We get enquires about Txt2Screen services all the time. Nowadays, we turn them down, why? Experience has taught us better!

We used to run a Txt Screen service in 40 or so venues. This allowed a person to send a text message to a number, which was taken and placed on screens for everyone to see. It usually starts with a few happy birthday messages, moving on to suggestive remarks then outright abuse with hookers and dealers advertising their wares!

This style of abuse presents certain challenges... We built a system to filter out all swear words, telephone numbers, prices (there’s always one who texts in all beer is £1 before heading to the bar), pre-approve messages and just generally try not to cause offence.

This system worked well. The venues are all 18+, so people didn’t get too offended when the odd thing got through. However, the challenge changed. Now the software worked, we needed to get the right hardware in place. A PC running under a DJ stand, 24x7 (no one remembers to turn it off), in a hot nightclub is hardly the perfect environment.

Herein lays the actual challenge of the service. No matter how good the software is, it’s the whole package that counts. For us, this meant PCs that always just *worked* and someone on hand to call when it didn’t, which managers did call, late at night.

So why do we turn TxtScreen work down now? Whilst we can do it, we struggle with the complete package. Answering calls all the time, late at night, whilst trying to keep overused PC’s running, is easy at first. However, 6 months in it gets harder. 12 months more so, after 2 years we took a review.

We tried a lot to overcome the challenge, using only new machines with clear instructions. But at the end of the day, these had to be paid from thin margins. During our review we looked at all the stuff we did, and determined the money we made could be replaced fairly quickly.

After that, we moved on. We know now that next time we have a bright idea we must look at the complete package, including hardware, software, support and servicing. Sure, we have seen other companies do a similar service since, but as yet we haven’t seen one do it on a truly mass scale.