Texting From Salesforce
The Value Proposition for Salesforce Customers
What is the value in adding texting to your Salesforce platform? There are many valuable benefits for businesses, centralizing business-to-customer communication, giving managers the ability to see text conversations to coach and improve behavior, automating appointment reminders and renewal notifications, delivery notifications, etc. To really understand the value of including text messaging in your Salesforce application, let’s start at comparing text messages to email communication.
Text Versus Email
If you’re using Salesforce you probably have already integrated Gmail for Business or Microsoft Outlook with your Salesforce account. And that’s a great integration, however as our inboxes get fuller and fuller and more messages go unread let’s compare read rates.
Text Message Read Rates:
Text messages (SMS) tend to have incredibly high open and read rates, on average 97% are read within 15 minutes of delivery. This is largely due to the nature of text messages being short, concise, and delivered directly to a person's mobile device, which they typically carry with them all the time. People tend to quickly check incoming text messages, which contributes to the high read rates.
Email Read Rates:
Email open and read rates can vary widely depending on the quality of your email list, the subject line, the sender's reputation, and the content of the email. On average, open rates for emails are significantly lower than text message read rates. According to industry data, average email open rates for marketing emails was 21.5% in 2022. However, these rates can be higher or lower depending on the factors mentioned above.
In summary, text message read rates are over 3X email read rates, and they are read within 15 minutes of being sent.
Real-Time Communication
Now that we know 97% of text messages are read within 15 minutes, we can discuss how that factors into your business and ties back to Salesforce. First, your sales personnel are already in Salesforce on their desktop or using the mobile app to log leads, create opportunities and perform other sales-related tasks. Incorporating texting into your Salesforce org allows your sales personnel to engage in real-time communication with leads, opportunities and existing business contacts.
Because text messages are Opt-In by nature, that means the individuals receiving your messages have shown an interest in your business. When you text from Salesforce your sales personnel benefit from immediate delivery of their messages and because 97% most will be read in 15 minutes, that gives them an opportunity to turn a notification into a conversation instead.
Turn a Notification Into a Conversation
When you compare texting to email, one of the biggest benefits is that you can turn a notification into a conversation whereas email with a very low open rate of 21.5% and a large time delay doesn’t really compare. If you can turn a notification into a conversation within 15 minutes, how does that help your sales cycle when you compare it to an email from the perspective of your sales personnel? And text messaging is interactive.
Make a Conversation Interactive or Turn It Into a Call
One of the first things they teach you in sales is “get them on the phone”. With Text Anything a notification can turn into a conversation, a conversation can become interactive and it can turn into a call to build rapport. By interactive we mean the same promotional materials you are emailing you can text with Text Anything’s Salesforce application. We support images, pdf’s, various file types, etc. And your sales personnel can tell the customer “call me” and have the inbound call directed anywhere your company desires - the sales person’s company phone, their personal phone or other.
From the Sales Manager Perspective
So far we’ve been looking at this from the perspective of a sales personnel. We will examine the importance and utility of text messages for a variety of applications, but now that we’ve demonstrated how much easier and faster it is to reach customers with text messages, let’s look at the importance of having text communication in Salesforce from a sales manager’s perspective.
All Your Messages Are in Salesforce
Whether you are managing sales or service, putting all your text message communications with your customers in Salesforce allows managers to view, audit or even jump into customer conversations. The are several reasons this is important:
Training and Coaching - You can use real-time conversations to coach new sales or service personnel.
Knowledge Transfer - If you a new hire taking over a group of accounts or if you shift people around in your organization, the new hire has access to all the previous conversations.
Auditing - By maintaining all your conversations in Salesforce your managers can periodically audit conversations for quality assurance.
Liability - You do not have access conversations between your customers and your employees when they happen on their personal phones. Many businesses have a BYOD (bring your own device policy) but almost never do the employee provided applications include a corporate text message solution. This is a gap in transparency that can be fixed by using Text Anything and bringing your business-to-customer text conversations into Salesforce.
Multi-Channel Visibility - With Text Anything, anything you text to a customer’s number is recorded and is either visible in a chat panel (if it uses a common from number), or can be reported on. This includes conversational text messages, marketing messages and any reminders or automated notifications you send to your customers. We also record all inbound phone calls and display them in a text conversation chat panel. So you see all communication to the customer from your company using Text Anything and all communications from your customer to your company.
Customer Care
Customer care is a core use-case for texting from Salesforce. It spans the sales cycle from lead to opportunity to sale. And it allows you to have the entire conversation history in one place; all your text messages and any records of inbound customer calls. Some highlights of how you can leverage texting in Salesforce for customer care are:
Prompt Responses to Inquiries: Text messaging enables your businesses to provide quick and efficient responses to customer inquiries. And as we said previously, you can quickly turn a notification into a conversation into a sale. Customers can send a text with their questions or concerns, and your businesses can reply in real time, leading to faster sales, faster issue resolution and an overall better customer experience.
Automated Responses: Set up automated responses for common queries, such as order status, business hours, or FAQs. This provides immediate answers to customers and reduces the workload on support agents. How is this done in Salesforce? Easy. With Salesforce Flows. With Flows your admins can easily build out automated text interactions to provide customers with automated answers to things like order status, renewal dates, shipping information, basic FAQs, etc. Text Anything for Salesforce easily supports automation and for US customers all your automated messaging is A2P 10DLC compliant.
