Earlier this summer, Salesforce published 9 trends that will have the most impact on the future of sales. This post focuses on Trend 4: Modern selling continues to expand into more digital channels, including SMS messages. Their assertion is that channels previously reserved for just marketing and customer service—including business text messaging—will now be just as valuable to sales.

Sales teams have relied on phone and email to interact with prospects and customers for years. But, customer preferences and expectations are changing, including the channels they use. Sales teams must adopt a multi-channel approach to keep pace. This includes SMS text messaging, chat, mobile chat, and video, according to Salesforce.

Salesforce states two drivers for adopting a multi-channel approach:

• The focus on providing a buying experience on the channel customers most prefer
• A massive increase in the amount of time sales reps spend selling via virtual channels

The question Salesforce asks at the end of the slides on this trend (19 – 26) is, how long before SMS, Chat, and video become tools embedded within CRM?

SMS Messages as a Tool Embedded within CRM

SMS-Magic has been a Salesforce partner since our inception more than 10 years ago. Converse is a native application for Salesforce CRM, as well as for Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Sales Cloud.

This means that salespeople can message with leads, contacts, and accounts from the Object in their CRM with the Converse Embedded Desk or through the Converse Desk interface which allows them to message and update the Object without changing screens or moving from an application to Salesforce. Salespeople also can use Converse with the Salesforce1 mobile app.

The flexibility of Converse enables salespeople to converse with leads and customers whether in the office or on the road.

Benefits of Text Messaging for Sales

Companies that use text messaging for sales convert 40% more deals than those who don’t.

With conversational text messaging, salespeople can:

• Be first to respond to inbound requests
• Use messaging conversations to deepen the relationship
• Win deals faster and more often

Use our seamless Salesforce Sales Cloud integration to define your buyer’s journey and interests, tune your conversations to match their personalized requirements and convert more deals faster.

Invite Inbound Sales Requests

By inviting buyers to request specific information via keywords they can text to your company’s short or long code, you can engage with leads immediately, in the moment. It’s been proven—and reinforced by our customers—that speedy responsiveness contributes to winning more deals.

Inviting conversations via keyword is simple. Post the keyword and short or long code where you post options for contacting your company. Post them near product information or in your online catalogs so that your buyers can get their questions answered when considering your products or services.

Automated confirmations tell your buyers that their request has been received while simultaneously alerting the sales rep to step in to respond. Your automated conversation can also ask the next question to keep the conversation rolling forward, giving your sales rep even more context for a personalized response.

Two-Way Texting Conversations Deepen Relationships

If you think about it, a conversation is a series of back and forth questions and answers. The fact that it’s held on your buyer’s personal mobile device is even better. They ask, you answer. This also makes it easier to jump to a phone call should the need for the exchange make more sense by voice.

The problem with email is that it’s slow and often ignored. Phone calls are seen as interruptive and intrusive. Our customers all used email and phone as main communication channels prior to embracing business text messaging. All of them have found that their prospects and customers are more likely to engage with text than to answer email or phone calls.

SMS messages are great for exchanging information and following up with reminders or to schedule and confirm appointments. Saving time and speeding time to revenue go hand-in-hand with text messaging for sales.

The Bottom Line

You can’t argue with the trends. Customers preferences for engaging virtually are growing. SMS messages cross generations and is seen as a welcome and intuitive way for consumers to communicate with companies to do business. Text messaging is a channel that your company would do well to embrace given that more time is spent texting on a smartphone than talking.

Check out what else your sales reps can do when they start engaging your buyers with conversational text messaging.