3 Popular Ways to Use MessageDesk

Learn about the 3 main ways MessageDesk helps it's clients grow their business through business text messaging

Josh avatar
Written by Josh
Updated over a week ago

Hey there! If you're reading this you probably just created a MessageDesk account or are curious about how MessageDesk & text messaging can make an impact on your business.

There's 3 main ways MessageDesk can be a difference maker for your business/organization.

MessageDesk for Small Business Marketing

Small business owners have a hard time with marketing. They don't know how to get started or simply don't have time to find results.

MessageDesk helps small businesses grow their subscriber list, promote products and services, and convert website visitors & event goers into customers. Our text messaging software integrates seamlessly with your existing phone line & website.

Stop relying on email to get the word out. Instead get 98% engagement rates with easy-to-use text message marketing made for the local business.

MessageDesk has a handful of easy-to-use yet powerful features for business owners looking to leverage text messaging for marketing purposes.

Send Promotions (Broadcast) to Existing Contacts

If you already have a list of contacts you want to market to - the best place to start is Broadcast. this is where you can text-blast your contacts with promotions, special offers and more.

You can attach images, links and files to Broadcast. Making it easy to visually share products, route contacts to check-out pages or share product information.

Growing your Subscriber List

If you don't have a list of contacts to market to then MessageDesk has a solution for that too. The first is Forms - which allow you to customize Web Forms that contacts can fill out to add themselves to your text subscriber list. These Forms can be linked in emails, shared on social media or embedded directly on your website.

The second tool for generating contacts is our MessageDesk Chatbot - which is something you can put directly on your existing website. You can create your chatbot in Campaigns section of the app.

Keyword Campaigns

Keyword campaigns are easy and effective marketing campaigns that allow customers to text "keywords" and receive automated messages containing discount codes, special offers or more.

Not to mention that once they subscribe you'll be able to send them your normal text message subscriber promotions (text blasts).

Sorting Contacts Into Targeted Groups

To run a successful marketing campaign you're going to need a way to segment your contacts into different groups. Each group will apply to different needs or customer statuses - maybe you have a "Customer" group and a "Prospect" group for example.

There are ways to create groups from a spreadsheet, filter contacts into groups based on custom fields or sort contacts into groups based on form submissions and campaign activity.


MessageDesk for Payments

We all know that getting paid faster is important, but it can be hard to follow up with past due invoices.

Most businesses waste a lot of time manually following up with past due invoices and chasing down payments. It's not uncommon for small business owners to spend hours each week trying to collect money from their clients.

MessageDesk solves this problem by automating invoice collection, sending reminders and past-due notices via text messages directly to your clients' mobile phones so you don't have to chase them down yourself.

Connecting to QuickBooks Online, Xero and MessageDesk Payments

MessageDesk syncs directly with QuickBooks Online & Xero - enabling you to automate invoice reminders, past due notices and thank you message.

Not using QuickBooks Online or Xero? No worries. MessageDesk can manage your invoices & accept payments for you with our native MessageDesk text-2-pay feature.

Once connected to your invoice provider, MessageDesk can automate invoice reminders, send text-2-pay links and send past due notices automatically.

Sending Individual Invoices via Text Message

Once connected to your invoice provider, you'll be able to manually text any invoice to your clients. This way they can pay instantly right from their mobile device.

Once an Invoice is sent you'll be able to see when customers click on the invoice pay link or finalize their payment. You'll get these notifications via email or if you download our mobile app they'll pop up on your phone. By default, you can see the link clicks by going to Plugins -> Short Links in the app.

Automating Payment Reminders, Invoice Payment Reminders and Past Due Notices

One of the default Campaigns MessageDesk offers is automated text messages based on invoice due dates. Once connected to an Invoice provider you'll be able to automate invoice reminders, past due notices and thank you messages.

By default you'll be able to:

  • Send Thank you text anytime an invoice is paid (great for asking for online reviews automatically)

  • Send a text-2-pay message anytime an invoice is created (great for getting paid faster)

  • Send Past Due notices anytime an Invoice is 7 days or 30 days overdue.


MessageDesk for Front Desk Teams

MessageDesk enables your front desk to spend less time leaving voicemails and more time having conversations with your clients. Easily schedule appointment reminders, follow up messages and confirm phone calls all from one simple dashboard without ever picking up a phone.

Text-As-A-Team from your Business Phone Line

MessageDesk plugs right into your existing landline so your front desk team can send text messages from the same phone number clients are already calling you on.

You can start text-enabling your landline by filling out this form. Otherwise MessageDesk provides a different 10-digit phone number to send/receive text messages from. If anybody calls this number we'll forward it to your existing landline.

Once your phone number is set up, your team will use our shared team inbox to send text messages, schedule messages and manage inbound replies.

From the Inbox your teammates can assign conversations to each other, mark conversations Open/Closed, Schedule Messages and use pre-saved message templates.

Appointment Reminders & Text Message Automation

MessageDesk makes it easy to pre-schedule appointment reminder text messages and follow up messages. Saving your staff from spending hours leaving reminder voicemails or reaching out to clients for follow-up appointments.

From the Inbox users can schedule messages to contacts. Either pick a single date or set the message to go out on multiple dates. This is great for sending multiple reminders to clients who tend to no-show.

Once you send the appointment reminder you'll need a way for the contact to CONFIRM or RESCHEDULE without needing to speak with your team.

You can accomplish this in MessageDesk by setting up an Autoresponder for the keywords "CONFIRM" or "RESCHEDULE".

Customer Service Solutions for Front Desk Teams

If you're front desk staff is constantly spending time answering questions and answering phone calls then you may want to set up some customer service automation in MessageDesk.

Here are 2 better customer service workflows powered by MessageDesk

Using Forms to Automate Customer Service

MessageDesk forms are customizable website forms that live on your website and when submitted trigger an automatic text message reply to the contact.

These are great for automating your customer service workflow and letting the customer know right away that their support ticket has been logged and a representative will respond shortly.

Try out MessageDesk Forms for yourself here (this sends an Automatic SMS to you so you can see how it works!)

Text Trees for Automated Customer Support

Text-Trees are just like old-school phone trees but over text message. They're a great way to automate responses to your customers and answer frequently-asked-questions without disrupting your paid employees.

Strategies for Reducing Phone Time

Once you text-enable your front desk, the best thing to do is have staff members always send a text message confirmation prior to making an outbound phone calls.

By sending text messages prior to making phone calls you'll guarantee your team only makes calls that they know will get answered. We've seen teams reduce their phone time by 50% with this strategy.

Out-of-Office Auto Replies

With MessageDesk you can automate out-of-office replies anytime a contact messages you outside of office hours. This will enable you to have immediate responses to customer inquiries at all times of day.

Plus, you can set up Text-Trees in your automated office-hour reply so contacts can still self-help by replying with different keywords.

Did this answer your question?