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You’re Allowed to Mass Text Your Employees, But Should You?

Employee receiving mass text message notification

With great power comes great responsibility. So we’re told by movies and comic books. Good advice, but what does it have to do with employee communications?

Well, as we’ve made abundantly clear in previous articles, your HR team is well within its regulatory rights to mass text employees.

The employer-employee relationship provides just the kind of implied consent to receive text messages stipulated by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). And the right mass texting tool can help you comply with digital privacy rules such as HIPAA.

Mass texting grants you immediate, direct, and legal access to nearly all your employees nearly all the time. (After all, when was the last time you left your cell phone more than an arm’s reach away?)

But here’s where the responsibility comes in.

Just because you can text employees, does it mean you should text employees? Will your messages be welcome, or do you run the risk of ruining text messaging’s stellar reputation? Remember, there was a time when we all loved receiving emails.

Related: Etiquette: The 7 Dos and Don’ts of Mass Texting Employees. Read it here →

Why Your Employees Love Text Messaging

According to a survey of 2,000 American adults, the top three emotions people feel when receiving a text notification are curiosity, happiness, and excitement. Contrast that with email — which people associate with stress and fatigue — and messaging apps like Slack — which many consider an addictive time suck — and SMS comes out positively glowing.

Here are a few more stats in text messaging’s favor:

  • Over 90% of people read their text messages within three minutes of receiving them.
  • The typical cell phone user takes just 90 seconds to reply to a text message (versus 90 minutes for email).
  • The average open rate for mass texting is a phenomenal 98% (compared to just 20% for email).

If your HR team is struggling to overcome low engagement, feeling as if its reminders and updates are routinely ignored, and constantly answering the same questions over and over again, mass texting might just be the solution you’ve been searching for. But is there a downside?

Mass Texting Employees: Proceed With Caution

Full disclosure: Our company offers a mass texting tool. We are full-on evangelists for mass texting employees’ engagement-boosting, time-saving potential. We want you to mass text. Yet, even we would warn you against indulging in too much of a good thing.

As it stands right now, most people feel positively about text messaging. However, attitudes could change very quickly if text messages become a nuisance — just look at what happened to email.

Already, there are some signs that some people are beginning to feel a little annoyed by excessive text messages.

For example, according to a recent survey, a majority of Americans feel overwhelmed by group texts. Of course, these are the seemingly endless discussion chains we share with friends and family, a far cry from the periodic alerts you might send employees. But this survey does give some indication that not all text messages are appreciated.

So, how can you ensure that your HR team’s text messages are the good kind of text messages? It boils down to a few common-sense best practices: keep it short, keep it relevant, and don’t be annoying.

Keep It Short

Perhaps the number-one reason people love text messaging is because the limited screen real estate and difficulty typing almost demand succinctness. No one enjoys scrolling through a huge block of text. In other words, if you’ve got something monumental to get off your chest, text messaging is not the medium for you.

Instead, for maximum impact, marketing experts recommend keeping your SMS messages below 200 characters or so, and the fewer, the better.

That’s not to say you can’t use mass texting to convey more complex concepts. For example, a brief text message paired with a video link is an excellent way to announce your company’s latest slate of benefits.

Keep It Relevant

Why do people hate those never-ending text chains? Because so much of it seems pointless. You can learn from that.

The last thing you want is for your employees to get in the habit of ignoring your mass texts. Every message should be “need to know,” and if possible, include an actionable response, even something as simple as “click here for more info” or “reply if you have questions.”

Don’t Be Annoying

Text messages get irritating when there are too many of them and when they come at inconvenient times. Save your mass texting for the critical stuff — open enrollment reminders, safety updates — and resist hitting the “send” button after hours unless the situation is truly urgent.

Also, receiving text messages should not be compulsory. Be sure to give your employees an easy way to opt out. (It’s not just good etiquette; it’s the law.)

So, Should You?

Let’s get back to the question at hand, should you mass text your employees? Far be it from us to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do. Still, when used wisely, texting can be an incredibly effective element of your multichannel employee communications strategy. If that sounds worth a try, click here to get started!

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