“Our business is based around how people communicate, and texting is the fastest growing communication tool in the world,”said BamText founder Jordan Fraser.
BamText partners with businesses across Canada and the United States, and sets up a feedback service, which allows customers to text the store’s manager directly if they have a complaint while at there.
BamText is great for both the customers and the businesses, Fraser said.
“It helps the customer get their problem solved quickly. For businesses, it decreases the chances that the person is going to take to social media and rant about their bad experience, which is something they don’t want to happen.”
Fraser had the idea for the company in 2013 after he had to wait for nearly half an hour, unattended, at a sunglass store, before leaving in anger.
“There had to be a way for me to let that manager know about how bad my experience was there,” he said.
Fraser searched for apps to do this, but didn’t find any good ones. That’s when he thought of a texting service.
He approached Keir Pollard, a developer at the electronic company Fraser had been working at, with the idea. The two began thinking about how this would work.
“We knew it had to be free, simple and instant. The whole idea is if I have a problem at a restaurant and text the manager, they get my complaint right away and can do something about it.”
After six weeks of development, BamText launched on Feb. 12, 2014 and had its first client within two weeks.
Since then, BamText has partnered up with companies like A&W, Circle K, Pita Pit, as well as many small, local businesses across Canada and the United States.
They’ve increased their yearly users from 30,000 in their first year, to 110,000 in their second, to 280,000 in their third, and are projecting to have roughly 700,000 by the end of 2017.
Fraser said he’s surprised by the company’s rapid success.
“We’re only six people who work at BamText, and over the past three years roughly 500,000 people have used our system. It’s incredible.”
Along with the customer feedback service, BamText also offers a text-voting product at food events, where people attending can vote for their favourite dish.
BamText also introduced a service last year that allows golfers on the course to text their food and drink orders to the manager, and have it delivered it to them.
Looking ahead, Fraser wants to have one million people using BamText by 2018, a goal he knows won’t be easy.
“It’s a big number. We’d have to nearly double the number of users BamText had last year, but if things keep going like this, I’m confident we’ll be able to hit it by 2018.”
