Based on our experience, the below suggestions are best practice when contacting your customers via Voice SMS / text to speech.

Test your message

Do a test message to check that the message reads correctly before sending it to a large number of customers.

Message content

• Remember to include your company name, preferably near the start as it can keep customers listening
• Consider repeating the name at the end of your message, as if your message is left on an answer machine then the start may not have been recorded
• Make the message as clear as possible, remembering that the recipient might not be expecting a voice message
• It may be worth entering your message twice so recipients can capture any details they missed on the repeat.

Sender ID

Regulations mean that a numerical Sender ID needs to be displayed for recipients. Make this your business contact number, so if the recipient needs to call you back they can easily via their phone’s functions.

If you use an alpha Sender ID, we have to change it to our number meaning your customer can’t call you back. We will endeavour to email you with the message they leave, but this will only be during normal working hours, so anything urgent may be missed.

Speed and spelling

Without punctuation, messages can be read quite quickly and recipients may miss some information. Slow down your messages using punctuation, and don’t worry about it being grammatically correct; just think about how it sounds.

If you need to spell a word out loud or give a reference number, leave spaces in between the characters. For example if your company is called ‘ABC’ you would type ‘A B C’ so the letters are read out individually.

Use audible words to ensure the message is read as you intend it. For example, a full stop will not be read out loud – it will be a pause in the sentence, so for a web address type ‘w w w dot Esendex dot co dot u k’.

Feel free to contact us to discuss this further if you need any further assistance, or have any additional requirements.