What is Call Center SMS?

How Call Center SMS Works: Benefits and Considerations

More than 50% of consumers say they’d rather text a customer support agent than call them.

Customers don’t want to wait, and often, they don’t want to call businesses at all…

Which can present a problem for call centers.

As more and more businesses begin to meet customers on their smartphones, the traditional call center model is faced with a challenge. 

With 98% open rates and response speeds often under 30 minutes, SMS is an incredible channel for customer engagement.

With demand for SMS communication rising, call centers are starting to provide texting as an option in order to meet customer preferences, reduce call volume, improve customer satisfaction, and decrease wait times. At the same time, call center SMS comes with unique challenges and considerations. 

This article will break down call center SMS, including benefits, considerations, and when call center SMS solutions come into play.

TL;DR and video summary

As customers have come to increasingly prefer text, call center SMS adds texting as a channel for call center operations.

Texting has many benefits for call centers, including reducing call volumes and wait times, improving CSAT, increasing FCR rates, and meeting customer preferences.

Manual call center SMS requires agents to text customers in addition to taking calls, which raises concerns related to agent bandwidth, inconsistencies, and compliance.

Instead, many companies opt for call center SMS solutions, which can involve AI that texts customers for you and hands conversations off to agents when necessary.

These solutions benefit call centers, employees, and customers by providing the value of SMS without the drawbacks, including speeding up handle time, improving customer experience, and promoting self-service without draining resources.

What is call center SMS?

Call center SMS expands communication to include texting. With call center SMS, your call center team interacts with customers via text rather than just phone calls. 

For many consumers, SMS is more convenient and low-effort than a voice call. Call center SMS enables your contact center to meet customers right when they are ready, where they are: on their smartphones.

Via text, customers are able to do everything they normally would by contacting a call center: get support, ask questions, get updates, book or change appointments, and so on.

With this channel, agents can handle multiple inquiries at the same time—which can simultaneously drive down wait times but increase pressure on agents.

Generally, call center SMS does not completely replace phone calls, but offers a high-demand option of texting, which often better aligns with consumers’ preferences and schedules.

What are the benefits of call center SMS?

For call centers, incorporating texting as an option adds greater flexibility and control on the consumer side, as well as new internal efficiencies. Benefits of call center SMS include:

Reduced call volume

By offering SMS as a channel, call centers can naturally decrease call volumes. Texting works well for simple inquiries or gathering information before a call. Using this channel can clear up the queue, streamline information gathering, and reduce wait times.

Improved customer satisfaction (CSAT)

As 77% of people want to text for customer service, providing SMS communication at your call center is a smart move to improve customer satisfaction metrics. Texting is also a more low-effort, flexible channel than a phone call (especially if wait times are long), leading to better customer effort scores (CES). With SMS, customers are more likely to receive faster service on the channel that they prefer.

Less wait time

90% of customers report that quick responses are critical. Feeding into a better customer experience, texting also reduces wait times by decreasing call volumes, obtaining customer information via SMS, and facilitating faster replies. When agents can handle multiple conversations at once via text, they can reply quicker to incoming inquiries.

Reduced abandonment rate

Faster service can also help with abandonment rates: customers who hang up before talking to anyone. This usually happens due to long wait times or complex IVRs. For every call center, abandonment rate is a vital metric. Texting can reduce abandonment rates because of lower wait times and the ability to reply at any moment rather than sitting on hold.

Increased FCR rate

First call resolution (FCR) rate, or the number of inquiries that are resolved in the first call, is another crucial metric for any call center. Texting can help boost these numbers by enabling agents to gain information about the customer and their needs or concerns via text before actually getting on a voice call. If and when a call is necessary, agents are more likely to be prepared, informed, and equipped to actually solve the issue right away. 

Conversation histories

Depending on your call center software, you may not have easy access to call transcriptions—even then, conversation histories aren’t visible to the customer. With texting, conversation histories are easy to see for management, agents, and customers so everyone is on the same page. This helps agents and customers keep track of what was said and allows management to easily see performance, common inquiries, and agent responses.

Less missed calls

According to research by Invoca, 26-60% of call center calls are never answered. SMS enables your team to provide a reply within a few minutes rather than having to answer every single call within the 15-30 seconds that it rings, or place customers on long holds.

