A church is a cornerstone of a community. These institutions serve as meeting places, sources of inspiration and comfort, and centers for fundraising and philanthropy.
Churches need a convenient, affordable way to inform their congregations of important announcements and fast updates. The BEST way for churches to communicate is via text messaging, as text messages have an open rate of 99% against emails at 16-20%.
SMS is the fastest and easiest way to reach a large audience, with 98% open rates and 45% conversion rates. You can use text messages to make announcements, remind people about events, and transmit urgent information.
It might seem challenging to choose the right texting service for churches. Switch to Community Phone, the most reliable and affordable landline service that does not need an internet connection or copper wires.
Read on to learn how Community Phone can be the best texting service for your church!
Community Phone - The Best Texting Service for Churches
Landlines' golden charm hasn't faded despite the popularity of cell phones and smartphones. Because of their reliability, exceptional call quality, and security, many businesses and seniors prefer landlines to their modern equivalents.
However, many people will lose their beloved landline forever with large telecom carriers retiring copper wire services, thanks to the FCC guidelines.
If you want to continue using your landline, your options are - to get an expensive bundled digital landline, get an internet-based phone, or switch to Community Phone, the best wireless landline service provider.
What is Community Phone?
Community Phone is a reliable wireless landline provider in the US, fighting to keep the landline alive. With strong coverage across 99% of the US and excellent call quality in rural and low-reception areas, Community Phone is the best alternative for copper landlines and internet-based phones.
Enjoy the reliability of a traditional landline, VoIP-like calling features, and the freedom of wireless access in one.
How Does It Work?
The Community Phone landline base connects your church phones to local cell towers, eliminating the need for copper wires or internet. The built-in antennas on the base amplify the signals to ensure excellent call quality in low-reception areas.
Setting up the landline base takes 30 seconds here's how you or anyone in your church can install it in 2 steps:
1. Plug the landline base into a power outlet.
2. Connect a phone to the phone jack on the base, and you are all set.
Once you power the device and all the lights turn green, you can make unlimited nationwide calls to connect with your congregation.
Church Texting Solutions from Community Phone
Stay in touch with your congregation, keep them informed of important events, send reminders, and ensure maximum participation with Community Phone's landline texting service.
This unique texting service allows you to send text messages from your Church's Community Phone landline to any number you want. Here's how you can send unlimited messages to your congregation:
1. Sign into your Community Phone user portal (all Community Phone subscribers get access to the user portal)
2. Click on landline texting.
3. Click on the "+" symbol and choose the add option.
4. Type in the phone number you want
5. Type the message you want to send
6. Hit enter.
7. And your message will reach the recipient.
Benefits of the Church Texting Solution
While bulk messages have taken over personalized and unique messages, you cannot underestimate the importance of a personal message. Here are the benefits of sending personalized messages through Community Phone's landline texting service:
a) Sending a personalized message to a congregation member, highlighting even the smallest of their contributions, can encourage them to participate in more church events.
b) Sharing success stories via messages with a definite group could motivate others to contribute more.
c) 2-way messaging ensures members can message you to confirm events, participate, and ask questions.
d) Unlimited messages enable the church to get in touch with members from other congregations and invite participation.
e) Get participation in large numbers for church events and never let an event go unnoticed by tapping into the high success rate of text messages.
Community Phone Features for Churches
Here are some key church phone features from Community Phone:
Call Routing
Employees of churches receive various calls daily. Despite each clergy member's unique skills and abilities, they may be unable to answer every question.
Route calls to the appropriate departments or people with the call routing feature. Never miss a chance to connect with a member by programming several phones in your church to ring simultaneously, enabling you or anyone available to answer the call from anywhere in the church.
Or, program the phones in the church to ring in succession if the first number does not answer or is busy.
Custom Dial Menu
Create a great first impression, notify customers of business hours, route the call to voicemail, or answer frequently asked questions with Community Phone's automated answering service that accompanies the custom dial menu.
Talk to Community Phone's business specialists to know how the automated answering service can work more efficiently than a virtual receptionist and save you time and money.
Live Call Transfer
Increase engagement with your congregation and eliminate hold time with the live call transfer feature. Anyone in your church can transfer the call to another extension without placing the caller on hold.
Voicemail-to-email
You can access your voicemails through audio files and transcriptions sent to your email account with the voicemail-to-email feature, so anyone who sees them can reply to missed calls.
Spam Call Blocking
Protect yourself and your church employees from scammers and fraud with the Community Phone spam call-blocking service. The powerful spam call blocker will disconnect and block calls before your church phone rings, ensuring the line remains clear for legitimate callers to get in touch with your church.
Benefits of Switching to Community Phone
Switching to Community Phone's personalized or unlimited plans is easy and quick.
Number Porting: Like churches handhold the people in the community, Community Phone holds your hand until your existing number has been transferred to them, should you decide to port it. Talk to your dedicated Community Phone porting specialist to get more information now!
