4 Ways Hatch Texting is Different from Other Texting Platforms

With today’s consumers preferring to communicate with businesses via text, it’s no wonder that there are many different texting platforms available.

While they may all seem similar on the surface, the truth is, each one has its particular strengths and businesses it is best suited for. As you’ll learn in our Hatch vs Podium deep dive, Hatch is best suited for service-based businesses running 20+ appointments per week.

And in this post, we are going to cover four features that we believe set our platform apart from the others.

Table of contents

• One-to-many vs one-to-one
• Multi-touch, multi-channel outreach vs one-time outreach
• Full funnel vs partial funnel support
• AI bots that text for you
• How does it all work?

4 ways Hatch texting is different

There are many things to look for in a texting platform based on your unique needs, so you can ensure the highest returns on your investment. Let’s dive into four that separate Hatch from the rest!

1. One-to-many vs one-to-one

Many text messaging services are designed for one-off mass messaging. This type of texting is best for ecommerce marketing and lead generation, but not useful for home service businesses where communication is two-way and relationship-based.

Hatch texting is designed for personalized, one-to-one conversations by which appointments are booked, deals are sold, and loyal customers are made.

You can use Hatch for promo texts and marketing, and on top of that, you can make them more personalized and one-to-one.

2. Multi-touch, multi-channel outreach vs one-time outreach

You’ll probably agree that once you get the conversation started with a lead or customer, it’s smooth sailing from there. But that’s just it. Getting that conversation started is the hardest part. Sometimes people don’t respond—even when they’re highly interested in your services!

They’re vetting multiple companies at once, doing multiple things at once, and on multiple devices and channels at once. It’s no wonder it can take up to eight outreach attempts before you get a response.

While many platforms claim to offer automated outreach, this is typically in the form of one text or email, based on a single trigger (like a form fill on your website). It’s not enough. You need to reach out several times, across several channels, over the course of several days. This is what gets the response, and is precisely what Hatch automates.

This capability is also what separates Hatch from CRMs, which typically offer the simple form of automation as depicted on the left above.

3. Full funnel vs partial funnel support

With our templates and targeting capabilities, you can automate your outreach messaging to anyone in your database. That includes leads, prospects, and customers, and covers text, email, as well as voicemail.

Use Hatch for:

• Reaching out to inbound leads
• Following up on estimates and quotes
• Re-engaging aged leads or canceled appointments
• Updating customers on projects
• Requesting customer reviews or referrals
• Sharing promotions and offers

In other words, while many communication platforms automate messaging for top-of-funnel purposes, Hatch covers your entire funnel. This is one of the reasons Podium users switch to Hatch. 

4. AI bots that text for you

This is something that sets Hatch apart not just from other texting platforms but even from other AI tools. While many AI tools recommend messaging you can use with customers, Hatch AI bots actually converse with customers for you via text. You customize your AI bot with a name, personality, and a set of prompts then the AI bot(s) will save you hours’ worth of customer conversation and admin work time.

You can learn more about how Hatch AI works here, or try it out yourself!

How does it all work?

Here’s how it works:

• Connect your CRM and lead sources to Hatch. Unlike other platforms, such as Chiirp, Hatch offers complete integrations. You can learn more in our post on Hatch vs Chiirp.
• Create your audiences. For example: new leads from X lead source, leads quoted for X service X days ago, leads who canceled appointments, customers with projects completed, etc. You can be really granular here. And our Audience Builder makes it easy to do this.
• Build out your outreach campaigns for those audiences. Emails, texts, and voicemails with personalization tokens, over any number of days. Hatch has templated sequences and messages to help you out.
• Tell Hatch which audiences get which campaigns. Hatch will automatically enroll contacts into audiences and campaigns as they meet (or don’t meet) the criteria.
• As soon as a contact responds, the outreach campaign will stop firing, you’ll get a notification, and then you can jump into the conversation with them. Whether it’s text, email, or phone, you can do it all within Hatch.

• Or, train your AI bots to jump in and engage the customer. They’ll take on the initial prequalifying conversations to answer questions, set appointments, or sift out unqualified leads so you can have more time to focus on more important conversations.
• All correspondence will be contained in one thread within that person’s contact card, which will go on a column-style board you can customize to your pipeline and use to track and assign conversations.

Get in touch with someone about Hatch now

The complexity of modern consumer behavior makes a personalized, proactive, and multi-touch communication strategy—that scales as you grow—essential for businesses today. There are many good texting platforms out there. However, a great texting platform is not only built on this framework, but also supports your diverse communication needs across your funnel.

This is what you’ll find in Hatch, along with AI capabilities that further enhance both the employee and customer experience. If you’d like to learn more or get a personalized tour of Hatch, book a demo today. Alternatively, you can watch a demo here or take our AI for a test drive.