Garage Door Co Repair Pros is glad to announce that our main office landline phones can accept text messages (either SMS or MMS) as of 03/20/2017. Although we have had SMS text messaging only on one of our alternate lines for several years it required the use of a different phone number. That service provider would only accept SMS but not MMS (ie no pictures). We regularly get calls from customers who would like to send a picture of the part they need or door condition etc. Previously we would have to have them sent as email. We will continue to accept those requests via email but many people prefer to simply text.
Although our Skokie office phone (847) 329-8300 and our Park Ridge office phone (847) 823-8300 remain landlines with the same carrier we have had for over 20 years, our new text service provider has enabled SMS and MMS to both phones. We wanted to keep the phones with a regulated CLEC and not with just a VOIP provider. This new solution allows us to do just that. Unlike regular text messaging (usually to a cell phone) this service allows the messages to appear on multiple computers, via web access, and on phone app at the same time This eliminates the primary drawback to text messaging for business use.
We intend to provide technician arrival updates and status updates to our customers via text since it can be more efficient than calling or email in some situations. If you do not want us to text you simply let us know and we will block your phone from our new system.
Our new service is provided by Zipwhip BUT we choose to use a reseller for their dashboard features so we can monitor text messages to either phone from the same computer with a single login. We intend to use the API system to incorporate message sending for our field techs directly into AIMS our in house accounting system. The reseller we choose was Textbox whose website is Textbox site here from Line1 Communications. Thanks to John and Megan for their assistance in deploying this solution. BTW they are very responsive and the pricing is better than from Zipwhip directly.