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Hello all - We're looking to use text messaging as a new internal communication tool at my company. This would be an opt-in tool that would be used to help communicate brief news updates and company messaging. Does anyone out there currently use this type of service at their company and if so, is there a certain sms text messaging company that you would recommend? We have roughly 1,800 employees (if we have half of them opt-in to the service, I would be thrilled) and we'd probably send out 3-5 messages a month. Thanks for your help!
Since it's opt-in, that's a good thing. Just keep having some other way of conveying the information to people who don't opt in. Many of us in the Baby Boom generation aren't completely comfortable with text messages, and very few who are even older like them.
I work for a mobile phone company and we use company-wide text messaging vary sparingly to communicate important company initiatives and provide emergency updates in severe weather situations. Of course, we use our own text messaging system and all of the employees have the same wireless carrier. We also include the information on our Intranet and in very severe weather situations (like Hurricane Katrina) communicate with employees through our public site home page.
I used to work on this type of project when I was with a telecommunications company overseas - but the providers there were different to providers here so I can't recommend any, I'm afraid.
Do a web search for 'broadcast text messaging to employees' and you'll find dozens (in case you haven't done this yet).
I did want to suggest that you look beyond one way messaging and 'informing' staff about company news.
I've some great 'internal campaigns' and contests run over text in the past. I.E, answer a trivia question about the company for a chance to win XX. (Employees text back their answer. Many providers have decent content management and tools to run this type of campaign. I've seen it done with Salesforces to successfully reinforce training/test their knowledge. Would also work for contact centers.
This approach could be more fun and you could increase opt-ins.
Good luck
-------------------------------- Paula Cassin
Desktop messaging tools that engage employees and drive action.
www.cutthroughcommunications.com
I’ll be really interested to see how you get on. My view is that, unless all the mobiles are provided by the company, staff won’t opt in using personal devices for generic company updates. SMS is a good channel for emergency communications or for really important updates (e.g. change announcements). You may get opt in for this, but it’s unlikely to be high (in my opinion) for generic updates.
Also, do you have employees who travel overseas? Remember, lots of people use their mobile as an alarm clock. It’s quite annoying being on a different time zone and being woken up in the middle of the night by a non critical text message (speaking from experience here) so this is something that you might want to consider too.
Good luck. Please post back and let us know who it goes.
Thank you for all of the great feedback. We've actually started working with a company that we found and now we are in the middle of our testing phase. The two way communication that they offer really opens the doors to some great opportunities. As for the address book that we'll manage, the company that we went with has a great online user/employee management interface that is extremely simple to use and we'll be running a backup report in excel.
We're projecting that if we can get anywhere between 15-20% of our employees to opt-in, that would be a great start. We pretty much got this idea after we conducted an employee internal communication survey a few months back. The results were a bit amazing - 85% of the survey takers rated text messaging as their number 1 form of communication with their piers and co-workers.
-------------------------------- The subject of gambling is all encompassing. It combines man’s natural play instinct with his desire to know about his fate and his future.
We also include the information on our Intranet and in very severe weather situations (like Hurricane Katrina) communicate with employees through our public site home page. 
