On Monday, Chattanooga-based startup Text Request announced the release of their game-changing new feature enabling businesses to text-enable their phone numbers. The number hosting feature allows any business to add Text Request’s live, two-way texting dashboard to their current landline, VOIP, or toll-free number(s) with a few simple clicks. Nothing changes to current phone services, and there are no extra charges.
Text Request is a cloud-based business texting software built for personal conversations between employees and consumers. Founded in late 2014, the company aims to “revolutionize the way businesses and consumers engage with each other.”
Small- and medium-sized businesses in both the United States and Canada are using the service for lead generation, customer service, following up with leads and closing sales, appointment scheduling, internal communications, and notifications, among other reasons. Described as “Outlook for texting,” Text Request brings an unprecedented combination of professionalism and practicality to texting for business.
Text Request team after being named a Top 8 Companies to Watch in 2016 by CityScope Magazine
Smartphone usage has been a steadily growing trend over the past several years, and has settled in as a staple of how people interact with the world around them. Smartphones are often the first and last thing a person touches each day. Americans check their phones 150 times a day. 93 percent of smartphone owners use their device somewhere during the buying journey, and people spend nearly five hours a day on their smartphones for work, entertainment, and social networking.
Text messaging is both the most used feature on mobile devices, and “the most prevalent form of communication for American adults under 50.” Text open rates are over 99 percent, with an average response time of about 90 seconds. All the while, email open rates and phone call answer rates continue to decline.
Text Request enables any business to take advantage of these consumer trends, including Click-to-Text buttons on users’ mobile websites, which open text messages to the business, to more easily initiate conversations from consumers.
The company’s CEO and co-founder, Brian Elrod, stated, “In 2016, businesses are finally implementing mobile strategies, and texting is a crucial piece of those strategies… Adding our text platform to current business numbers makes getting started so much simpler for [businesses].”