Client Communication? Technology?

[MAJ]

We've got..... Cell phones, Txt Messages, FaceBook, even video chat on your phone!!
**** Tracy would be PROUD!!

What do you use to communicate with your clients? Has the Post Office suffered from our line of work as well??

I have been using Txt messaging, Face Book and of course email. Getting information quick from a client via Txt has been very helpful.


What have your been doing?? Have you sent mass TXT to you cients? If so, how did you accomplish this? What other ways do you use technology to improve your game?

[erchess]

Question and Answer

I got the impression that it is possible for me to send a text message via email and for me to get text messages at my email address. Is that true and if so how do I do it? I wouldn't mind doing that as long as my texting partners knew that I could only get and respond to their messages when I had my laptop and the internet. A phone that can text is not in my budget for the foreseeable future. Also my ability to use the usual lingo of texting is limited. I recently won from my point of view a great victory over modern technology when I got a phone that does not have a camera. I actually do own a decent point and shoot digital camera but I have no desire to talk through it nor to take pictures with a phone. In general the fewer things a device will do the more likely I am to want one. I use my laptop to surf the web, send email, chat in chat rooms, send instant messages, and do tax returns. I feel strongly that my life would be better if I could for the same money have five different dedicated computers for these five tasks.

To answer your question I use phone and email to keep up with clients, and mainly phone. Phone here includes both landline and cell. I have a scanner and an email fax program which I use a couple of times a month to send and or receive. I have also on occasion sent faxes through Windows and Word. I have on rare occasions used the USPS or a courier such as UPS or Fed Ex to get things to a distant client who did not have Fax capabilities. I work face to face with anyone in Buncombe County NC by driving to their home or place of business. I also work electronically and by USPS or Courier with people anywhere but especially all over the Carolinas and Tennessee. Most of my distant clients use me for audit assistance although some also use me for tax filing. The distant ones almost all come from the fact that I have a prospecting service that persuades people being audited or having liens or etc to fill out an online form and sends me the forms of those in the states I mentioned.

[Lion]

Text

To answer one of Erchess' questions. I used to text via computer by going to AT&T's website to send free texts, but that was primarily to my daughter. Now we have unlimited texts as part of our cell service, so I seldom text from my computer.

For client communications, I prefer email. I have a record of what I sent and when and have a copy of what the client sent. I can include his response in his file in my computer or print out a hard copy if I need. I still have clients that don't want to give me their emails or check only sporatically. Then it's telephone. And, lots of times the telephone is easier or I don't want to put my thoughts on paper at that point.

[Gary2]

Many cell phone companies provide the ability to send text messages via email, but it's different for each service. So you'd have to know the recipient's cell phone company, and that company's email-to-text mechanism. If the recipient uses IM on their phone (i.e. AIM, YIM, Live), that could be easier.

I didn't think it's even possible to get a cell phone these days that's not capable of handling text messages, nor a plan that won't allow them at all. I've seen fees of 20 cents per message if you don't have a plan, which is untenable for business purposes. On the other hand, the Verizon daily prepaid plan goes as low as 2 cents per message, which might be workable for limited use. I don't use my cell phone for business, nor do I use voice very much, and wind up spending about $140/year (yes, year), most of which is text, IM, and e-mail.

But I think you're right, e-mail is preferable for most communications.

[Gretel]

I am with Erchess, when I finally needed a cell phone for my biz(two years ago) I wanted one just for calling, but couldn't get it. I brooded years over spending the money for a cell phone and didn't like that the only plan that made sense to me had 450 min. However, I live in a very small community and almost all calls are long distance, so I started to use my cell phone for all outgoing calls, still I am mostly under 300 Min.

Back to the original question: I use mostly the phone, but often prefer e-mail, only a lot of my clients don't use e-mail. That being said, no other electronic gadgets would make sense for me.

However, I want to look into texting options using my cell phone, since it would be beneficial in communication with my biggest client, who constantly contacts me. Irony is that he refuses to use the computer, just started with a little e-mail and some Internet, and that all he knows, but he is the one who is texting me now.

[David1980]

A google voice account would let you send/receive text messages from your computer without having to know the email extension of the particular person. sms->sms directly with no email gateways.

