Does this sound familiar? You are experiencing a shortage of skilled labour to finish jobs, and a client’s building materials have taken double the time at double the price.
One of your top carpenters has just decided to quit. You’ve got ten missed calls from people asking for quotes. And, power tools have been glued to your hand all day long – making emails and calls (almost) impossible.
As a contractor or tradesperson, you spend so much time building and fixing for others. It can be hard to find the time to build your construction business. Or, simply remind a client of their start date.
With so many ways to communicate, what is the best way to keep clients updated and stay in the loop with your crew?
Stick around to find out...
What SMS software can build for your construction business
Smart contractors are using communications technology to save time, talk to clients and grow their business. SMS communication tools are fast becoming a favourite choice, for good reason.
Mostly because communicating via text is more effective. And that’s a fact. Text messages are opened 5x more than email, and SMS response rates trump email by 750%.
And, if you use the right business SMS service, you can set up automatic messages and responses. Yep – you can keep working while clients’ questions are answered, reminders are sent, and invoices get paid.
Save time with automatic reminders and updates to clients
One of the time-consuming elements of a contractor’s life is running to appointments for bids only to see the homeowner or client forgot about the appointment or is running late. Don’t forget the number of calls needed to confirm the meeting time and place.
Using a construction communications app, you can automatically send client appointment reminders. Plus, they send their text confirmation directly to your phone, so you get updates in the palm of your hand.
Best of all, set-up is easy.
- Connect your work calendar directly to us using Zapier.
- Add automated text messaging to your appointments.
- Type out your reminder text once.
- Select which appointments you'd like to send reminders for.
Voila!
To try this today, simply set up a free account on us and use Zapier to connect your calendar. You might also be interested in the ClickSend for Outlook plugin or the ClickSend for Google Calendar integration.
If you need a hand, our support team are available 24/7. They’ll help you set up your first automated SMS. You’ll be addicted to automating SMS communications in no time.
Want to know what else is possible? Discover 4 ways to start automating text messages.
Hiring a helping hand
Finding the right talent for jobs can be difficult as the type of employee you’ll be looking for will most likely be on a job site when you want to contact them. Phone calls may not be answered on-site, but a text message can be quickly glanced over and replied to in seconds.
You and your new talent can simply message back and forth to answer any questions and arrange any necessary meetings before getting to work. You might spend time answering commonly asked questions if you hire multiple people simultaneously.
Within our dashboard, you can build an auto-responder that quickly answers questions and saves you time.
Here are some quick tips to get you started.
- Click start on the inbound automation tab within our dashboard.
- Click on add new rule and name your rule.
- If you want to automatically reply to a certain question, change the “match for” column to “message contains” and put in your trigger word.
- Choose “auto-reply” as the action and enter the message to be sent.
You can set up as many rules as you want to answer any question.
Keep your crew updated anywhere, anytime
Your crew spend their time on job sites, not at desks. Using email to share important updates just doesn’t cut through. But manually texting staff isn’t the best way to work if you work in operations. Enter: Email-to-SMS.
Sending SMS from your email is easy. It’s just like sending a normal email, except the message gets sent to the recipient's phone as a text. Since only 15% of people read emails promptly while 95% of users read SMS within 3 minutes, it’s a great way to ensure messages are read quickly.
With free plug-ins and integrations (ClickSend for Outlook or the ClickSend for Gmail), you can turn your mailbox into a smartphone and manage all the replies from one place — your desktop.
You can even access all of our product features, including fax, voice and Mail, directly from your inbox too.
Set solid foundations with SMS
Without the right structure, it’s hard to keep building. Setting up automatic SMS appointment reminders, invoice payment requests, staff updates and promotional messages — that get sent while you work (or sleep) is a great start.
Ready to get going? Sign up to send your first SMS.