Better customer engagement

For both inbound and outbound engagement, texting wins over calling. For inbound, it offers greater flexibility, control, and convenience for customers. Outbound sees similar benefits, with texting being perceived as less invasive than calling because it can identify the sender and reason for the outreach right away. 

There’s a reason why outbound call answer rates are 13% and Verse’s texting-first outbound call answer rate is 57%. Outbound calls to consumers can easily be marked as spam and perceived as mysterious—often with no call back and voicemails that are never listened to.

What to consider when implementing call center SMS

While texting sounds like a simple thing to implement, it can quickly become messy and disorganized without the proper technology or strategy in place. Before offering SMS, call center leaders must consider:

Slow response time from customers

Anyone that texts friends or family knows that some people reply lightning fast, and some people take days. The same thing can happen with customers, which can make it difficult for agents to balance conversations. 

When customers take a long time to reply (hours to days), agents must not forget to reply, remember the context of the conversation (especially if multiple reps are handling one conversation), and reply quickly. The kicker here is that regardless of their response time, customers always expect a prompt response from a business, so it’s still important that your replies are swift.

Agent bandwidth

For reasons like this, agent bandwidth is a huge concern when it comes to agent-led call center SMS. While SMS can reduce call volumes, it does not replace calls entirely. 

This means that call center agents will have to:

• Juggle multiple SMS conversations
• Reply quickly to each one 
• Engage in SMS to call workflows when necessary
• Continue to answer incoming calls

This can be a lot of work and stretch agents thin, so it’s vital to:

• Conduct necessary training
• Create scripts, processes, and protocols
• Ensure adequate call center staffing
• Set reasonable and clear expectations

Inconsistency

Without proper training, staffing, and strategy, call center SMS can become an inconsistent experience for the customer—and nobody wants that. 

For example, SMS can fall short when:

• Agents miss or forget text messages
• Conversations are handled by multiple agents, creating confusion
• Scripts are not followed correctly
• Customers need to repeat themselves over the phone after engaging in a text conversation
• There are long wait times for SMS replies

When conversations are handled by multiple agents, it’s vital that customer information is correctly tracked and there is no inconsistency in the conversation, including tone, information, context, and messaging. 

Missed messages

It’s absolutely crucial that every message gets a reply, and that replies are sent in a timely fashion. If messages are forgotten, that completely defeats the purpose of texting: to contact customers quickly, in a way that works for them. Feeling forgotten and neglected will only contribute to a negative experience.

In addition, replies should be fast. The importance of speedy replies is well documented:

• In a survey, 53% of people cited waiting too long for replies as the most frustrating part of interacting with businesses. 
• Research by HubSpot showed that 66% of buyers expect a response within 10 minutes to any marketing, sales, or customer service inquiry. 
• Another study showed that leads are 21x more likely to convert if contacted within 5 minutes.

In order to maximize results, agents should reply to texts in five minutes or less.

Compliance

SMS compliance differs from phone and email compliance, and still requires companies to follow the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), state “mini” TCPAs, as well as FCC regulations. Information exchanged via text must also be private and confidential. With TCPA violations such as lack of proper opt-ins costing up to $20,000 each, call centers using SMS must:

• Establish compliance training 
• Only text customers that are properly opted in
• Protect customer data
• Provide clear and functional opt-outs

These are a few examples, and do not constitute a full list of TCPA requirements for texting, nor legal advice. The bottom line is that agents who are improperly trained, or decide to send one-off texts, can become a liability in terms of compliance, and this is a key consideration when texting customers.

Call center SMS solutions

If you’re feeling conflicted about or intimidated by implementing texting at your call center, don’t worry. There are plenty of software solutions for call center SMS. 

SMS solutions built for call centers help solve common problems that arise when implementing texting for call centers. These solutions work by either facilitating agent-led texting or actively helping agents with the workload of SMS.

Basic texting platforms, which allow agents to text from a number associated with your business, can help by centralizing information and streamlining SMS conversation in one platform.

