Why Call When You Can Text?

As we head into the final stretch to Election Day, time becomes an increasingly valuable resource. Maximizing precious staff and volunteer time is critical during GOTV. Here are some tips on how to use Hustle insights to make strategic decisions about which contacts you call and which ones you text:

Phone banking is a tried-and-true keystone strategy of a GOTV campaign, while texting is increasingly seen a faster and more scaleable way to connect with supporters one-to-one. How can these two important engagement strategies be most effectively integrated? Our suggestion is to divide and conquer using data insights:

1. Use Hustle’s free ‘scrub’ feature to get carrier-confirmed data on landlines versus mobiles for each number you upload into Hustle so you can textbank your mobiles and phonebank your landlines. Step by step tips here.
2. Additionally, experiment with a text-then-call strategy to engage your contacts first over text to schedule or notify contacts about receiving a call from that same Hustle phone number. Best of all, agents can place that call right from the Hustle mobile app, take notes, and apply tags, all in one go.

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A note on calling versus texting mobile numbers:
When evaluating calling versus texting mobile phones, it’s important to remember that open rates for text messages consistently sit at 95%. This is a big contact rate win for teams when the majority of phone calls placed, whether to mobile or landlines will go unanswered. Further, text message response rates are 3x higher on average, leading to more conversations with the audiences you need to reach. When time is critical you can have 10x more conversations over text in the same period of time, freeing up staff and volunteer time.

But what about the times when it’s just faster to hop on the phone to continue the conversation? We all know that there are times when you’re texting back and forth with someone and it reaches a point where making a quick call can be really helpful. For example, when someone needs help finding their polling location or you want to follow-up on a donation pledge that someone has just made. When those opportunities surface, you can make a call through Hustle’s mobile app using the same number you’ve been texting from! More info here.

Even when you plan to call every number, text first to help boost your team’s overall call pickup rates. You may be pleasantly surprised to see the pickup rate be much higher than a cold call alone because the phone number was preceded by a text and feels more familiar.

But… what if there was a way to do both? After all, not all of your supporters are on mobile phones and phone banking is still the only way to get through to your landlines… is there a way Hustle can help you get the info you need to strategically divide and conquer? YES! When you import a list of phone numbers to Hustle, our product scrubs your list to identify landline v. mobile numbers, and exports that extra information easily so you can update across your data ecosystem. To make the most of your time and resources, we recommend your teams:

1. Import your list to Hustle as usual to take advantage of the scale and ease of peer-to-peer text to maximize the number of people you can easily converse with and reach over mobile.
2. Export your contacts list and filter your CSV by Column E to identify the landlines that you can plug into your dialer such as the VAN Dialer to target landlines for phone calls in order to make sure you are reaching the most people in the most efficient way.
3. Another benefit here is that sometimes your volunteers will deeply prefer one mode of communication over another… if you are doing both you can make the most of your volunteer strengths and avoid duplication.
4. Win win! Let us know how it goes, we would love to feature your case studies in future blog posts! Email your CSM or support@hustle.com ❤