Insights

A Texting Q&A with Midori

May 19, 2020

Midori Interactive prides itself on offering an easy-to-use business texting platform that anyone can launch and use—no coding degree required. We spoke with Noah Rafalko, Chief Enterprise Officer at Midori, who founded the company in 2017, about the state of texting today, the importance of security measures, and where he sees texting in the near future.

Texting plays such an important role in how people communicate today. What would you say to companies that are still hesitant to jump on the texting bandwagon? How would you convince them?

Noah Rafalko: Messaging has matured way beyond person-to-person communications.  Businesses are now text enabling their existing Toll-Free Numbers and other business telephone numbers. They’re making it easier for customers to find answers to simple questions using text messaging.

If you’re not supporting text messaging as a customer communications channel, you're simply not keeping up with the preferred way people communicate today – for example, if your business still didn’t have a website. It’s literally that important.

Business text messaging is especially vital in emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 crisis. Using text messaging, businesses can scale quickly to issue updates on their business operations to employees and customers and be confident that important messages will be read quickly instead of getting lost in the email shuffle.

What do you consider the biggest obstacle to more companies implementing texting? And how can the industry overcome that?

The biggest obstacle is old-school thinking that keeps businesses mired in legacy communications channels, unable to see how their customers have evolved. While some may see the personal applications of text messaging, they fail to see how businesses use text messaging to their advantage. Text enablement of local and Toll-Free Numbers is not only possible; it’s a must for customer satisfaction.

Years ago, some businesses continued to use the Yellow Pages instead of developing websites because they failed to see how it websites would evolve into one of the most essential communications channels. As texting becomes integrated into backend business processes, its uses will become as vast as existing website functions.

From your perspective, what is one of the most important things a company should consider right now when text enabling their Toll-Free Number?

Companies should consider how text messaging can both enhance their brands as well as where there might be pitfalls. Unlike voice, which is protected by the Federal Communications Commission, text enablement is considered an informational service and therefore doesn’t enjoy the same ownership protections.

Most enterprises with large blocks of numbers often struggle to manage a myriad of telecom assets with different vendors, inconsistent permissions, and multiple services attached to each number. While some numbers may already be text enabled, most are not – and these numbers could be vulnerable to nefarious activity.

The good news is that enterprises can validate and ensure the messaging portion of the number is secure before publicizing it as an authorized customer communications channel. That’s the key value proposition of Text Protect, a security solution that enables enterprises to validate their Toll-Free Numbers and numbers in the North American Dialing Plan and manage all rights and permissions via text.

In the future, we expect to see more governance and compliance guidance on the messaging front that would extend protection for consumers but that would not be as stringent as Title II voice regulations.

In a nutshell, what makes Midori’s texting services different from other text enablement services?

Midori Interactive offers a fully scalable customer service messaging solution that enables any business to answer the most common consumer questions and requests via text messages.

It’s important to note that Midori does not support the use of messaging as a wide-scale marketing tool. Our focus is on meaningful, interactive customer engagement – helping customers find the answers they’re looking for quickly and efficiently.

This laser focus enables us to get our clients quickly off the ground using text messaging so they can reduce the time and money they spend on traditional voice phone calls. After helping them with the basics of text messaging, we can then help our clients expand their messaging channel to include simple automation tools that help save time and money.

To learn more about Midori Interactive, visit their website at www.midori.ai.