General Communications from e-txt

“For Saros the benefit of e-txt™ is the immediacy of a text message.  It enables us to get the interception of a phone call -i.e. we control the timing and content - without the cost or intrusiveness of a phone call.  For our work, we use SMS to invite or remind people about research events - for the invites, the lack of irritation/ intrusiveness is key:  Recipients can review the message at leisure and respond if they want more information, at a time that suits them.

For reminders of events people are registered for, it's the timing that's paramount... we are always striving to improve turnout rates at our events, and there's nothing like a quick beep in their own pocket, confirming the address etc, to get people turning up at the right time and place!”
 
Maya Middlemiss
Saros Research Ltd

“We own a shooting club. Through SMS we are in a position to inform directly and immediately, with the push of a button, all our club members of the activities of the club and future special events and also sending our regards on special days like Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc. to individual or group members. Keep up the good work”.
 
Dimitrios Kopelakis
East Attica Shooting Club
Greece

“I run courses for the examinations legally required to have a Licence to run a licensed premises or retail alcohol in England or Wales. I also run four day courses for the examination, again legally required, for a Licence issued by the Security Industry Association (SIA) to Door Supervisors.

About two years ago I started to use e-txt™ to send exam style multiple choice questions to the Students' mobile 'phone.

This has a two fold purpose:

• It is a constant reminder to the Student that some studying has to be done.
• It adds some purpose to the reading in that they are looking for a specific answer rather than just wading through the manual.

The advantage over an email is that it is hard to ignore a mobile ringing three times a day.

This system has been very well received by Students over the last two years.

From my point of view it is a totally manageable and financially viable system.”

Martyn Everett

“We use e-txt™ to contact clients when we are cancelling or rescheduling classes. All students at our colleges have mobile phones and this is the easiest way to contact them at short notice. We also use the system for social event updates, party invites and college news.”

Luke Simmons
Malvern House International

“We have been using e-txt™ for about 8 months with its main aim being improved communication with 6th form students. We have piloted the implementation with about 45 year 12 and 13 students studying ICT, and their parents.

These were grouped by the course studied and year of study, allowing texts to be sent to individuals or groups of students/parents easily.
 
Typical types of usage are:

-          to alert parent to upcoming coursework submission dates

-          to let students know of lesson/room changes

-          to remind students of hand in dates

-          to get feedback from students on brief surveys

-          to allow students to communicate information back to teachers

We’ve found a number of benefits which make this a preferred method of communication over email in some circumstances:

-          speed of communication

-          availability of communication (students check their texts far more frequently than their emails)

-          ability of students to communicate with teachers without revealing the teachers’ personal mobile numbers

-          parental involvement

Parents and students seem very supportive and costs of texting back have not been an issue.“

Stuart Firth
St. Joseph’s College

“My company is TheatreServe and I provide production management and other support services within the world of theatre.  I use casual personnel and rely on e-txt™ to check crew availability and give crew calls – especially useful as the messages are waiting for them when they reach a break on their current work or after a show.”

Geoff Wheatley
TheatreServe

“e-txt™ is an utterly brilliant tool we use to communicate with our ‘harder to get hold of’ students. Working in sandwich placements, and being the middle woman between student and employer, you would think that they would want to respond to your emails/pick up the phone when you try to get in touch about employers / interviews. However, this is not always the case….luckily help is at hand in the form of e-txt™; even when students don’t check their emails or pick up their phones, we know they will always pick up a text. Thanks for providing this great communication tool!”

Jenny Perreau
Placement and Employment Administrator
Nottingham Trent University

Southampton Solent University’s Study Assistance and Disability Support department offers a free and confidential service available to students enrolled at Southampton Solent University

“We always preferred our students to use the university email which we have set up for them”, “but students often prefer to use their own internet email addresses instead and that can be an unreliable means of contacting them.  Leaving messages on voicemail could be equally unreliable if they do not check their mailbox for some time.

Texting gets straight to them and we get a better response than before, with the text facility being fully integrated into our database system we can both trigger and record contacts automatically.
The text messaging software certainly gives us what we need within Support Services, and in time other departments could follow suit.

People around the campus sound quite warm about using text messages - depending on its success at the beginning of the new academic year.  If it works well then it could spin-out into other departments.  I’m sure the library would be keen on a service to let students know when reserved books are available or other books are overdue!” 

John Craig
Southhampton Solent University

“I use e-txt™ in a number of ways:
• to send out updates to members who have joined FORCES FITNESS
• to confirm appointments 24hrs before with prospective members
• to send out information to prospective members special offers and new services

My company has been operational since early January and I definitely made the right choice when deciding to go with Dynmark and use e-txt™, it has aided me in closing a number of sales and helps me keep in touch with my members regularly.”

Sean Molino
Forces Fitness

“We use e-txt™ to support young people with eating disorders. A text is much less daunting to send then speaking to someone, but once the dialog is started then we can offer to call them. In texts we provide a listening ear, answer questions and signpost young people to the help they need. We use the e-txt™ rules to automatically reply with an ‘Out of office’ text.”

Chris Whiting
BEAT

“I work in Medicine at Queen’s University Belfast and I use e-txt™ to contact doctors who are away from the office.  It is quick and easy to send a message, I know it won’t disturb them if they are with patients and they can get back to me when they are free.  

I also use it to contact students who may be at lectures or clinical teaching again it is quick and easy and they can call me back when it is convenient.”

Eveline Burns
Queen’s University

“We normally send out email shots to all members on a regular basis. With e-txt™, our association's profile has grown as we are able to send out text messages whenever necessary. What has particularly impressed the members is the unique sender identity that only e-txt™ provides. Most members immediately identify the incoming text as coming from our association thereby prompting them to read it instead of deleting the message.

As the administrator, I find it extremely easy to send out texts to all or selected members of the association based on need, primarily due to the user-friendly interface.
 
While our association is widely varied and diverse, we are all thankful to be united by e-txt™ from Dynmark.”
 
 
Michael Duque
PNA-UK