Txtlocal Review – Corporate & Business SMS to connect with your audience

Who are Txtlocal Ltd?

Txtlocal, started in 2004, has quickly grown to become one of the UK’s leading bulk SMS marketing services with over 40000 business clients. Their service includes providing business SMS text marketing and communications for all sizes of business, including many major global brands. Their client base includes Sainsbury’s, Castrol, L’Oreal, Subway, Toyota, Nationwide, Axa and Domino’s Pizza to name a few. They have clients both large and small in almost every industry – from supermarkets to casino’s, government, insurance, hairdresser’s, restaurants and newsagents.

What do they offer?

Txtlocal offer a free account online and we managed to sign up in under 2 minutes. Simply enter a few details and a confirmation pin is sent to your mobile phone which you then use to activate your account. We received 10 free credits to trial the service which were very useful to have a play around with. Inside our account we had access to a range of facilities which included setting up auto-responders, importing our customer database into the system and creating different groups for different types of client. We had use of an email to SMS gateway, forwarding of business SMS to our emails and sending SMS via email which was really handy. If you want to integrate SMS into your own website and use it in applications there is a feature-rich API which extends the functionality immeasurably. We even had use of a keyword on a shared number where prospects could text in the word, say ‘skiing’ and automatically join one of our groups.

User experience

One thing that stood out about Txtlocal from other competitors offerings and that was the extremely user-friendly and intuitive interface they have. The layout is clear and crisp, everything is where you expect it would be and navigating the interface is quick and effortless. You don’t have to be technically minded to understand the software, it is a real pleasure to use and we managed to set up and send our first campaign in under 15 minutes. It is easy to see why they have grown so quickly over such a short time to become a dominant force in the industry.

Pricing

Texts are referred to as ‘credits’ and are sold in non-expiring bundles ranging from 100 to 100,000 and we found pricing to be competitive. The credits are automatically deducted from your balance as they are used and you can always see how many you have left in the interface. This pay as you go system is a great way of keeping you in control of your budget whilst being easily scalable with your business. You can set up a dedicated inbound number for 2-way SMS which has a very competitive £35 monthly fee. A dedicated business SMS short code can be purchased from only £25 a month. You can set up the sending and receiving of MMS messages and premium SMS short codes too for very reasonable prices.

Customer service

We were overwhelmed by the first-class support offered by Txtlocal and any questions we had were quickly answered by email, on the forum and over the phone. The staff were very friendly and happy to answer even basic questions we had. There is full documentation on all parts of the service available to download with detailed explanations on how to use the software. The instructional videos on the site were really helpful and provided a simple visual explanation which we could implement straight away.

Overall

Txtlocal provide a powerful and versatile platform for businesses to market, communicate and/or create income from. From the user-friendly interface and feature-rich software to the exceptional customer service, we found the whole experience to be very empowering. Txtlocal also received a PC Pro Recommended award as their SMS service of choice which just reinforces our assessment that they are a great choice of SMS provider.