The number of community associations is constantly growing with more residents desiring a sense of community and shared responsibility. To ensure that a community runs smoothly and to improve the resident experience, communication with residents is critical. Residents expect to receive information about HOA dues, meetings, events, policies, maintenance, emergencies, and other important community information at the tip of their fingers. With many businesses using texting/SMS to connect and engage with their customers, should your community start using text messaging too? In this article, we’ll describe the 4 ways text messaging benefits your community. We’ll also briefly talk about the benefits of HOA texting software.

Cost savings

Traditional communication methods such as postal mail can become expensive over time.  More modern means such as texting can improve operations and staff efficiency. Because text messaging is a lot quicker and easier to implement, it can save communities hundreds or thousands of dollars each year. With HOA texting solutions, it takes only a few clicks to send a message to a group of residents or your entire community. Features in Pilera such as templates and unit-based distribution groups save you time when messaging the same group of individuals.

Convenience

According to Pew, 1 in 3 Americans prefers to receive text messages from a business, irrespective of what the message is about.  Studies also suggest that 85% of individuals prefer a text message over a voice call.  A majority of adults own a mobile phone, making text the most preferred way to receive a message. HOA’s can take advantage of text messaging by encouraging residents to choose how they want to hear from you. With Pilera, residents can receive messages however they choose – text, email, phone, or mail. Additionally, with Pilera’s language translation capabilities, residents can also choose from over 100 languages to receive their text messages in.

Highest open rate

Making sure that residents receive your messages on time is vital to your community’s communication efforts.  Postal mailings often take time to reach residents, and even so, residents may not open their mail consistently every day. Sending an email is a very cost-effective way to reach your residents; however, 20-30% of them are opened. Text messages by far have the highest open rate than any other medium of communication. 99% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes of receiving them, making them one of the most effective ways to reach your residents. 

The communication platform you use should confirm that your residents have received your message.  In Pilera, after you send a message, confirmation delivery analytics on whether someone opened a message or not will be available to you.  

Vital in sending emergency or urgent notices

When there’s an emergency or a situation where residents need to be notified at short notice, such as roadblock or maintenance work, there’s no time to waste.  While email and phone calls are effective methods, there’s nothing as immediate as a text message.  Where it may take days for residents to receive physical mail or a few minutes to send out a voicemail, they’ll receive text messages instantly. 

It’s important that your communication software can handle sending a large volume of emergency messages at short notice.  Pilera’s communication platform is designed to stand the toughest tests.  Our platform has fault protection and retry algorithms to ensure timely delivery.  Features like reverse 911 functionality allow you to send emergency text messages to residents, bypassing their communication preference.  

Improve your communication efforts with HOA text messaging software

Although various modes of communication such as postal mail, email, and phone calls all have their own advantages, text messaging is a faster and more direct way to reach residents. It’s a cost-effective alternative to postal mail.  With the highest open rates of any mode of communication, you’ll see increased resident engagement and improve operations.

Pilera’s automated communications platform allows you to quickly send text messages and know with confidence that your residents have received them. If you’d like to learn how Pilera can improve your communications today, email us at [email protected] or request a demo.

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier property management software that has helped thousands of community managers and back-office personnel enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. May we help your community achieve these success stories? Contact us so you can see how Pilera’s community management suite can increase work efficiency for your company.