Why your customer is now just a text message away

This piece is sponsored by Midco.

The Window Shop proves a classic Main Street-style business can benefit from the latest in business technology.

Founded in Corsica in 2003, growth came rapidly to the small business and led to a move 30 miles northwest in 2007 to the Main Street Historic District in Mitchell.

The company services customers throughout eastern South Dakota, northeast Nebraska and southwest Minnesota.

“Since the beginning, our purpose has been to provide top-quality windows, doors and siding and to install them with careful diligence,” office manager Jessica Thomas said.

“Our team understands the value of treating every project with the same respect they would use on their own homes.”

The same courtesy extends to how The Window Shop communicates. After switching to Midco recently for VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, voice calling service, “we discovered they were offering business texting as well,” Thomas said. “Together, both services help us communicate with each other and our customers.”

Improved customer experience

Midco recently launched two powerful unified communications as a service, or UCaaS, products that help businesses simplify, modernize and level-up their customer communications.

“In this highly competitive environment, businesses need to differentiate themselves through easy, efficient and customer-focused communication strategies,” Midco president and chief operating officer Ben Dold said. “Midco Business Texting and Business Connect are seamless solutions designed to make customer outreach simple so businesses can focus on their core mission.”

With the Midco Business Texting app, business clients can have the power of texting customers in the palm of their hands.

“Business Texting fuels growth in two important ways,” said Emma Fox, Midco vice president of product management.

“First, it simplifies appointment scheduling, reminders, customer service support and other routine communications. Second, it drives revenue through easily managed promotional messaging, sales alerts and product offers. Customers prefer to receive these messages by text, making Midco Business Texting an excellent customer experience and sales enhancement for businesses of all sizes.”

The Window Shop added Business Texting to its plan with Midco and has been using text messages to communicate with customers on project updates and scheduling.

“The texting has been a great addition to our company. Some customers prefer texting over a phone call,” Thomas said. “In a day where everyone seems to be in a hurry, texting seems to be the easiest form of communication.”

Allowing clients to send and receive SMS and MMS messages with their customers, Midco Business Texting supports:

• One-to-one messaging for personalized communication.
• Automated messaging for drip campaigns and blasts.
• Multiuser management to control all messaging from a single dashboard.
• MMS support to send and receive MMS messages for a rich media experience.
• Address book functionality to separate and sync business and personal contacts across multiple devices.
• Canned responses to keep messaging consistent with frequently asked questions.
• Away auto-reply to easily send auto-responding away messages.
• Scheduled messages to plan individual or group messages in advance.
• Reminders to notify customers about upcoming appointments.

Midco Business Connect

To further support businesses’ voice calling needs, Midco Business Connect integrates Midco voice calling with Microsoft Teams for an integrated communication experience.

“From team members to clients, staying in contact is essential for business growth, but expensive phone equipment quickly adds upfront costs,” Fox said. “With Midco Business Connect, you can make and receive phone calls using the same Microsoft platform you use for workplace chat, videoconferencing, file storage and application integration.”

Midco Business Connect empowers businesses with:

• • Local numbers provided by Midco, with porting available.
  • Direct routing that enables Midco to serve as the public switched telephone network, or PSTN.
  • 99.999 percent reliability on Midco’s fiber network.
  • Communication without the need for physical phone hardware.
  • Access to Midco’s exceptional care team for support.

Visit Midco’s UCaaS site to learn more about how VoIP, Business Texting and Business Connect can take your business to the next level today.