Is it unprofessional to text your clients?

Text messaging has become a part of our everyday lives a long time ago. Many of us prefer it to other forms of communication such as emails or phone calls. But what about talking to your clients? Photographer Jessica Whitaker suggests that texting your clients can be not only unprofessional but also far less efficient than emails. In this video, she goes through the reasons why you shouldn’t text your clients, so let’s see if you would agree.

Jessica suggests that correspondence with your clients should always be via email. As far as efficiency goes, having everything in a single mail thread makes it far easier to organize and find the information you need, both for you and your client.

She gives two main reasons not to use text messages or mix them with emails and other forms of communication. First, disorganization will slow down your workflow. And second, emails leave more room for communication. In other words, there’s much larger flexibility for contacting each other since emails are not as disruptive as messages. You and your client can contact each other when you have time, without disturbing each other. Also, emailing takes away a lot of pressure, as you may feel the pressure to respond to the text immediately, which is not the case with emails.

Another advantage of emails is that you can add links and photos and make your response more complete and better visually organized. Furthermore, text messaging is considered to be more personal, while emails are more professional.

Keep in mind that you should send emails from your work email, not your personal email. Also, if your communication with the client starts in text messages, Instagram DM, Messenger, and the like, you can tell them that you’d like to move the conversation to emails.

Now, I’m not a professional photographer so I don’t have clients like many of you guys do. However, my work at DIYP requires lots of correspondence with different people on a daily basis. And just like Jessica, I also prefer emails to Messenger, Instagram DMs, and especially texts. For starters, it’s way more professional. And also, it’s much easier to have everything in an email thread.

Similarly, when I want to book someone for various services, I’ll make a phone call only if I really must because talking on the phone makes me extremely anxious. Otherwise, I also prefer having a conversation via email.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do you think texting your clients is unprofessional? How do you manage your bookings?

[Are YOU Making This Mistake in Your Photography Business? via FStoppers]