Texting – We Are About To Call

I had one of our clients use an interesting banking example the other day. Initially, I was a little skeptical, but after an incident this morning, maybe there is a place.

They said their bank lets you opt-in to receive a text message right before they call you. It says something like “This is your bank. We are about to call you about your account.” Therefore, you are more likely to answer the 800# call you get on your mobile phone.

My immediate question is why doesn’t the 800# have a caller ID that shows who is calling. This can be a significant factor in getting people to answer the phone.

So, late Sunday night, I get a message from an 800#. I don’t listen to it until I get up at 4am this morning to catch a flight. Well, it was from American Airlines saying that they had cancelled my non-stop 6:45 flight and rescheduled me on a flight through Chicago that gets me there over 2 hours later. Since I have a 2-hour drive from that airport, I was a little panicked that I would miss a big presentation. I ran to the PC; found a new flight on Southwest that got me to a smaller, but closer airport; packed a bag since I was now going to spend the night; and went to the airport.

Had American texted me last night, I might have answered the phone and/or I would have read the text before crashing.