What Is VoIP Texting And How Does It Work?

So, you’ve heard of VoIP numbers and you probably associate them with voice calls. A lot of people don’t realize that VoIP numbers have another important ability—texting.

Just as VoIP enables you to place calls using the internet, it’s just as capable of doing the same thing for text messages.

How exactly does VoIP texting work? And what makes it different from traditional phone-to-phone texting? We’ll answer both of these questions and more.

What Is VoIP Texting?

VoIP texting is a text-enabled virtual phone number that isn’t assigned to a device, but rather to a user. And that user (or users) can send texts by using an internet connection. In short, it lets you send text messages to cellphones from your computer or our app.

When you buy a cellphone, you also need to buy a cellphone plan to make it more than just a glorified calculator/camera. Cellphone plans enable things like calls, texts, and data. With a traditional cellphone plan you can send texts and calls to another cellphone, or a group of cellphones (hello group chat).

With VoIP, you can still do all of that, but you’re not limited to a physical phone! You can also:

• Get a new number or bring over your existing number(s)
• Upload contacts who have given you permission to text them
• Create a text-to-join keyword 
• Add multiple numbers and multiple team members to your account
• Send text blasts to large groups or chat one-on-one with customers
• Create drip campaigns
• Integrate texting with your other marketing apps

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How Businesses Can Use VoIP

Text-enabling your business opens up a plethora of opportunities. Here are just a few of the ways your organization could leverage VoIP to serve your needs.

Provide Customer Support

Top-tier customer support requires a multi-channel approach. A VoIP number gives you the versatility to talk on the phone and text back and forth with customers, all from the same number at the same time.

• Receive inbound messages
• Handle more many customer support inquiries with ease
• Assign support conversations to team members for faster response times

Share Mass Updates

Make it easier for customers, employees, and partners to stay on the same page and communicate with one primary channel to distribute information. 

• Broadcast a text message to a group within seconds
• Segment your audience to send more personalized messages to specific sub-groups
• Crackdown on company-wide silos with 90% of text messages read within just three minutes of receipt

Post-Conference Follow-Ups

One of the most common uses of VoIP numbers is for large conference calls. But what happens after you hang up?

• Easily text out follow-up materials, meeting minutes, and action items 
• Schedule ahead texts with follow-up instructions to send when a meeting ends
• Field post-meeting questions in your inbox

Share Scheduling Reminders

You can cut down on missed meetings and appointments dramatically when you combine texting and calling. 

• Schedule text messages reminders to send days or hours before a meeting/appointment
• Send trackable links with calendar reminders to invitees
• Integrate texting with popular scheduling tools like Calendly

Benefits of VoIP Texting vs. Traditional Phone-to-Phone SMS

Texting is a fantastic tool for reaching people quickly with questions, offers, alerts, and surveys. They’re almost always read and receive some of the best response rates out of all the digital communication mediums. But what sets VoIP texting apart from using a traditional cellphone to send your organization’s texts?

If you’re considering the switch, here are some of the undeniable benefits and abilities that make this tool so desirable for many:

• Reach more customers at once
  Unless you’re sending a group message (in which case, the recipients would know that more than one person is getting the message) you’re limited to texting one person at a time with a cellphone. With VoIP texting however, you could send one text out to 10, 100, even 1,000’s of people at once.
• Automation
  For those who opted to text-enable their VoIP number with a provider like SimpleTexting, you gain access to advanced features that help you save time. For example, you can schedule texts to go out days, weeks, or months in advance. You can segment your audience based on consumer behavior or demographics and then use custom fields to send them personalized messaging. You can even set up autoresponders that will send messages based on the triggers you set up as a catalyst.
• Save some money
  While any VoIP service has a subscription cost, the price of texting is often less than what a traditional cellphone plan would run. Especially when you begin factoring in the volume of messages your organization will be sending out.

How Does VoIP SMS Work?

Any device equipped with Wi-Fi or internet connection (tablets, laptops, desktops, etc.) can act just like a cellphone with VoIP and send text messages. To the recipient, it’s virtually undetectable that the text is coming from anything other than another phone. But as the sender, you have the added flexibility of texting from anywhere and anything with an internet connection!

If you’re just looking to text-enable your business, it all begins in just a few steps.

1. Find a text marketing platform (we hear SimpleTexting is a fan favorite 😉).
2. Work with the provider to either text-enable your existing 10-digit number, choose and verify a toll-free line, register a local number, or provision a short code.
3. Within minutes your business will be up, running, and ready to send/receive texts!

💡SimpleTexting Tip: Here at SimpleTexting we’re a provider who is actually able to text-enable VoIP numbers. So if you’d like to add voice services alongside your number, know that you might actually end up saving money by opting for a third-party VoIP provider for calling, and SimpleTexting for your SMS needs.

Next Steps With VoIP SMS

We hope after this crash course on VoIP texting, you’re feeling a little more confident in your options. If you’re interested in learning more about the added benefits of internet-enabled texting, don’t hesitate to reach out. As this technology continues to evolve, so do we! Let us help you work through the digital minefield that is the world of virtual communication.