Text Messaging Best Practices for Insurance Agencies

The do’s of text messaging.

When texting your clients, here are some general rules of thumb to follow for the best results and to stay compliant with text messaging laws. The good news is that our Business Texting Add-On has features that make this easy.

The don’ts of text messaging.

On the flip side, there are some things you should not do with a texting system. Ensure you avoid these tactics so that the only messages you send are impactful.

The difference between email and text messaging.

When emailing your clients, it’s a passive message they can check in on and review at their own time. There isn’t a sense of urgency that a text message implies.

That’s where we need to distinguish between when and how you use text messaging for client communications, and when you need to transition the conversation to phone or email.

With emails, we recommend sending 1-2 communications to clients. With texting, it’s more about sending transactional messages at the right time and right place.

Here are some examples of how to use texting for transactional purposes:

These are direct, clear, and purposeful messages that make sense in the context of what your clients would expect to get text messages about from your agency.

This covers how agencies should use texting as an outbound communication method and how it differs from the goal of emails.

The rule of thumb is less is more, and focusing on value and on transactional messages sent at the right time and place makes all the difference.

How teams should handle inbound text messages.

When managing text messaging as a team, follow these best practices to ensure inbound messages sent to the agency are responded to in a timely manner.

First, your team will need to treat incoming text messages with the same level of urgency as if that client had walked through the office door or called in. That’s because, for clients, when they are reaching out to your agency, they likely have an immediate need, which necessitates a quick reply.

To do this, ensure your team has the right notifications in place. And because they would be using a single texting number for the agency (which how our Business Texting Add-On is designed around a collaborative team inbox model), the team members who need to be alerted when their clients send a message so they can handle it. This adds to the level of personal touch that goes a long way toward relationship building.

And with the Business Texting Add-On, you can set up call forwarding that automatically reroutes calls to your main office number (only if you create a brand-new number for texting or transfer an existing number).

In addition, you can have others on the team be notified as well, so that no message is missed and is always responded to by someone, even if their usual agent is out on vacation. The transparent visibility of a shared texting inbox helps you proactively address missed messages and client frustration when they don’t receive an answer or the help they need.

The general expectation of a client is to hear back from you within minutes, so having measures in place to notify the right people allows real-time conversations to be handled initially by text message and transitioned as needed to email or phone.

Setting the right expectations after hours.

You might think that having text messaging as an option means you need to be available 24/7. That’s simply not the case. The best approach is to keep your lines of communication open while setting the right expectations.

For example, when someone calls your office after hours, they likely get a voicemail that outlines your office hours and when they should expect to hear back from you.

You can set those same expectations when someone texts your agency after hours by setting up auto-responses that clearly let the client know when your agency will be back in touch. That means clients can still contact you with that 24/7 self-service mindset, but your team doesn’t need to constantly monitor the inbox.

This gives your team flexibility and ensures your clients can contact your agency in a variety of ways at any time, tailored to their preferences.

Treat text messages as a source of truth.

When it comes to text messaging with your clients, they are communicating important information that you need to have on file for E&O (errors & omissions) purposes, along with managing the client requests and interactions. Much like how you handle emails and signed documents from your clients.

If a conversation or a promise isn’t recorded in your Agency Management System (AMS), it essentially didn’t happen. Your AMS is your agency’s ultimate source of truth, and it’s important to record those conversations.

Organizing your text conversations, just like emails and other client communications, keeps your agency in line with E&O standards, and on top of that, using our platform can streamline this through automation, AI, and AMS writebacks (for applicable AMS).

Using the Business Texting Add-On.

When it comes to using the Business Texting Add-On, there are built-in features that empower your team to stay connected to your clients, streamline inbox management, all while adhering to the rules and best practices of text messaging.

1. Office hours.
With Business Texting, you have the built-in option to add an auto-responder message of your choice that can send an automated message during the hours your business is closed. You can also adjust this as needed for holidays and office closures to always set the right expectations with your clients.

2. Live Web Chat.
If your agency has a Forge insurance website with us, you’ll be able to leverage the power of live website chat that directly connects to Business Texting. That means someone visiting your site can send a message that triggers a notification and text message, so your team can handle that conversation right away.

3. Team notifications.
With Business Texting, there are no limits on who on your team can have access, and desktop and in-app notifications can be set to show which messages relate to them. For managers, you can also have visibility into all text messages to ensure messages are being answered.

4. Add texting to campaigns.
If you use Fuse marketing automation, you can incorporate automated, transactional text messages for key milestones, including renewal reminders and claim follow-ups. This helps you take manual outreach off your team’s plate, so you can have 1-on-1 conversations with clients who do reply.