Mobile phone friendly job boards are no longer optional: they are the bare minimum companies now need in order to communicate with candidates. In recruitment do we strive for bare minimum or is our goal in recruitment to hire the best talent? The new standard in customer service according to Andrew Prokop is text messaging. Does your recruitment process take advantage of the most popular communication method in the United States?
Surprising Text Messaging Stats for Businesses
- Of all the uses for cell phones, sending and reading text messages come in at number one and number two. Making a call comes in at a distant number six.
- Texting is the most widely-used and frequently used app on a cell phone with 97% of Americans using it at least once a day.
- Over 80% of American adults text, making it the most common cell phone activity.
- Text messages have a 98% open rate, while email has only a 20% open rate.
- On average, Americans exchange twice as many texts as they do calls.
- American women text 14% more than men.
- A large public utility company analyzed their incoming contact center calls (400K calls per month) and discovered that 80% came from cell phones.
- A 2012 study found that text was the highest rated contact method for customer satisfaction out of all other customer communication channels. Text earned 90 out of 100 points, while voice calls earned 77 out of 100.
- SMS text chat converts a $6-$20 call to a chat that costs pennies per session.
Reprinted with permission from
How Text Messaging Is Changing the Customer Experience
by Andrew Prokop. Twitter: @ajprokop
Text Messaging Improves the Candidate Experience
As recruiters, we need to communicate with candidates the way they want to rather than the way we are accustomed to. There are lots of options available. You can work with your business phone provider or choose a standalone SMS software solution. Several Applicant Tracking Systems (such as Bullhorn, cBizSoft Exelare and Zoho Recruit) have text messaging in place. Organizations that thrive on client service can easily have text messaging capability.
For top strategic talent, implementing text messaging is a must. We have been using text messaging options in all of our recruitment advertising and it works!