Two weeks ago I wrote about fax, last week I wrote about voice and this week I will write about text.   While most of us have “heard” that texting is decreasing, it’s important to understand what the definition of texting is in that context.  Sure, text in the context of carrier based person to person SMS texting is declining.  But if you add in the various incarnations of the text “substitutes”, or messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Apple Message, Skype, Jabber, HipChat, etc. the amount of messaging is increasing.   And if you consider application to person  (A2P) SMS texting, where for instance your airline will text you with updates on your flight delay, then A2P texting is a large market and is also increasing.

And like voice, my perspective is that text will become, or really already has become, an important element of another application.   It’s just not really going to grow as a standalone application.   One will text, and then one will make calls as part of it.  Or some AI engine will data mine some messaging and then do something interesting (or not so interesting).

So where is this going from a business perspective?   Text could become a platform from which other services are launched. A2P texting already occurs, but what if a person texted back to the contact center.   If it’s an accepted way into the contact center, like voice, or like the internet, then just like those avenues of contact, text must integrate itself fully into the contact center so that what voice, or online can do, such as purchase, or return, or find out the status of something, or integrate to your CRM, or archive the interaction, then text must do.  So there must be secure texting to exchange whatever information a business requires in order to make it a full function avenue of contact and the interaction must be treated like the other integrations for compliance purposes.