It was in 2007. I sat with real concerns in a doctor’s office, awaiting my call of entrance into that brown door, to see the man in the white coat. Certainly, things were on my mind concerning my health; however, I never forgot what caught my eyes and the scene that played out.

The Scene

A lady in her early thirties sat opposite me seemingly unperturbed by the ambiance of the doctor’s office. She seemed not to have any desire to look at magazines of food, fashions, gossips, or any other boring subjects and was just texting away! She literally did not move her head up, not even for a wift of the sick air, but she continued to work her fingers in the dance of a seasoned texter. I thought I was the only one noticing this otherwise happy obtrusion in an office of long-faced people (waiting for their invitation to the door), but I was not.

A more enterprising lady in her mid-fifties had the temerity to question this texting machine of the younger lady, probably thinking she had the rights of a mother and a matriarchal position. As someone who did not understand this phenomenon, she had to speak up. So she asked, “Miss? what are you doing with the phone?” The texting machine did not even looked perplexed with the question but smiled at the older lady and said, “I am texting, I do not talk on phones.”

Questions

I remembered this scene more because I am in the business of customer acquisition and retention, and if there was a single most important case that underscored the importance of and effectiveness of texting to me, it was that case. It dawned on me that people spend more time texting than talking. Today, the statistics for texting versus talking are overwhelming.

And so the question I have for a company whose business has to do with people is: why are you not texting? Also, why are you emailing on platforms that are killing your bottom line? Do you need more customers? Do you need to service your current customers better?

Would you like to be in touch with your customers 24/7 even while on vacations? Would you like to have information disseminated automatically to thousands of people and automatic responses to boot?

I did not know the answer to these questions could be so adequately addressed with the arrival of EquiiText.