Pros
The Text In Church has been amazing for me and my church. It simplifies communication, eliminates emails that go straight to junk mail, first time guest follow-up systems made simple, and the list goes on. THIS MORNING someone said, "I really appreciated how I got a personal text from Epiphany this morning telling me they were praying for me today". It is the small things. I have been in ministry for 10 years and this is one of the best things that I have had in terms of communication with people on a weekly basis. Before, when I asked people if they got the information via Email, FB message, IG, Twitter, ect, about 30% of the people would say that they got it, but didn't look at it. Now, over 90% of the people I ask not only got it but read it and appreciated it. It has even been a game changer for our teams. If you want to be apart of the setup team, text SET UP...If you want to be apart of the hospitality team text HOSPITALITY...I honestly don't know what I was even doing before in communication. I will never go back.
Cons
The app through iOS could be better. As I am traveling, it would be great to set up a quick text from my phone. The capability is there, but it glitches out sometimes. Great idea, just needs some improvement.
Wow! Thanks for the amazing review.
I'd love to hear what improvements you'd like to see on the app. We're constantly improving and I'd love your feedback.
Reach out if there is anything we can help with.
Grace and peace,
~ Tyler
Text In Church has been a God send for our church! Our congregation loves it, and so does our staff. Would definitely recommend!
Pros
The Text In Church software is very easy to use and quite user friendly. We've been truly surprised by how our congregation has embraced this communication tool. Now, we mainly send out text messages with pertinent information, and minimal emails. The response rate is amazing as the majority of our people are getting and reading our messages to them. Can't say the same about emails, though.
Cons
Don't like how the text messages split up into multiple messages if you go over the character limit. It's way too easy to put in too much information and bam...you're over the limit.
Pros
Who would have thought that Texting would be a good thing in a congregation? However, this software understands that people, especially Millennial generations, use their phones for communicating, giving, and worship. This is an efficient software product that uses modern technology and teaches congregational leaders the value of texting for ministry.
Cons
We used this as a trial and it seemed to work well. Was difficult and that is why we were not able to stick with it--and we had limited funding.
Hey Robert - Thanks for the great feedback. I'm sorry to hear you found it difficult. I love to help! If you're willing... we'd love to jump on a call and help you get setup for success. Just shoot our support team an email.
This is a great product with terrible customer service. We purchased the pro package with a 14 day trial and every time we tried to login it gave a PHP error. The only way we could contact the company to talk about the issue was by the chat feature on the website. We tried numerous times to get ahold of someone on the phone, but they have the phones set to voicemail after one ring. It's very frustrating because we were willing to pay $477 for the pro package but after dealing with the customer support, we may be exploring another system.
Pros
Great program with good features.
Cons
If you have a problem, good luck getting ahold of a person on the phone to resolve the issue. Also, importing large amounts of contacts isn't as easy as it seems.
Hi Matt, I'm really sorry for the frustration we caused this morning. We emailed and called to let you know the error with your account has been resolved.
For a small church staff, guest follow up can sometimes fall by the wayside among all the other things that need to happen on a weekly basis. At least at my church that was the case. Text In Church lets you set up and customize a comprehensive guitar followup protocol that’s near foolproof! It’s a wonderful communication tool!
Pros
Hands down what I like most about Text In Church is the automation!
Cons
I didn’t care much for the limited number of texts you’re allowed to send per subscription tier. I’ve used another texting service that allows unlimited messages to be sent for one flat rate. This way, I feel like I can freely communicate and hold conversations without feeling like I’m using up valuable text credits.
Thanks for the great review! Really appreciate it.
Pros
Ease of use, features, workflows, support, etc. This company and software has it all. If you want to make follow up easy and get away from all the confusion, look into text-in-church. This isn't a replacement for real people connections but will be the main tool in your toolbelt to making those first connections.
Cons
We are not jumping on board yet as we are not at a church size that can't handle our connection cards and our system without a text service. Our teams are more than capable to connect and help with next steps. As we grow and the system gets more complicated, we will be jumping on board.
Thanks for the great review.
