Construction Team Texting: Why and How It Works [2023]

If you’re in the construction business, you know how weather can have an impact on your projects—particularly if you’re located in an area that has a lot of fluctuating weather patterns.

Unpredictable storms, lightning, tornados (sometimes containing sharks!), and even snow can disrupt your schedule and put your workers in jeopardy. According to Forbes, "weather delays 45% of construction projects worldwide."

On top of that, other safety hazards come up, and other notices and updates may need to be communicated to the construction team.

But what’s the best way to communicate with a team on the field? After all, you need a way to let people know to postpone work or to take shelter or to turn in their timesheets or any number of updates.

And this is especially important if the notice is regarding an urgent or safety-related issue.

The answer? Construction team texting.

Here we’ll go over the why’s and how’s of texting for your construction team.

Why Use Construction Team Texting?

There are three primary benefits to using texting to communicate with your construction team, especially during severe weather.

1) Everyone reads their texts.

The data is clear: Text messages have a 98% open rate. Other forms of communication, including email, have far lower open rates.

If you’re communicating urgent, time-sensitive information, there’s not really any reasonable doubt about what marketing channel you ought to use: The answer will always be text messaging.

2) People can understand text messages even in very loud environments.

Construction sites are often incredibly loud. You have a large number of workers, many of whom are also using loud equipment. Any communication channel that relies on someone hearing a ringtone or being able to hear a phone call or even hear something spoken over a loudspeaker is not going to be sufficient for a construction site.

With texting, you can rely on a vibration to alert the worker to the message, which they may be more likely to notice than a ringtone under some circumstances, and they simply need to be able to read their screen to get the message.

3) Texts can be sent quickly and from just about anywhere.

With a good texting platform, you can send texts quickly and from virtually anywhere. Calling can be tricky because not only does the person you’re calling need to be able to hear on their end, you need to be in a relatively quiet place to make the call. Furthermore, calling a large number of people takes a long time.

Texting, in contrast, is fairly simple. If you’re at a computer, you can open up your texting software in a web browser and send the text message to your team. Or if you’re on-site and need to send a mass text, you can easily open up the mobile app and send a text that way.

For all these reasons, we think you’ll find that texting is one of the best, simplest tools for sending emergency communications to your construction teams, particularly in cases where worker safety is a concern, such as during severe weather.

How You Can Use Construction Team Texting

Here are some examples of how you can use texting within your construction team.

Safety Notices

Texting can let your team know about safety notices—particularly for weather-related issues.

“

Lightning approaching worksite. Please cease from work and follow safety protocols.

“

All work on outdoor projects are canceled tomorrow morning because of forecasted storms. Please standby for further updates.

Reminders

Texting is one of the best ways to send simple reminders to help make sure employees remember things like meetings, events, and deadlines.

“

Don’t forget about the mandatory team meeting today at 2pm!

“

Reminder: please submit timesheets by Friday at 4pm.

Work Needs

Since people pay close attention to their text messages, it’s an effective way to ask for help with filling missing shifts or labor deficiencies.

“

We need 2 more workers to help with tomorrow’s project. If available, please reply YES.

“

Due to illness, we are short a worker today. Please reply AVAILABLE if you can come help. Overtime available.

Internal Notices

Texting can be an excellent tool to make sure people know about miscellaneous internal notices that are pertinent to them.

“

Office employees - please follow dress code protocols. You can review those here: http://mbltxt.com/zFf

“

All HR requests can now be directed to Alaina Hernandez: ahernandez@parkerbros.com

Sales Leads

In addition to texting your team, you can also use texting to follow up with sales leads.

“

Hi there, just a quick follow-up on the quote we sent over last week. Any questions we can help answer for you?

“

Thanks for submitting an interest form on our website! Someone from purchasing will be in touch soon. Any questions I can help answer in the meantime?

How to Set Up Construction Team Texting

To set up texting for your construction team, you’ll first need to select a texting platform.

(You can get a free trial account at Mobile Text Alerts to try it out for 14 days.)

Once you’ve set up an account on a texting platform, you can do the following…

1) Add in your contacts

For construction companies, the most common way to add contacts into your texting platform is to import a spreadsheet with a list of everyone you’re wanting to text.

You can also set up automations to integrate with your CRM or other software to add contacts in without needing to do manual work.

2) Organize contacts into relevant groups (optional)

Depending on how your company’s structured, you may want to organize your contact list into relevant groups. That way, you can more easily send the right messages to the right people.

For example, you could separate your contact list into groups such as: field workers, foremen, office employees, management, and leads. Or you could separate out your contact list according to the type of message people will receive, such as: safety notices, team meetings, sales follow-ups, and HR updates.

3) Send messages as needed

You can send and scheduled messages directly within your texting platform. All you need to do is just select recipients, type out your message, and select the time you’d like it to go out (or select to send it immediately).

Alternatively, you can download the free mobile app and send texts from a mobile device—this can be especially useful if you’re out in the field and need to send an urgent message, such as a safety notice.

Everyone will receive the text message individually on their phones, and can reply back with any questions. You’ll be able to view and respond to these replies easily from both the platform and mobile app.

(If you prefer not to monitor replies, you can set up an automated message notifying people that replies are not monitored.)

Try Construction Team Texting for Free

You can try Mobile Text Alerts for free to see if it’s a good fit for your construction team—no credit card required.

You’ll get 50 free messages for 14 days.

Try it out today!