Personalized texting is fast emerging as a popular communication channel between businesses and their customers. As the popularity of this channel increases, so does the availability of platforms that provide this service.
With so many options out there, we know it’s a challenge for you to narrow down the one platform that fulfills all your text-based customer engagement needs. To help simplify the process of selecting the best option that suits your business needs, we’ve come up with a comparative overview of 6 of the most popular business texting platforms in today’s marketplace.
This article seeks to provide readers with a no-holds-barred, unbiased comparison between Statflo’s TextKit and 5 other key competitors in the business text messaging sphere.
TextKit vs Zipwhip
Zipwhip is one of the most well-known players in the business texting space. They are primarily known for their ability to enable texting from existing landlines, VoIP, and toll-free phone numbers.
Zipwhip has similar features that overlap with Statflo’s TextKit, including:
1. Personalization
Both platforms allow you to send personalized messages with the help of custom fields and customizable signatures.
2. Analytics
Zipwhip, like TextKit, gives you the ability to track and optimize the performance of text messages.
3. Multimedia Messaging
It’s possible to share pictures, gifs, emojis, links, and other media with your customers via a text message conversation using both the platforms.
4. Enterprise-grade APIs
You can build your own texting solutions with a flexible range of developer tools with TextKit as well as Zipwhip.
5. Data security
TextKit and Zipwhip are SOC 2 Type II compliant. This means both platforms have established and continue to follow enterprise-grade security procedures pertaining to customer data.
However, TextKit outperforms Zipwhip in the following categories:
1. Compliance
TextKit has built-in layers of security including spell check and smart filtering, which blocks the sending and receiving of profanity and other words/phrases that may be deemed as offensive or inappropriate. This industry-leading compliance feature ensures that users are adhering to brand and legal compliance – an ability that Zipwhip lacks.
2. Flexibility
TextKit has configurable widgets which trump Zipwhip’s rigid and one-size-fits-all user interface. TextKit’s open APIs and SDKs place you in complete control over the data your team can see within the platform by enabling you to directly integrate data from your existing systems.
3. Wider choice of content
TextKit’s sendables allow your team to go beyond SMS and MMS by giving the ability to send secure links, images, request e-signatures, send appointment links, and so much more.
But, Zipwhip has an upper-hand over TextKit in some functionalities, like:
1. Mass texting capabilities
With Zipwhip, you can send bulk messages to their customers. TextKit endorses one-to-one, personalized conversations with customers and hence is not currently equipped with mass texting features.
2. Auto-response function
Zipwhip gives you the option of setting up auto-replies to incoming messages. TextKit does not recommend automated replies as that might violate compliance filters.
TextKit vs Podium
A familiar name in the customer engagement space, Podium is a platform geared around helping businesses improve their customer experience with text messaging, reviews, sentiment analysis and more.
There is a certain degree of overlap between the features of TextKit and Podium, with both having the capability of:
1. Multi-channel messaging
Both TextKit and Podium unify all messaging channels within a single platform to streamline customer conversations.
2. Reporting/Analytics
With both TextKit and Podium, you can track and monitor the performance of all your text messaging campaigns.
3. Surveys and Polls over text
Both TextKit andPodium are equipped with functionalities that allow users to send surveys and polls to customers in text conversations to garner feedback and reviews.
Where TextKit outperforms Podium:
1. Interactive content
TextKit has a built-in functionality called ‘sendables’ that allows users to send interactive content over text messages. Podium lacks the functionality to send content beyond MMS and polls/surveys.
2. Audience segmentation
You can hook TextKit into your existing campaigns from CRMs as well as create your own hyper-targeted outreach campaigns based on audience segmentation. Podium has very limited capabilities for user segmentation and individual customization.
But Podium has some additional features, like:
1. Team chat
Podium consolidates internal communications as well customer conversations in the same platform so that teams can collaborate on external conversations. TextKit encourages its users to develop a one-to-one relationship with their customers. Because of this approach, admins can assign contacts to their team members but team members cannot share and collaborate on customer conversations.
2. Live Web-chat
With Podium’s web-chat feature, users can convert live website chats to text conversations. TextKit is currently not equipped with a web-chat feature.
Podium, though shares features and capabilities with TextKit, primarily falls under the genre of a reputation management platform. The platform’s use cases are very specific to businesses that need to interact with customers with the goal of controlling their online reputation. TextKit comes with similar functionalities but allows enterprises to accomplish a wide variety of goals in addition to collecting customer feedback.
TextKit vs Zingle
Zingle is a messaging-based customer engagement platform for SMBs and enterprise companies.
Here are some of the features that TextKit and Zingle have in common:
1. API integrations
Both platforms facilitate API-powered integrations with a wide variety of system integrators or independent software vendors. This gives you the ability to come up with your own version of a business text messaging solution tailored to your unique business needs.
2. Multichannel communication
Zingle, like TextKit, empowers you with multi-channel messaging features to engage your customers in a single conversation thread across popular messaging channels.
3. Two-way messaging
As both platforms are focused on increasing customer engagement, two-way texting is a common feature they offer. You can go beyond sending alerts or notifications and have authentic conversations with your customers with both Zingle and TextKit.
TextKit surpasses Zingle in:
1. The variety of multimedia content
With TextKit, you are not restricted to sending specific categories of content like images and videos. With configurable sendables, you can create your own interactive content types and bring the best of the web to your conversations.
2. Compliance features
Brand and legal compliance are core to the functioning of TextKit. The smart filtering feature protects not only your customers from receiving inappropriate messages but also your employees. The configurable compliance rules give you the complete control on what to restrict, including PII, profanity, and risky phrases.
