Conversational Sales – Definition, Benefits and KPIs

Salesforce customers who use a native Salesforce texting app have discovered that leads would rather talk to a sales rep than engage with a chatbot. It is now a known fact that most people prefer texts over phone calls. This is what can drive conversational sales.

What Is Conversational Sales?

Conversational sales refers to a text messaging powered sales strategy that is based on the prospects' inclination for one-on-one text chats. It emphasizes the value of responding accurately and promptly to incoming lead inquiries via their preferred message and texting platforms.

If you adopt this approach, you can focus on responding to leads who text you directly or message you using popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. By using an enterprise-class conversational Salesforce SMS app, you can receive messages from all conversational channels (SMS, WhatsApp, webchat) in a single inbox within your CRM.

The foundation of conversational sales lies in having genuine, tailored conversations with leads. When they're looking at your goods or services, you should make it simple for them to ask questions and provide prompt answers rather than trying to close them for items they might not be ready to purchase or do not need. In the end, this strategy helps nurture strong customer relationships.

Conversational Sales vs. Traditional Sales

Outbound content that is product-centric is the key focus area of traditional sales. Since leads must submit queries via forms or bots and then wait for responses, conversations are frequently disconnected. Traditional sales also employ more antiquated, business-focused communication channels rather than lead-centric ones. Additionally, these traditional forms of communication such as phone and email are less personalized.

These challenges are addressed in conversational sales by allowing sales teams to:

• Emphasizing inbound content rather than outward, focusing efforts on leads who are already considering your offerings.
• Meets leads and prospects where they are by giving priority to easy-to-use lead communication channels rather than legacy corporate systems.
• Hyper-personalize communication and encourage them to use popular messaging channels such as SMS and WhatsApp and incorporate lead information into their communications.

In the end, conversational sales is an effective way to centralize the lead experience and assist the lead in making the best decisions at the appropriate time.

When To Use Conversational Sales

Handling Queries

Conversational sales works especially well in the Handle Objections phase, when leads may be considering purchases but are still holding off due to some unanswered questions. They can now make purchases more quickly because your team can respond to their questions promptly. This approach is in complete contrast to the conventional sales strategy of sending outbound product information to leads who may not be ready for it.

Closing Deals

In the close stage of a deal, conversational sales is especially important because customers now anticipate being able to finish their purchases whenever it's convenient for them. During that process, sales teams can utilize messaging to find out about and resolve any kinks that leads may encounter.

Upselling and Cross-Selling

The upsell/cross-sell phase is a good time for conversational sales to shine. To maintain the relationship for the next purchases and upgrades, team members can extend an invitation to current customers to chat with experts and ask questions about the product.

Using Conversational Sales in Your Messaging Strategy

It's likely that you're already utilizing certain conversational sales strategies if you text potential customers. The process of fine-tuning your existing initiatives and adding more is easy.

Here are some tips to follow for your conversational sales initiatives.

• Avoid sending outbound sales messaging content.
• Focus on answering questions about your products or services.
• Aim for shorter response times (you can set up auto-replies using an enterprise-grade texting app like GirikSMS) to inform leads as to when you will respond
• Send follow-up messages after resolving lead questions

Keep in mind that you want leads to understand that they are having a conversation with a real person and not a bot. Keep your tone informal and welcoming while using grammatically correct language. If you have lead details, such as names and past hobbies, include them. If it fits with your brand requirements, include emojis or GIFs to showcase your personality and establish genuine connections.

Why Track Conversational Sales KPIs?

To get the most out of your conversational sales strategy, you must measure certain metrics to make sure you're doing it right.

Important global events must be considered in the metrics you measure and prioritize. Ultimately, the strategy revolves around meeting the demands of the leads at that moment, and they are impacted by global events. You can begin measuring your metrics, or key performance indicators (KPIs), once you've identified them. Ideally, an enterprise-grade texting app should be able to do that for you automatically.

6 Conversational Sales KPIs You Need To Monitor

So how do you even begin? The following 6 KPIs ought to be your main priorities:

First Response Time

The average time it takes your sales team to respond to a lead's initial message is known as the first response time. Convenient, responsive messaging is crucial in conversational sales, so if you're doing it well, this sales KPI would be short. You might need to adjust things if you have a high first response time. Think about expanding your sales team or conducting a training program on the efficiency aspects of your messaging platform.

Average Response Time

The average time it takes your sales staff to respond to a lead message is known as the average response time. This KPI is one of the most helpful for sales training and should also be low. The core of conversational sales is having text exchanges that resemble face-to-face conversations. Exchanges should happen quickly; if they don't, your team needs to come up with a strategy to respond to leads faster. This could entail hiring more people or making sure team members are knowledgeable about all of your products, including any new ones.

Longest Wait Time

Longest wait time keeps track of the types of requests and times of day or week that result in lengthy wait times. Monitoring the longest wait time is essential. As we previously said, the goal of conversational sales is to promote brief and easy conversations; lengthy wait periods are counterproductive. Leverage this metric to find out which topics require more team training and which days of the week you should make sure everyone is at work.

Inbound Message Volume

The volume of communications that leads send in is known as the inbound message volume. Recall that the main goal of conversational sales is to get leads to send in messages. This indicator lets you know how successfully you're pushing the channel. You need to improve your outreach if the amount of incoming messages is consistently low. Ensure that all of your websites, social media accounts, email newsletters, and other sales and marketing materials have messaging access points.

Messaging Volume By Channel

The volume of inbound messages from leads across each channel is known as the messaging volume by channel. It helps you figure out which channels your leads like to use when they have questions about your products or services, and it's tightly tied to the number of incoming messages. This provides you with a wealth of information about consumer behavior and can even assist you in selecting the channels that are best for advertising campaigns and which channels to focus on.

Unsubscribed Contacts

The number of contacts that have requested to be deleted from your contact list is known as unsubscribed contacts. It's crucial that leads enjoy interacting with your brand, and they must provide their consent to text you. They should expect your future messages to be helpful so that they continue to stay on your SMS list. This measure ought to be modest. If not, refine your conversational sales strategy and messaging content. Prioritize the questions that leads ask, engage in real dialogue, and personalize every communication.

Customer Sentiment

You might be able to monitor customer sentiment and insights using more sophisticated business texting solutions. These solutions can scan the incoming messages using machine learning techniques and categorize them based on sentiment categories.

Based on the occurrence of keywords, affirmations, and emojis, your messaging platform could mark customer chats as Happy, Unhappy, or Neutral. This allows you to monitor how your leads are feeling at the end of each conversation. Track the message themes that typically lead to Happy, Neutral, and Unhappy conversations in your chats. This can assist you in anticipating how to handle more challenging conversations and in understanding the strategies that result in fruitful ones.

B2B Sales KPIs

You shouldn't limit your conversational sales adoption to monitoring KPIs unique to messaging. You should think about a variety of other KPIs for sales teams, especially those related to B2B sales.

For instance, you might want to monitor:

• Demo attendance rate
• Demo conversion time
• Proposal sign-off time

Why are these KPIs used? Conversational sales helps sales teams to guide B2B buyers through the sales funnel. With consistent text reminders, you should be able to improve these KPIs if you're doing it right. The trick lies in constant monitoring of these metrics and refining your conversational sales messaging on an ongoing basis to improve numbers.

GirikSMS's conversational marketing is built with scale and performance in mind. Whether you want to go omnichannel, add AI capabilities to your conversational sales workflows, or create compelling messaging campaigns, GirikSMS makes it possible.