Inland Revenue has just finished using its first SMS campaign to let the public know about its Working for Families initative. The text channel allowed families to check their eligibility for the assistance package by texting.
In an effort to communicate with such a large number of potentially eligible customers, Inland Revenue began the text initiative back in January. It was developed and maintained by mobile enablement company Run The Red. Families were able to text their postal details to code 473 and subsequently have an information pack sent out to them. Both the text message and information pack were free.
Since the campaign started more than 56 per cent of the 36,620 family assistance registration packs issued via automated channels were due to requests via the text channel. Inland Revenue’s National Manager Social Assistance Vaughan Crouch highlights the ease of use as a catalyst. “One of our aims for using texting was to make it as easy as possible for customers to register for family assistance. Texting has helped us achieve this, and it has proved to be a channel that many of our customers have preferred to use”.
Inland Revenue is currently developing an approach for different outbound contact channels, which includes opportunities to use texting again. However no decisions have been made about when text will be introduced as past of ongoing service options. Although this is the first time such a scheme has been implemented by Inland Revenue, Run The Red director business partnerships Ben Northrop sees a future for the service. “By providing a text channel Inland Revenue not only offers its customers another simple and discreet means of communicating, but it also has the potential to reduce the cost of its call centres.”
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