Unlimited Nationwide Calling: Stay in touch with members, other churches, and officials through unlimited minutes without the fear of a massive phone bill.
Quick Setup: Anyone in your church can set up the Community Phone landline base in 30 seconds. Save time and money on costly installations with Community Phone.
Affordable Plans: Talk to Community Phone's business specialists to get the best deal for your church and your custom quote.
No Contracts or Hidden Charges: Community Phone does not bind you to lengthy contracts or spring hidden charges in phone bills. You pay what you signed up for.
Get the Best Texting Service with Community Phone
The congregation sometimes feels cut off from the church during the weekdays, especially those needing spiritual guidance and prayer.
Similarly, the church may need to contact its congregation immediately in case of an emergency, ask for special donations, or notify them of a particular circumstance that cannot wait until the next meeting.
Church text messaging services like Community Phone make getting a final count for an event or RSVP easy.
Sign Up for the Community Phone Text Messaging Service for Churches
Here's how you can sign up for Community Phone:
1. Call Community Phone customer care at 866-880-5514
2. Get your custom quote.
3. A Community Phone account manager will contact you to help you with the sign-up
4. Choose a new number or port your existing phone number.
5. A dedicated support rep will help you through the porting process.
6. Discuss how to tailor business features for your church with your account manager
7. Your account manager will set up the account and update you on the status.
8. Wait for your Community Phone landline base.
9. Once your account has been activated and the landline base has been installed, you are all set to get in touch with your community and beyond with Community Phone's unlimited minutes.
Why Should Churches Use SMS Messaging?
Despite the popularity of email as business communication, texting has become a valuable tool for many organizations. Churches can utilize texting as one of their most powerful communication tools in the digital age.
Text messages are opened by users 98% of the time, and 90% of them read the text within three minutes of delivery, unlike email, direct mail, and mobile apps. For a few reasons, text messaging services are the future of church communication. SMS messages are
Efficient
The church relies heavily on donations from its members and community to fund its charitable activities. When resources and money are limited, marketing and communications can sometimes fall by the wayside.
Ensure successful outreach to your congregation to request donations or participate in fundraisers with Community Phone's personalized landline texting service. Personalized messages have a higher success rate than bulk impersonal messages.
Affordable
Ads on digital platforms can drive traffic to websites very effectively. Nonetheless, they aren't practical or affordable to increase community engagement.
Small churches can lose important messages in cluttered inboxes or have their spam filtered to the junk folder when they use email. SMS is a cost-effective method of communication, and with Community Phone's unlimited messages, the options are endless.
Appeals to Youth
SMS gives you an excellent chance to reach this demographic, perhaps even more so than preaching in a community, if you want to spread the word about your church's mission or upcoming events.
As your church's communication strategy evolves, texting can become an essential component of your communication strategy. Nearly 75% of Gen-Z and Millennials prefer text over face-to-face conversations. Since youth prefer texting, religious institutions should start actively engaging young people through personalized SMS messaging.
6 Ways Churches Can Use Text Messaging
Learn the top 6 ways churches can use the text messaging service by Community Phone.
Share Quotes, Passages from Bible
Every congregation member should read the Bible and devotionals and pray daily. By sharing scriptures and quotes regularly, your church can encourage congregants to prioritize this practice.
You can hand-pick verses or use an SMS or MMS program or a link to a third-party program, such as the "Read the Bible in a Year" initiative, to send your contacts verses.
Send Reminders
During worship services, event announcements can take time. A text messaging service reduces that time and allows you to dedicate more attention to the service itself.
Text reminders can increase church attendance significantly by reminding congregants when and where to show up and what to bring to events.
Request Prayers
Call out to your congregation to pray for a benevolent cause by sending them the information via text messaging. A personalized message from the church leader has a way of working miracles and increasing prayer participation among members.
Send Church Updates
Send updates related to events, donations, fundraisers, or event cancellations via text messages. If you need only a specific segment of your congregation informed of something, use the landline texting option to inform only those people.
Fundraising and Donation Drive
You can use texting to ask your congregation to donate funds by texting them. You can send them a text that links to your donation page. In addition, you can ask them to text you their donation amount. The text message can include a link to purchase tickets if the fundraiser has a ticketed component.
Engaging People
Keeping tabs on the community through text message polling has proven to be an engaging way for many churches. Through text-to-vote polls, church leaders can understand the interests of their members, the types of events that would be beneficial to them, and what guest speakers they want to hear, and structure events accordingly to build community fabric.
FAQs
What is the best texting program?
Community Phone provides the best texting service for businesses. You can connect with customers using two-way messaging, and text messages are also available for local and toll-free numbers.
Conclusion
Though text messages may sound old-school in the age of tweets, reels, and shorts, you cannot underestimate the effectiveness of texting. Increase your congregation's engagement, participation, and motivation with the Community Phone texting service. Talk to their business specialists today to get your custom quote!