Email gateways? Well, you see when you send someone a text through an "email", you're actually sending the text message to a gateway that converts it from email to sms and then delivers the text to the end user. For example, someone who uses AT&T with the phone number 555-555-5555, you would email 55555555555@txt.att.net. So you're actually sending an email to an email address where that email then gets converted to a text and delivered on.

The person receiving such a text can respond and the response goes back through the process, only backwards. So it originates from an sms, but gets converted to an email, and then delivered to the email address you used.

Is there any advantage to using something like google voice as opposed to an email -> sms gateway? Probably. First, you have to know the phone number, the provider, and what that provider's email extension for the sms->email gateway is. You can get the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SMS_gateways - but it's still more work than simply plugging in a phone number. And if you want to give people a number for them to sms you at, it's far easier to give them a phone number and not try to explain to people how to send sms messages to email addresses (works fine, they just type the email address, but it's probably not worth the trouble of explaining to a customer.) Then again, maybe you're using a service that handles the provider/email gateway lookup part for you and that isn't an issue.

One thing to keep in mind, particularly when using email to sms gateways, you can type an email that's far longer than the allowed character limitation of an sms. Another thing to keep in mind is sending your customers a text message may not be free for them.

Is it a good tool? Well, I find you're more likely to get a hold of someone faster if you go with text message as opposed to email. Of course, you also run the risk of sending a text message to someone who doesn't know how to use text messaging and may never see the message. I kind of use it on a per-person basis. Some people I know are good with text messaging. Some people aren't.

Finally, keep the purpose of the message in mind. If you want to send an advertisement out to 2,000 people offering a $5 bonus for referrals, that is probably going to be seen as spam (and I'm not sure how you'd even send 2,000 texts. Even with an email -> sms gateway, many email services put daily caps on the number of emails you can send.)

[kpangelinan]

To answer one of Erchess' questions. I used to text via computer by going to AT&T's website to send free texts, but that was primarily to my daughter. Now we have unlimited texts as part of our cell service, so I seldom text from my computer.

For client communications, I prefer email. I have a record of what I sent and when and have a copy of what the client sent. I can include his response in his file in my computer or print out a hard copy if I need. I still have clients that don't want to give me their emails or check only sporatically. Then it's telephone. And, lots of times the telephone is easier or I don't want to put my thoughts on paper at that point.

For the reason stated above, email is my preference and with my smart phone, I get the emails instantly and whereever I am. Because of this, I don't think text is necessary, but I wouldn't mind adding that to my forms of communications. The problem is you'd have to give your cell phone number to your clients and that's a rule I have-to never give my personal cell phone out. In order to use text, I would have to have another cell phone and I don't want to carry another one around or pay the additional fees for one.

I am with Erchess, when I finally needed a cell phone for my biz(two years ago) I wanted one just for calling, but couldn't get it. I brooded years over spending the money for a cell phone and didn't like that the only plan that made sense to me had 450 min. However, I live in a very small community and almost all calls are long distance, so I started to use my cell phone for all outgoing calls, still I am mostly under 300 Min.

Back to the original question: I use mostly the phone, but often prefer e-mail, only a lot of my clients don't use e-mail. That being said, no other electronic gadgets would make sense for me.

However, I want to look into texting options using my cell phone, since it would be beneficial in communication with my biggest client, who constantly contacts me. Irony is that he refuses to use the computer, just started with a little e-mail and some Internet, and that all he knows, but he is the one who is texting me now.

I prefer email, but in rural Maine, phone is still king as most people are still old school up here....I have noticed a huge increase over the past few years with email contact with my clients which I believe and hope will continue to increase.

[Gary2]

Let me add that part of my concern about storing files out on the net has to do with evolving privacy legislation. Clients are likely to fall into two extreme camps, those who don't care and those who don't want their data anywhere close to the net. But just as you must report items on the correct form and line, even if the client doesn't care and the results don't change, you must also comply with privacy laws, regardless of whether clients care or the risk is significantly affected.

In this case, I'm aware of the relatively new Massachusetts privacy law and regulations that impacts businesses. In particular, those regulations require that third-party service providers be contractually obligated to comply - something that I don't believe will be possible with the large public services such as Google Docs.