3. Contact assignment
TextKit gives you the contact assignment feature so that your frontline users only see conversations from the contacts who were assigned to them - that means no shared team inbox. Only managers with the right permissions can see all conversations from a single inbox.
The features that Zingle gives you but TextKit doesn’t:
1. Scheduled messaging
With Zingle, you can schedule your messages ahead of time. TextKit isn’t equipped with this functionality as we encourage you to start the conversation only when you can respond to your customers in person and take the interaction forward.
2. Group messaging
Multiple users can manage the same customer conversation across different channels with Zingle. Based on our experience at Statflo, this often leads to confusion for both frontline users and customers, and hence TextKit doesn’t endorse the team chat functionality. Instead, we ask you to assign conversations to your individual frontline employees so that you know who is in charge of which conversation and accountability is ensured.
TextKit vs ezTexting
Another popular name in the business texting space, ezTexting is a cloud-based platform for SMS marketing and customer service.
Here are some features you get with both, TextKit and ezTexting:
1. Message personalization
Both platforms are equipped with the functionality of message customization. This way, your team can send out authentic text messages that are unique to that particular customer without sounding robotic or mechanical.
2. MMS and picture messaging
You can keep customer conversations interesting with videos, images and emojis by using either of the platforms. However, withTextKit, you get access to additional media and content options such as customized landing pages, curated shopping carts, secure payment links, e-signature requests, and more.
3. Opt-out management
TextKit and ezTexting both offer a simple opt-out process for your customers. With both these platforms, those who wish to opt out from receiving your text messages can do so either by clicking on the opt-out link in the message or by replying to your text message with a keyword defined in the message (such as ‘Stop’).
TextKit is a better business text messaging alternative compared to ezTexting because of the following additional features:
1. Flexible widgets
TextKit users can embed and surface relevant customer data from any CRM, ticketing system, e-commerce engine and other systems with the help of flexible widgets. This way, your team has context on how the customer has interacted with your business in the past before starting the conversation.
2. Configurable compliance filters
With TextKit’s configurable compliance function, you can stop your team from sending or receiving any objectionable content. Thanks to this feature, you are in complete control of configuring prohibited words, inappropriate phrases, and content filtering rules.
3. Ease of integrations
Using open APIs and SDKs, you can integrate TextKit into tools and systems that your team already uses. Owing to the ease of integration, you can change and configure the platform to make it your own so that it fulfills the customer engagement needs of your business better.
However, there are some functionalities that ezTexting gives you but TextKit doesn’t. They are:
1. Text-to-win
As a user of ezTexting, you can attempt to grow your subscriber list with the help of ‘Text-to-win’ and ‘Text-to-join’ campaigns. TextKit strictly doesn’t support this feature as we believe these types of text message campaigns are spammy, robotic, and are accompanied by an increased risk of DNCs and opt-outs.
2. Mass notifications
You can send the same notification to all your subscribers if you use ezTexting. We find email is the channel better suited for mass notifications and texting should be all about personalized engagement. Hence, TextKit is not equipped with mass notification capabilities
3. Keyword texting
Keyword-based texting refers to something like this:
"Text ‘CHEERS’ to 51436 to get a $10 promo code to Bubbly & More"
When your customers respond with that keyword, they are added to your subscriber list. As a user of ezTexting, your team will be able to send such messages to your customers. TextKit has a compliance filter that prohibits users from sending these kinds of messages as they are considered too spammy by the majority of people who receive them.
As opposed to TextKit, which primarily focuses on building profitable customer relationships through one-to-one communication, ezTexting is less about personalization and more about automation and mass messaging.
TextKit vs Textline
Textline is a popular business SMS platform that offers text messaging solutions for support, sales, and operations.
These are some of the common functionalities both TextKit and Textline equip you with:
1. API integrations
Both platforms allow you to integrate business texting with your favorite tools and systems using APIs. TextKit also comes with the additional functionality of a flexible UI that lets you control where media, PII, and contacts are stored and what users see within the platform.
2. Contact assignment
Textline and TextKit both equip you with the ability to assign customer conversations to your team and optimize the customer outreach strategy. Additionally, TextKit gives you the option of connecting to your existing campaigns from marketing platforms while using your existing contact strategy.
3. Texting for sales and support
You can leverage business texting to resolve customer issues, as well as increase customer engagement to drive sales using both the platforms. You can respond to your customers and leads instantly while keeping the conversation authentic and personalized by using either of the two.
TextKit trumps Textline in the following areas:
1. Intelligent filtering
TextKit’s intelligent filtering ensures your team’s customer conversations adhere to legal, security, and brand compliance rules. You can not only manage opt-outs and enforce DNC rules but can also block inappropriate content from being sent or received. The best part is that these compliance rules are totally configurable meaning you can choose to enforce what you consider to be off-brand or inappropriate content.
2. Create your own conversation experiences
With TextKit’s sendables, your team doesn’t have to browse through long lists of apps or keep switching tabs to share content over text messages. You can send e-signature requests, augmented reality images, video call invites, curated shopping carts, or even create instant JAMstack personalized content experiences securely within any conversation.
But, Textline endows you with some additional features like:
1. Message scheduling
Textline gives you the ability to schedule text messages in advance. TextKit doesn’t come with this functionality as we encourage our users to initiate the conversations only when they are available to provide an authentic response.
2. Internal communication tools
You can use Textline for external communications with customers, as well as for internal communications amongst your team. TextKit currently isn’t equipped with this functionality but it may be an additional feature in the future.
