleDrip is workforce automation software which optimizes first-contact and follow-up prospects through conversational AI SMS, advanced IVR with speech recognition, and API integration. TeleDrip’s clients are millions of dollars and incredible ROI using their technology to send automated SMS messaging.
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SMS Works Great for Insurance and Finance Verticals, but That’s Not All!
“We have a pretty large presence in the insurance industry. Life, health, auto, things like that. Home services is rather large. Finance. Pretty much anybody that has a landing page and/or are looking to follow-up or speed the contact for consumers. So it’s a very broad base of verticals. And the way we’re leveraging it is we’re now taking what we’ve done with AI and scheduling and follow-up and we’re using much lighter touch points on the consumer. We’re finding that that’s very effective.”
Do not sleep on the SMS boom just because you’re not in the finance and insurance verticals. Fear not, because SMS is magnifying efforts across a wide range of verticals, and that very likely includes your own. You can pivot from tired, boilerplate form pages in favor of a single SMS that’s customized and personalized, and engages the customer for you.
SMS Gives Customers the Power to Schedule Their Own Follow-Up
“People enjoy receiving text messages more than a phone call. Especially the younger generations text way more than use a phone call. So we use that, and we engage the consumer, answer their questions, and then schedule a follow-up call. If they’re available at that moment, we’ll call them then as well. And we find that there’s a good mix between outbound IVR calls and scheduled texts.”
This has proven to be one of the most effective approaches with TeleDrip’s software. SMS enables you to have a continuing conversation with your customers, allowing the customer to tell you when to call. Because of this, when you do call, they’re a lot more likely to answer since they’ve already become familiarized with the number that you’re dialing from.
TeleDrip Leverages Automated Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies
“We leverage full AI on our system. I’m sure other systems, they may use some sort of combination of humans and AI. We do have humans that back up our AI, but we found that training those systems on a total kind of big swath of sentiment enables the AI to get smarter and smarter. Because if you’re doing a lot of volume, essentially, you’re putting the feedback loop in to train the system. So if you’re sending out tens of thousands of texts a day it doesn’t take very long before the AI really understands what that consumers sentiment is.”
With terms like “artificial intelligence,” “machine learning,” etc. oft thrown around liberally in the world of technology, TeleDrip can proudly boast of compelling applications of such technologies. The proof is in the pudding with TeleDrip; something that becomes glaringly apparent to their customers rather quickly. There’s a reason that TeleDrip is the top dog in the rapidly growing SMS industry!
Pros and Cons: Short Code SMS, Long Code SMS, and Toll-Free SMS
Short Code SMS
“Short code, you’re going to have to get that approved by the carrier, so it’s a longer waiting period. They’re more expensive to purchase. But at the same time, once your use case is approved by the carriers you almost have carte blanche in the sense of deliverability and the amount of texts you can send over that short code.”
Long Code SMS
“A long code SMS, you’re seeing that that’s very organic because consumers can call that number right back. But at the same time, those are limited in the way that how many texts they can send. So SMS deliverability over a long code really needs to be tended to and watched every day.”
Toll-Free SMS
“Toll-free, the consumers going to look at that and know right away, “Hey, this is an 800 number. This is a company marketing to me.” And again, it comes down to how targeted that data is, how fresh it is, and then when the consumers expecting.“
Consumer Consent and TCPA Compliance are Required for AI Texting
“If you’re ever leveraging a fully automated system, the TCPA is the big, glaring neon light. So if you’re leveraging a system where it’s fully automated, there’s full AI, you need to have that express consent from the consumer to contact them in the first place. So they really lump AI texting as the same thing as automated calls and dialing. It’s a fully automated system. So right off the bat, hey, do you have that express consent?”
With great power comes great responsibility, and AI powered SMS is no different. You’ve got to have express consent to text, and you’ve got to have a firm understanding of TCPA compliance in order to integrate TeleDrip into your marketing toolkit. Don’t let this scare you off though; consider it an added layer of diligence that you must navigate in order to reap the magnifying benefits of SMS automation.
Final Thoughts: Some Encouraging Statistics, Trends, and Indicators
“83% of millennial consumers said they text more than they talk on their smartphones. And then 70% of marketers agree that focusing on customer journey has led to an increase in revenue growth. So as I just mentioned with the text messaging, that is becoming an integral part of the customer journey. And we all have our smartphones on us. We all text every day. I can’t imagine that there’s anybody watching this video that didn’t send at least one text message today. So I definitely see it exploding in growth.”
With indicators like that are you really willing to sleep on the SMS marketing trend much longer? The opportunity is now, and it’s here to stay. In fact, the appeal of SMS among millennial and younger consumers really lends itself to the staying power of software like TeleDrip. Get consumer consent, learn your TCPA compliance, and get texting today!
