SMS messaging – more commonly referred to as texting – has been a part of people’s daily lives for decades. And while smartphones have advanced at breakneck speed and messaging apps of all kinds are now available, SMS use has remained steady over the past decade, with over 2 trillion messages sent in the United States alone each year. With so many people using SMS, businesses can’t afford to ignore it. And while there are plenty of stand-alone SMS messaging solutions available, arguably the most effective way to text is through an SMS CRM, which marries the benefits of SMS with the powerful customer data tools included in customer resource management software. 

 

The Benefits of SMS Messaging

There are a lot of reasons sales organizations should be using SMS messaging. First and foremost, it’s convenient for everyone. SMS messaging is a fast, easy way to send outgoing marketing and scheduling messages, and it provides an instantaneous and easily accessible way for customers and leads to get in touch with businesses. SMS messaging also reaches prospects where they are, no matter where they are, by tapping into our dependency on our mobile phones, which Americans check almost 100 times per day. Finally, that relationship with mobile devices also leads to extremely high open rates, which generally easily exceed 90% and can approach 100% in cases where messages come from familiar numbers. Email marketing – which is still extremely popular and considered effective – can’t even come close. 

In short, SMS messages are an effective, unintrusive, and in many cases even welcome way to open up two-way communication with prospects. 

 

Ways an SMS-CRM Integration Can Help Sales Organizations

SMS-CRM integration combines the power of CRM – with its advanced customer data – and one of the most frictionless, non-intrusive communication methods available. SMS-CRM integration can help sales organizations in a number of ways, including streamlining follow-up communications, getting advertising messages through with greater success, and tightening up appointment scheduling and management. 

Follow-Up Communication

Not every lead is ready to convert right away, and one of the easiest ways to let good long-term leads slip through the cracks is to lose contact with them. But it isn’t realistic to ask salespeople to constantly follow up manually with every lead. Messaging through an SMS-CRM integration is a perfect option because it allows companies to schedule and automate their follow-up communications, delivering them through a medium people prefer without using up any time or resources. 

Marketing and Advertising

Because SMS is so direct and enjoys such high engagement, it represents a great way to communicate offers to both leads and existing customers. SMS blasts work exactly the same way email blasts do, and companies can do all the same things with them, including embedding custom sale links for tracking. Certain SMS CRMs, like CRMDialer, can even track a lead’s website activity after clicking through a link in an SMS offer. 

Appointment Scheduling

From sales organizations to dentists’ offices, scheduling, managing, and keeping appointments are important aspects of all businesses. An SMS CRM is an ideal scheduling tool for two reasons: it enables frictionless, automatic follow-up messages, and it enables leads and customers to take an active role in the appointment process using two-way messaging. For instance, an appointment reminder message can prompt the lead to respond yes or no to confirm the appointment, which will automatically trigger the system to cancel in the case of a no. 

 

CRMDialer’s SMS Sales Tools

CRMDialer is one of the top customer resource management systems on the market today. It offers seamless SMS-CRM integration and a set of SMS tools designed specifically to enable sales organizations. CRMDialer’s SMS tools are easy to access from anywhere within the system in a matter of seconds, and round out a complete communications suite that also provides CRM-based control of email and even sales calling. 

SMS Appointment Management

CRMDialer’s SMS appointment management allows clients to automatically cancel or reschedule sales meetings by sending a quick message from their mobile phone. Upon receipt, the CRM automatically makes the necessary adjustment in the calendar and notifies the relevant salespeople. 

SMS Local Presence

CRMDialer offers local presence – a tool originally designed to improve power dialer answer rates and works equally well for SMS. CRMDialer’s SMS local presence allows sales agents to choose which phone number outgoing text messages are sent from based on the lead or customer’s geographical location. By matching the area code, recipients become much more likely to open and interact with messages, boosting open rates by as much as 17%.

Mass SMS Messaging

CRMDialer allows sales organizations to send mass SMS messages either to their entire database of prospects or to segmented parts of the list based on groups created in the CRM. Mass SMS messaging is a fast and effective way to alert prospects to special offers.

SMS Templates

CRMDialer provides ready-to-use SMS messaging templates, minimizing the time it takes to craft professional messages with high conversion rates. The templates use placeholder fields to automatically pre-fill each prospect’s name and information, enabling instantaneous customization upon sending. Templates are also a great way to run A/B tests to refine each aspect of a message for the best possible conversion rate.

Advanced SMS Reporting

Because the SMS system is tied seamlessly into the rest of the CRM, users can access advanced reporting on their messaging activity from within the CRMDialer analytics dashboard. Users can easily view sent and received message totals, and each inbound and outbound message is logged to the relevant lead account for easy future reference. 

 

To find out more about CRMDialer’s SMS messaging features and full suite of communication tools, reach out to a member of the team or start your no-commitment 14-day free trial today.