Appointment Reminders: Text messages can be used to send appointment reminders, reducing no-shows and improving overall customer satisfaction. This again is accomplished easily by using Text Anything and a custom Flow.
Issue Resolution: For more complex issues, text messaging can be used to gather initial information from customers before connecting them with a live agent to help streamline your support process.
Follow-Ups: After closing a case, your businesses can follow up with customers via text to ensure their satisfaction and gather feedback on the support experience. Combine this with a custom Visual Force survey page and close the loop on all your cases by text message so you can track customer satisfaction.
Order Updates: Your businesses can send automated text messages to customers with updates on their orders, including shipping notifications, delivery estimates, and tracking information.
Feedback Collection: In the same way you would send a follow-up text after a case closes, you can text your customers links to surveys or feedback forms, allowing customers to share their opinions and insights on their support interactions. You can use services like Survey Monkey, or you can create your own with public Visual Force pages.
Personalized Communication: Utilize customer data from your CRM to personalize text messages. Text Anything allows you to create custom text message templates with mail-merge functionality so you can address your customers name and reference their previous interactions for a more tailored and personal experience.
Emergency Alerts and Outages: In case of service disruptions, product recalls, or other emergencies, your businesses can send text message alerts to quickly notify your customers.
Subscription Renewals and Upgrades: Automate reminders for subscription renewals, offer upgrade options, or provide information about new products and services all by text message.
Proactive Outreach: You can use text messaging to proactively reach out to your customers with important information, such as policy changes, account updates, or upcoming events.
Multi-Channel Integration: Texting can be integrated with other support channels. For instance, if a customer initiates a support request via text but requires a more complex solution, the conversation can seamlessly transition to a phone call or live chat. Additionally, you can add multiple employees to a single customer chat. So if a support request requires escalation, you can add in other internal resources in the same customer text chat.
Language Preferences: Texting allows businesses to cater to customers in different languages or regions, enhancing accessibility and inclusivity.
Secure Communication: Your businesses can implement security measures to ensure sensitive information shared over text messaging remains confidential. This can be done internally in Salesforce by restricting which users can see which messages based on record
24/7 Availability: Texting allows for asynchronous communication, meaning customers can send messages outside of business hours, and support agents can respond when they're available.
Training and Tutorials: Text messages can include links to instructional videos, FAQs, or knowledge base articles that guide customers through troubleshooting steps. This is a great thing to do post sale to increase customer satisfaction and reduce customer support issues.
Promotions and Offers
You can use Text Anything in your Salesforce org to send promotions and offers. You can easily deliver targeted messages via text message for promotions, sales and exclusive offers. Some things to consider are:
Build an Opt-In List: Start by building a list of recipients who have explicitly opted in to receive text messages from your business. This can be done through various channels, such as online sign-ups, in-store promotions, or by offering exclusive incentives for opting in. You can also use QR codes to launch text messages for customers to opt-into promotions.
Segment Your Audience: Divide your opt-in list into segments based on demographics, purchase history, preferences, and other relevant factors. This allows you to send targeted promotions that are more likely to resonate with specific groups of recipients.
Craft Compelling Messages: Create concise and engaging messages that clearly communicate the promotion or offer. Use action-oriented language and highlight the benefits recipients will receive.
Include a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Every promotional text message should include a clear and straightforward call-to-action. This could be a link to a specific webpage, a code to redeem the offer in-store or online, or instructions on how to participate.
Use Keywords: You can use keywords and Flows to generate auto-responses with discount codes or other promotional information.
Offer Value: Ensure that your promotions and offers provide real value to recipients. Exclusive discounts, early access to sales, freebies, or personalized offers can entice customers to engage with your messages.
Set Clear Expectations: Let recipients know how often they can expect to receive promotional texts from you and what type of content to anticipate. Transparency helps build trust and keeps opt-out rates low.
Use Urgency and Scarcity: Create a sense of urgency or scarcity in your messages to encourage quick action. Phrases like "limited time offer," "while supplies last," or "today only" can prompt immediate engagement.
Test and Optimize: Experiment with different messaging approaches, timing, and offers to determine what works best for your audience. Use A/B testing to compare the effectiveness of different messages.
Provide Easy Opt-Out Options: Always include clear instructions on how recipients can opt out of receiving future messages. Respecting recipients' preferences is important for maintaining a positive relationship.
Integrate with Other Marketing Channels: Coordinate your text message promotions with other marketing efforts, such as email campaigns and social media posts, to create a cohesive and consistent experience for your audience.
Measure and Analyze: Track key metrics like open rates, click-through rates, conversion rates, and opt-out rates to gauge the success of your text message promotions. Use this data to refine your strategy over time.
Comply with Regulations: Be aware of and comply with relevant regulations, such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in the United States, to ensure that your text message promotions are in accordance with the law. With Text Anything, and in the US, this means using a dedicated “Marketing Camaign” and having a unique phone number or phone numbers associated to that campaign so your business is A2P 10DLC compliant.