Fully-managed texting platforms, like Verse, go a step further. Fully-managed solutions actually manage customer conversations for you in a customizable capacity, meaning that your agents can take over at a certain point: whether that be the lead is qualified, support issue data is gathered, or the customer is ready for a call. For example, fully-managed platforms can handle the texting side, while agents receive inbound calls with all the information already in their CRM.

AI platforms like Verse use the power of AI to supplement your agents by having AI-led text conversations, and then handing conversations off to agents when customers have been engaged and qualified. AI solutions are advantageous because they:

• Provide instant SMS response 24/7
• Use customizable scripts to ensure consistent and compliant messaging
• Qualify and route leads automatically
• Never miss an SMS
• Can be set to follow up if a conversation goes silent
• Gather basic information and feed it into your CRM or call center software
• Scaling SMS

These solutions benefit call centers, employees, and customers by providing SMS in a time and cost-efficient manner, speeding up handle time, and promoting self-service without draining agents’ resources.

Use cases for call center SMS solutions

For call centers that want to offer SMS without drawbacks, SMS solutions can become central to your operations. AI-powered texting can help call centers reap the benefits without stretching agents too thin: reducing call volume, meeting customer expectations, and scaling faster. Here are a few examples of how these solutions can work for various industries.

 

Home services

For home services businesses like HVAC, plumbing, solar, and pest control, customers expect instant updates and easy scheduling. AI texting for call centers can reduce inbound calls, improve show rates, and ensure no lead goes uncontacted after hours with:

• Instant response to new service requests or quote inquiries
• Automated scheduling and appointment reminders
• Job status updates and technician ETAs via text

 

Insurance

Insurance call centers are often overloaded, especially during renewal season or weather-related claim surges. AI for call center SMS helps agents deliver fast, accurate support while remaining compliant.

Use cases for insurance include:

• Automated quote follow-up via SMS
• Claims status updates and documentation collection
• Renewal reminders and policy education
• Intelligent triage to connect customers with the right licensed agent

 

Customer support BPOs

For high-volume outsourced call centers, AI SMS offers scalable, consistent customer service without increasing FTE costs.

SMS solutions enhance performance while improving customer satisfaction by:

• Handling Tier 1 support inquiries via automated text
• Offering after-hours customer support without live agents
• Reducing average handle time by shifting simple questions to SMS
• Integrating SMS into omnichannel strategies alongside voice and chat

 

Healthcare

Healthcare call centers need to balance HIPAA compliance with quick and clear communication. While full clinical care isn’t handled over text, AI SMS is ideal for non-sensitive interactions.

Healthcare use cases include:

• Appointment confirmations and rescheduling
• Waitlist or referral updates
• Eligibility checks and document requests

 

Financial services

In financial services, SMS solutions for call centers help engage customers quickly without overloading your call center.

Common insurance use cases:

• Following up on loan or credit card applications
• Verifying income or identity through secure links
• Appointment reminders
• Routing customers to the correct specialist

 

Call center SMS: FAQ

What is call center SMS?

Call center SMS allows call centers to engage customers via text instead of just phone calls. Directly from their smartphone, customers can reach a call center to book appointments, ask questions, receive updates or support, and more.

Does call center SMS replace phone calls completely?

No. SMS complements phone calls. While many issues can be handled via text, more complex or sensitive matters may still require a phone conversation with a live agent.

Do customers prefer texting over calling?

Yes, most consumers tend to prefer texting over calling. Texting is more convenient, faster, and less disruptive than calling. It also allows customers to multitask and respond at their own pace, which aligns better with modern schedules.

How does call center SMS help reduce call volume?

By shifting simple inquiries and routine updates to text, call centers free up phone lines for higher-value or more complex conversations, reducing wait times and abandonment rates.

What are the biggest challenges of SMS in call centers?

Manual SMS can stretch agents thin, create inconsistent experiences, lead to missed or forgotten messages, and expose companies to compliance risks. SMS solutions, like Verse, can help call centers overcome these challenges by managing SMS conversations.

How does AI-powered SMS work in call centers?

AI-powered SMS platforms (like Verse) automatically respond to customer inquiries, qualify and route leads, and even follow up if a conversation goes silent. Once the AI has collected the necessary information, it hands it off to a live agent with full context.

Key takeaways: Call center SMS