Emails are rarely opened. People find talking on the phone can be intimidating or time consuming. How are large enterprises nowadays supposed to keep up with their employees, prospects, and customers? The answer is probably in your pocket: SMS messages. With a read rate of 98%, texting is the most effective way for businesses to communicate with their employees and clients.

The needs of enterprises can differ significantly from those of a small business. They have more departments, branches, and employees to manage, so it’s not surprising that more and more enterprises are adopting texting as their primary form of communication.

We’ve put together four departments that can benefit from texting as a part of their enterprise communication platform:

Information Technology (IT)

IT departments keep your company running smoothly. As such, IT staff members understand the advantages of  having the newest technology and enterprise features at their fingertips. That’s why having a multi-channel provider is vital for any IT department to meet the needs of the other departments and keep the entire company communicating effectively.

IT departments use texting to:

• Send Alerts
  Quickly inform your company about upcoming service interruptions such as network outages or scheduled maintenance.
  
  
• Close Tickets
  Keep employees updated about ongoing tickets and service schedules.
  
  
• Troubleshoot Anywhere
  A multi-channel solution allows you to walk employees through troubleshooting steps without lengthy phone conversations.
  
  
• Send SMS Reminders
  Make sure that employees remember maintenance appointments and inform them of security processes.
  
  

Marketing

SMS messaging is revolutionizing the way we market, with a customer response rate 750% higher than email. Integrating texting into your marketing toolkit is a must for enterprise companies who are always trying to promote more with less effort.

Consider this:

• 65% of marketers who use texting say it is “very effective”
• 75% of consumers would like to have offers sent to them through SMS messages
• 44% of consumers would rather receive product details and other marketing messages through text than any other channel
• 72% of consumers say they would rather connect with brands and businesses through different channels
  

Above all else, marketing departments love getting their messages seen, and texting is the new gold standard of marketing platforms. Mobile devices are the most ubiquitous  and attention grabbing form of enterprise communication, and marketing teams that integrate texting into their campaigns are sure to see a boost in lead generation.

To learn more about you can take advantage of text messaging for marketing, download our Mobile Marketing Success Kit.

Sales

Nothing can replace the need for phone calls in sales pitches, but your sales team can continue to remain top of mind by following up through text messaging. Texting removes the need to play phone tag or feel like you are being too pushy. It opens up a line of communication that is less pressure for your leads and allows them to ask or answer questions easily, even if they are busy in back to back meetings.

Everyone gets too many emails and many never get opened, and fewer still actually get replies. Sales prospects convert at a 40% higher rate  through follow up text than those that do not. By texting, you can make sure your follow up messages are read and will drive your leads to respond far more frequently.

Texting simplifies the sales process because:

• It’s instant. It’s an efficient and effective way to acknowledge receipts or approve essential documents
• You can send reminders to make sure sales meetings start on time and avoid scheduling mishaps
• You can gather missing contact information by messaging your leads a simple question. With such a high open rate, your leads are more likely to provide you with small pieces of information at a time.

Human Resources

The Human Resources department ensures that the company is healthy and that morale stays high, no matter the situation. Whether it is hiring the right people or making sure any issues between employees are addressed, they need effective enterprise communication software to keep things running smoothly. Texting’s high readability means that messages the HR department send out will be read far more frequently than emails.

Some common uses for employee solutions are:

• Send Mass SMS  
  Send out announcements to your entire company while still providing your employees with a one-on-one outlet to address individual questions or concerns.
  
  
• Streamlining Employee Benefit Enrollment
  Easily inform employees of deadlines and relevant updates so they can make informed decisions about their coverage.
  
  
• Critical Alerts
  Quickly send messages that will be actually be read in case of disaster situations or weather emergencies.

To learn more about how you can use texting in your HR department, download our eBook, How to Solve HR Communications Challenges.

Texting is also a powerful recruiting tool as it allows you to get more applications and easily communicate with applicants. More than 60 percent of recruiters already use text messaging to communicate with candidates. That’s because texting, besides being immediate and attention-grabbing, is often preferred by candidates today. Texting is an effective recruiting tool because:

• The average adult checks their phone 110 times a day, so you can minimize no-shows for job interviews by texting reminders.
• Easily communicate with potential candidates and ask follow up questions or request documents.
• Send out links to job applications and HR forms through texting saving everyone time

For more information about how you can use texting to recruit more qualified candidates, download our other HR ebook, How to use SMS Technology in HR.

Every enterprise is different, but all of them have one thing in common: communication. Whether you are talking to customers, employees, prospects, or partners, texting is a great form of communication to keep your key stakeholders informed and happy.