Text messaging as the main means of communication is becoming popular with a lot of companies because it’s a great way to reach a lot of people in a short amount of time. However, different etiquette does apply since texting involves employees and supervisors rather than friends and family members. Here are some of the basic rules for business texting etiquette that need to be followed.
Make Them Have Purpose
Everyone is busy, and they don’t want to deal with a lot of unnecessary text messages. Because of this, you need to make sure that all of your text messages have a purpose. Even if you are just sending a general text to check on an employer or coworker, you should establish ahead of time what you want to gain out of it. Are you sending a text to find out how someone is doing, or are you just sending a text because you are bored and want someone to talk to?
Double Check That You Are Sending Your Text Messages To The Right People
There’s not much more embarrassing than sending a text message to someone that isn’t supposed to see it. Unfortunately, it can commonly happen if you have contacts on your phone that have similar names. Fortunately, you can keep this from happening by double-checking the intended recipients before hitting the send button on your text messages. If you have employees or supervisors that have the same or a similar name, you may want to consider uploading their picture to their contact information so that you can easily determine who you are actually sending the text message to.
Don’t Send Texts At All Hours Of the Day
Just because you have the ability to send text messages whenever you want to, it doesn’t mean it’s always appropriate to do so. Try to limit your texts to within business hours. If you have to send a text outside of them, you do need to take into account that you may not get a response. It’s not uncommon for some people to turn off their ringers when they get home or ignore texts that come from coworkers or supervisors when they are finished working for the day.
Keep Your Texts Appropriate For The Audience
There’s a good chance that you will make friends at work, but that doesn’t mean that your texts should be inappropriate. You do need to keep in mind that some people may not wish to see certain types of text messages from you, no matter how friendly you are at work. Before sending a text message to them, you do need to ask yourself whether or not it’s something that you’d be embarrassed for your boss to see. If it is, then you are better off not risking sending this type of text message because you don’t want to unintentionally offend the recipient.
Be Brief
Text messages are a great tool to use if you need to have a short conversation with someone. However, it can be difficult to read more lengthy texts. If you need to have a long conversation with someone, you should do it in person. This includes things like business issues or scheduling conflicts.
Consider Your Tone
A lot of issues can arise if someone reads a text message and deciphers the tone wrong. This is why it’s imperative that you avoid putting words in all caps, and using slang or emojis that can be offensive. It’s fairly common for things like humor and sarcasm to be interpreted wrong in business text messaging, so you should probably avoid them if at all possible.
Have Important Conversations In Person
While you may have bad news or confidential information that you want to share with someone right away, you should never do it in a text. It’s best for coworkers or supervisors to hear this information right from you. Even if you have to wait a bit, you should always strive to have important conversations in person rather than through text messages.
While text messaging can be very beneficial for businesses, it needs to be done the right way. By having the right text messaging etiquette, employees, bosses and business owners can communicate effectively without buxic causing any communication issues.