Pros
Simple and practical to be used. The system allows you to navigate along all the functions and jumping from one to the other in seconds. Which makes the interaction and workflow more effective.
Cons
Sometimes they cut the text in two parts. Also, does not support Spanish grammar. Also, there is a message always advertising you about not to send too many MMS messages because of spamming warnings. This is something that other products manage better and openly promoting it instead of warning you.
Pros
It is a great tool for sending out brief announcement reminders, event changes, service updates, etc... The congregation gets the information immediately and you don't get a full mailbox of responses either.
You could set-up various groups and send only to the groups. We have a group named ASM (Access Student Ministry) for our youth group. That all our parents and students are on so that everyone gets the information.
Cons
Using it for our first time visitors was not successful for us. Many of our guests did not or would not give us their cell phone #. We had set-up a flow of email and text messages that would be sent out through out the course of 4 weeks to our guests but with out a cell # that would only received part of the follow-up.
Our communications improved without a large dedication of time and effort with Text In Church.
Pros
Text In Church compiles communication databases in one place online. Text, call or email efficiently and effectively with multiple lists and purposes. Text In Church gives the ability for multiple users
Cons
Text In Church does not have an easy "save draft" or autosave feature. If you are interrupted for a long time during creation, depending on your computer setting, you have to re-login and start over. Inconvenient but not a deal breaker because creation is easy.
Sanda - Thanks for the thoughtful review. I love your auto-save suggestion. I'll share that with our team later today!
Instant & easy communication with small and large groups.
Pros
I love being able to communicate quickly with the entire church or with selected groups in a moment via text messaging! Also, they can communicate back via text through the TIC Messenger App. They also help create a guest follow-up system!
Cons
We have had trouble getting our digital connect card form to work correctly at times. However, we can go into the program and collect the data when this happens.
Pros
This is a great texting system to use when you need communication with a small group of people, we use this mostly for our student ministry.
Cons
I wish this system would integrate more with different software. We switched from using this software because it was limited to integrations.
Thanks for the review Misti!
We currently integrate with Planning Center and are adding additional integrations in the near future.
Thanks!
~ Tyler
We use Text In Church. It is a great way to connect with our entire church or groups within our church. Love the ease of sending out messages to my Men's Group.
Pros
I can quickly send out messages to groups. I can schedule a message to go out on certain dates and/or time.
Cons
I wish I could do this from my Android phone.
We do have an iPhone app and will release an android version for our iOS friends in the future.
Pros
we like the ability to text members. While beneficial, its not if we have to pay double the price
Cons
For us, their support is poorly lacking. Back in February, they double billed our credit cards for an annual fee, and now, 4 months later, after a dozen emails, and even more calls to our bank, this company tells me it may take another month before they can figure out how to issue us a credit for hundreds of dollars. My bank today called them an untrustworthy vendor.
I've had it with this company!! Buyer Beware!!
Hi Deb,
Thanks for the honest review.
I'm really sorry for your frustrating experience.
This was a very unusual circumstance though. Rather than requesting a refund you marked the charge as fraudulent. This initiated a review by your bank and your payment was immediately withdrawn from our account. Unfortunately, we were not able to refund your charge until your bank completed it's review.
Once the review as completed in our favor your bank returned the funds to Text In Church and we issued your refund within 3 hours.
Again, I'm so sorry this was so frustrating.
I know we were in contact throughout this whole process, but I'm really sorry I wasn't able to get any details about the process from your bank.
This should have been a really simple refund. I am so sorry the review process was so frustrating.
Grace and peace,
~ Tyler Smith, Co-founder
Pros
The best thing about Text in Church is how easy to use it is. Anyone, no matter how good they are with computers, can easily learn how to use the software.
Cons
I really have no negatives about this software. It does exactly what it is supposed to do and the price is very reasonable!
There is no software that is better to follow up with guests via text messages than Text in church. It is simple to use, and easy to administrate. It is also great to access the information at any point or any place.
Pros
Using this software to follow up with guests and definitely a highlight. Also, the fact that they provide a local phone number from which the texts are sent, allows a personal cell phone to stay personal.
