MMS for Services: Speed Up Conversations with Attachments

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then texting pictures and PDFs can help you speed up your workflow and avoid confusion. Here’s how to incorporate MMS into your existing workflow.

1. What is MMS?

MMS stands for multimedia messaging service.

Most just call it "picture messaging," but you can do so much more with it. The type of files MMS includes are JPEG, PNG, PDF, and GIF.  It also includes MP4 and MP3, but you need to pay attention to how big those files are though, because they can become compressed and lose quality if you send something too large. (Our team is happy to help you format these.)

MMS messages carry more data than SMS, and so they take longer from mobile carriers to deliver. That’s why MMS messages count as an additional text when you send them in a standard SMS message.

That said, there are some incredibly useful ways we’ve seen our customers incorporate MMS into their workflows to streamline services and increase revenue flow by texting attachments.

2. When to Text Pictures

Save time and costs by texting a snapshot of what needs to be done.

Ever have a situation where you just need to see something, instead of having a person explain it to you? Those are perfect opportunities to text or receive pictures of:

• Areas or objects that need to be serviced

• Product numbers or models, to ensure you have what customers need

• Headshots of the rep the customer can expect to work with

• Proofs or documentation of finalized projects 

This will help you speed up service, without having to be in the same place as your customers, which can save you tons of time and money. 

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3. When to Text PDFs

Get important documents in front of customers ASAP.

It’s frustrating when you need a customer to approve or sign something before you can move on to the next step in a service—but you know the file is just sitting unopened in their email inbox. Texting these files as PDFs is a much more guaranteed way to get customers to sign or approve what you need, so you can keep things moving along:

• Contact forms

• Quotes or estimates for approval

• Service waivers 

• Referral forms

Getting these files in front of customers faster (and customer being able to text them back) means less bottlenecks, more services completed, and a bump in revenue.  

Want to dive deeper? Check out our guide, What is SMS and How Does it Work?