McDonald's does text now?

Twitter can be a wild, wild place sometimes.

One of the highlights this week was the following post by @_nickvillabolos. The user attempted to call a local McDonald's branch and was surprised to in fact receive a text message response. The post has generated over 200,000 likes and 19,700 retweets.

I tried calling McDonald’s and they started texting me.. lol pic.twitter.com/sub7l600GZ

— nick (@_nickvillalobos) June 16, 2020

As expected, Twitter users began to text their local McDonald's branches with questions. Of course, some of which are not appropriate to include in a LinkedIn post. You'll have to view the original post to see those. However, lots of users sent genuine messages in the hope of getting a response from their local branch. Some of my favourite questions were:

"Is your ice cream machine working?"

"Let's play 8 Ball Pool"

"Can I get free nuggets?"

Whether there is an actual human employee that is replying to texts in local branches remains to be seen. However, the craze emphasises how easy it can be for businesses to both trend and make a positive impact. Sure, we don't all have the same brand authority as McDonald's but offering a text service is something that all businesses can adopt. Here's my favourite reply to the post:

'This is huge.....at least for us deaf folks!'

The number of impressions generated by this tweet is likely in the millions. All because McDonald's decided to offer a service as simple as SMS. This should be a lesson that all brands should take on board. Some customers just prefer texting. It's that simple.

Given current circumstances, there is also a lot of uncertainty around the capacity at which businesses are open. Is your store open? Do you offer click and collect? Can I pay with cash? By allowing customers to text in, you're not only helping but reducing the number of people that could potentially show up at your store when you are at capacity or closed.

You're also minimising time spent answering calls. We all know how easy a 30-second call can turn into five minutes. And, with open rates as high as 98% and two-way functionality, there really is no better communication platform.