Cons
While the cost is fair, I do feel like this type of software can be done for free. However, Text in Church makes it simple and professional. A great option for any sized church.
Wow! Thanks for the awesome review Jason.
It has helped to make some of our operations run smoother.n
Pros
This works so much better for us than our traditional method of communication, I would highly recommend any church/ organization use this.
Cons
I really can't find any cons about it, it works wonders for us and I'm sure it will work wonders for others.
Wow! Thanks for the great review.
I have used this service for over six months now. We have used it extensively in our church, using the highest package they offer. We have sent thousands of SMS
Pros
The concept is great but the service is not reliable, sometimes you send text messages ant it appears as sent in their system
Cons
I have used this service for over six months now. We have used it extensively in our church, using the highest package they offer. I also manage an account for another ministry, so I have used this service enough to give a useful feedback. The concept is great but the service is not reliable, sometimes you send text messages ant it appears as sent in their system ( you are being charged) but in reality they were not sent, this is one of many technical difficulties I have found using Text-in Church.
Pros
This software is amazing for newcomers and first time visitors of a church. You can have them text a number and get immediate responses.
Cons
The price was the only draw back for our smaller church. The tools and customer service was great, we just couldn't afford it.
Travis! Thanks for the great review.
I gave our team the ability to connect with more people over a longer period of time.
Pros
I love that there are automated processes lined up for us to use with our church. It was easy to use.
Cons
the price is a little high. It's worth it for our church but it was definitely a factor that took some time to decide on.
We love TIC! It has made follow-up so easy and quick. We took time to set up all of our automated campaigns but after that was set- easy going! We use it for contact with staff, volunteers and more. We were able to eliminate another online software that we used for emailing and texting because of the package we chose with TIC. So we are also saving money by using TIC. It is simple to use and yes we have had a few questions but customer service is wonderful! They even answered on a Saturday. We love this program and recommend it to any and every church or organization that needs a simple but effective way to follow-up with guest/members.
Pros: great way to contact people in your church, and have them feel like they are in the loop of what is going on without YOU have to write individual texts or emails. Great way to store info for contacts list.
Cons: people tend to want to respond to the TIC # even if you tell them not to, so you have to check site frequently so people don't end up thinking you are ignoring them.
Hi there Lorraine!
Thanks so much for the review.
Our app will be released in the coming weeks... it will include push notifications each time you receive a message. It will eliminate the need to check the site often. You're going to LOVE it!
We have been using TEXT IN Church for over a year; we have not mastered the full use of the program but do feel it is a benefit and would be even more so if we would take the time to fully sit down and take advantage of all the trainings, technical support, etc.
One aspect of the program I find difficult to do is to attach an image or document to send with either a text or email message.
Overall it is a fine program but to be honest, it takes more effort than we've invested to fully get the benefit out of the program.
Hi Karen,
Feel free to reach out to our support team. We're always happy to help!
We love that we can follow up with people with out a ton of work! This makes it so that as we get bigger we can still have a personal message to people! We also love that when things happen we can send out info to our entire church super easy!
Pros
Easy to use, love the ability to add people quickly!
Cons
Wish it integrated with our database!
We've been using Text In Church for a little less than a year now and I can't see us using another platform. Both our team and church absolutely love it. The functionality is excellent, easy to use, and cutting edge. Oh and their customer service and support is terrific. Whether you're in the market for a better follow up system, a new relationship management system, or just searching out of curiosity I HIGHLY Recommend Text In Church. If it's not at the top of your list it's more than likely because you haven't experienced it yet. Give it a try...you'll be so glad you did.
Very easy to use. It's great for when u want to send out mass messages. We're able to keep track of our visitors.
Text in church has simplified getting information to different groups of people in my church. I can set differnt groups up and communicate with a whole group with a simple click of a button. I dont have to think about 'who is in this group again?' I dont have to worry about communicating with the wrong group. Also, being that its text, I know that everyone is getting the message. Unlike email, you have to actually open up an email to see it.