Message Mate

Message Mate is a simple but wonderful slider add-on to your website that advertises a phone number which current and prospective customers can text with one click to reach you or your employees.

People are calling less and texting more. Your customers are no different – they would rather text than call you. In fact, 76% of young adults prefer to interact with companies via texting (and not through calls, emails or blasted contact forms). This is a beneficial trend for your business as well since texting is a more efficient and less distracting means of communication.
Texts also have much higher engagement potential with a 97% open rate, at least three times higher than email.

There are myriad uses for Message Mate – answering questions, accepting reservations, receiving pick-up orders, and soliciting feedback are all examples of great use cases for Message Mate. Feel free to think of others that are relevant for your business. Just ask yourself: what are customers calling or e-mailing me about that is wasting a lot of time and has a relatively simple answer? What might they not reach out about via phone but perhaps would be willing to text? For example, they may shy away from speaking with a salesperson, but they’ll gladly ask for a quote via text. Another great way to use Message Mate is to save on fees that you pay services such as reservation or delivery apps/sites. There is no per transaction fee or per customer fee with Message Mate, just one low monthly fee.

That really depends on how you customize your Message Mate and market the service to customers. You can solicit messages from customers to make a reservation, ask about a product/service, request a price quote etc.

Message Mate sits neatly on all pages of your website so any visitor notices it when they scroll. You can customize the text on the message mate and help steer customers to your preferred use case. In addition to your website, you should tell customers about texting at additional touchpoints: posts on social media, your mailing list, in your store (if you have a physical location), and on your marketing materials. The more you promote texting, the more customers will reach out to you saving you time, money, and leading to more loyalty.

While the Message Mate shares certain features with a live chat – both are text based, usually contain short messages and would typically be between two parties – Message Mate has some unique differentiating features:
-Customers can take the conversation with them on the go – there’s no need to remain connected to a website or maintain a consistent wireless connection. That way you don’t lose customers just because they had to leave that browser session.
-Text messages are asynchronous by nature allowing the customer to continue the conversation at their convenience.
-With Message Mate, you or your employees can respond to customers via text, email or from the web dashboard.
-Unlike a chat where the user has to find the correct web page, with Message Mate a customer only has to know one thing – your number; This is why you should encourage customers to save your Message Mate number to their phone. It will make your business more accessible than ever.

INSTALLATION

Message Mate comes with an OwnerListens account. Simply head to ownerlistens.com/register, complete the short signup flow, and you will see your Message Mate on the last page of registration.

1. Make sure to copy your unique Message Mate Token after creating Message Mate
2. Install the WP plugin, and in the settings page, paste your token where requested
3. Head to your site and check out your Message Mate

We’ll have you up and running in no time! Send us an email to support@ownerlistens.com or text us at 650-825-1166 and we can walk you through the installation. Also, we will gladly send an email to your webmaster explaining what they need to do to get Message Mate up and running on your site.

UPGRADING AND CANCELLATION

We’ll be very sad to see you go but if you must leave us, we want to make it as easy as possible for you. In the User Info section in your Dashboard, there is a link to cancel your account. Your account will become inactive within 12-24 hours. Should you ever wish to come back, just contact us and we will gladly reactivate your account (though we cannot guarantee you will get the same virtual number).

BILLING

No, you do not get charged per message. You are, however, limited to the number of conversations included in your plan. Our basic plan includes 50 conversations per month. We will let you know if you come close to exceeding that number and need to upgrade. You cannot roll over “unused” conversation credits from month to month.

A conversation is an unlimited exchange of messages between the business and a unique user who has not contacted the business during the previous seven calendar days.

PRIVACY

You will see the customer’s phone number but they will not see your personal cell number, only the business texting number. (However, if your messages contain personal information in the text, it will be delivered to the recipient as part of the response).

You control when and if you receive messages to your phone (a.k.a “sleep mode”). When you set up your account, you can choose when you’d like to receive messages to your phone that are sent at night or outside of business hours. You can choose to receive messages as they come in, only during business hours, or at all hours except at night (10:00 PM – 7:00 AM).
*All hours are adjusted to the time zone of the area code you provide for receiving messages by phone.

NUMBERS AND AREA CODES

OwnerListens is dependent on the availability of virtual numbers from its providers. Some area codes are more constricted than others, but we can normally offer a number at least in a neighboring area code.

Message Mate allows you to select an area code and select a number from a pool of available numbers. If you need to change the number after you make your initial selection please contact support@ownerlistens.com. We can assign you a new number but may not be able to provide a specific number and cannot always auto forward messages sent to the old number to your new number.

As part of the signup process you may select an SMS, MMS or toll free number. Please text or call 650-825-1166 or contact support@ownerlistens.com for additional details about pricing and availability.

Yes you can, as part of the signup process. Please text or call 650-825-1166 or contact support@ownerlistens.com for pricing and availability.

Yes you can. We support over 50 countries. Pricing varies depending on each country’s number availability and messaging costs. Please text or call 650-825-1166 or contact support@ownerlistens.com for pricing and availability.

FREE TRIAL DETAILS

The free trial includes all of the features of the plan you choose to try, as if you’re a paying user. For Message Mate, this means full Message Mate functionality, auto responses, rating requests and additional users.

Once the trial period elapses you will no longer be able to respond to customer messages until you sign up for a plan. If you do not sign up for a plan with 30 days from your initial signup date, your number will be deactivated. You will receive an email informing you of this.