How To Send Text Messages Automatically To Missed Calls!

When we first started PhoneWagon we set out to build amazing voice and sms tools that would help businesses win more customers. PhoneWagon is a modern business phone system that tracks calls and texts from marketing efforts and allows your entire team to communicate with customers from a shared inbox on any device. Yes - that means any computer or mobile phone like iOs or Android. We’re the only product on the market that combines a modern business phone system and call tracking software. Our suite of amazing features enables businesses to be more productive, beat the competition, and win more customers.

In this article, we will talk about how to automatically send text messages to missed calls. This is otherwise known as an auto reply. This feature is incredibly important because missed calls are a huge problem today. Whenever there is a missed call, the customer experience is tarnished. The customer will usually not just wait around for you to call them back. If they have an urgent need, most likely they will call a competitor. By sending a text message to missed call, it intercepts them from moving on to the next business. Text messages are the preferred way to communicate by most consumers and sending a text message to a missed call now engages them in a conversation that you might have not been able to have if you didn’t send them an automated text message.

Missed Phone Calls Are Hurting Your Business

The first reason I’m so excited about this feature of our modern business phone system and call tracking software is because small business owners don’t answer 62% of phone calls (link). Yes – over 60% of the time the phone calls will result in a missed call. This costs businesses billions of dollars per year in lost revenue, according to this study. Besides the obvious studies that have proven this, I also know this from personal experience. Last week I wrote an article for Capterra about my experience generating leads for a business that wasn’t answering the phone. There were a lot of inbound phone call leads but they ended up being missed calls since the business owner was not answering the phone call. I also don't think he ever checked his voicemail or called them back. It was incredibly frustrating and a huge waste of marketing efforts. I also wrote how simply answering the phone more often can double your revenue.

Consumers Want To Text

The second reason I’m excited about this feature is because I know that nine out of ten consumers would like to be able to use text messaging to communicate with businesses, according to a study from Twilio. Rarely in my personal life do I use a phone call as a communication method and I find it a bit annoying when that’s the only option for communicating with businesses. After all, everyone is walking around with iPhones these days and is more than capable to communicating in other methods besides just voice phone calls. That said, there is a way to turn these new trends into a win-win for both you and the customer.Let me show you how you can setup up an automated text message for missed calls in 4 easy steps:

Step 1: Go to ‘My Numbers’ Page

When you first log in to your PhoneWagon account you will be in the “Inbox” section. You need to click on “Numbers” to select the tracked phone number that you want to configure for an automated text message to send to missed calls. This means that when there is an incoming call and you have a reply message setup, our system will send sms text to their phone if the call is missed.

Step 2: Click on phone number to configure automation

Once you’re on the “Numbers” page, you need to select the number that you want to setup an automated text message to send to missed calls. Right now you need to setup the automation for each phone number individually.  This was done deliberately because a lot of our customers only want to send text messages to missed calls for certain campaigns. Alternatively, you may want to send different text messages to missed calls for different campaigns. This is something that you are not able to do in any other system including Google Voice.

Step 3: Click gear icon to setup automation rules

Once you have selected the phone number that you want to setup the automated text message to send to missed calls for, simply click the gear icon to configure the automation rule.

Step 4: Check the box to turn on automation and customize the text message

This is where you actually turn on the automation for each phone number. You can enable an automated text message (or sms message) to send to missed calls for only new customers (someone that has never called you before) and/or for existing customers (someone who has called you previously). After you turn these on, you can type a custom auto-response which will send an automatic sms to the missed calls or you can select a text message from a saved text message template.

Now that you have setup your automation to send an automated text message to missed calls, a text message will be sent every time there is a missed call. It will either send the template for “new customers” or “existing customers” based on whether the customer has called you before or not. This is vaguely similar to the functionality on your Apple iPhone or Android phone or Android app where you can send a quick text to someone that is calling you. The difference with our reply feature is that you don't have to have your cellphone or any other gadget on you for this to work. Unlike those other phone features where you are holding your phone and see the call on the caller id and manually select an sms auto to send to the person you didn't want to talk to. The PhoneWagon automated text message to missed calls sends automatically without any workaround, new features, heavy FAQ sections, trying to connect to wifi so you can send a whatsapp to your friend to get help. Ours just works. And it works every time. Flawlessly.I cannot emphasize enough how important this feature is. Typically customers would simply move on to the next business on the list if you didn’t answer the phone call or if there was a missed call. This automation feature prevents them from doing that. You will win more customers. You will increase your revenue. It’s huge.

Take a sneak peak inside the PhoneWagon Inbox

If you have any questions about this feature or need help setting up your automated text message to missed calls, you can reach us from Gmail or any email provider by emailing us at sales@phonewagon.com. Happy to help in any way that I can.If you’re interested in giving this a test run and seeing how it can help you win more customers, feel free to sign up for a 14-day free trial.