Timing is crucial when it comes to connecting with potential customers and fulfilling their requirements. Results can be greatly enhanced by sending the appropriate message at the most opportune moment. Convenience and personalization are the key aspects of attracting and retaining customers. Text messaging, with a read rate of 98%, has become the most effective, economical, and efficient way to connect with and engage with potential and existing customers. By incorporating text messaging into your CRM, you can connect with your audience in the way that they prefer to interact these days: via text.

Is It Possible to send SMS from Salesforce?

Yes, you can. There are several ways to do it even though you can't send texts with just the Sales or Service Cloud basic version.

Salesforce allows businesses to send a wide range of messages, however, some of the most popular ones across businesses are as follows:

Personalized texts: Establishing a personal connection is the most effective method of fostering connections. Salesforce allows you to send a single contact or a particular customer segment, tailored messages.

Bulk SMS: Notify certain customer segments or your contact database of live sales, forthcoming events, and more.

Automated SMS: Leverage triggers and journeys to lead contacts along a personalized message pathway.

SMS from Salesforce can be used for customer service, sales, marketing, or any other business function. Additionally, you can use MMS (multimedia messaging service) to send pictures or videos. Salesforce leverages CRM customer data in real-time to quickly send relevant and personalized messages to contacts.

3 Ways to Send SMS from Salesforce

You will need to upgrade above your normal Sales Cloud or Service Cloud licenses to send SMS from Salesforce.

1. Invest in an additional Salesforce product for text messaging.

Salesforce offers two SMS-capable add-on products:

• Mobile Studio for Marketing Cloud Engagement
• Digital Engagement for Service Cloud.

The main difference between the two is that Digital Engagement is purpose built for customer service, while Mobile Studio has been designed for marketing teams. Other distinctions between the two include:

Digital Engagement: You can engage in web chats, one-on-one conversations, and launch automated texts for $75/user/month. Users are only allowed to have 25 chats per month, but they can send as many messages as they want during a single interaction (within 24 hours). You will have to pay more for more interactions if you go above that limit.

Mobile Studio: You need the Corporate or Enterprise license of Marketing Cloud Engagement, starting at $4,200/org/month, in order to use Mobile Studio. You will then be able to use Mobile Studio's push notification, chat, WhatsApp, SMS, and MMS functions. Using Journey Builder, you can incorporate SMS in customer journeys across multiple channels by leveraging templates.

Both Salesforce solutions are quite feature-limited and have extra fees. Because you have to go through an authorization process, which can take weeks to be accepted, setup can also be challenging.

2. Develop a custom solution.

You can use the Salesforce API or another API provider to develop a completely unique SMS messaging solution for your Salesforce instance if you'd like additional flexibility. You need to identify a third-party messaging provider and create an integration from the ground up to link your Salesforce org to the provider in this approach.

Your business or organization can generate any functionality you require and save the membership fees of an additional SMS solution by developing a bespoke integration. Nevertheless, this solution is costly to design and deploy, time-consuming, and can often be complex.

3. Go for a 100% native Salesforce SMS tool.

Using a solution purpose-built to send text messages from Salesforce is your best bet. You may find a range of apps designed especially for Salesforce SMS messaging to satisfy the requirements of companies and organizations just like yours by going to the Salesforce AppExchange. Native Salesforce text messaging apps provide the following advantages over third-party integrations and add-on products:

• Additional SMS functionalities purpose-built for Salesforce
• Make use of the features you are familiar with
• Quicker and easier setup and deployment
• No additional expenses for development
• Dedicated customer service

All things considered, your team will save money, time, and stress by investing in a Salesforce native application. These apps, which are based on Salesforce technology, give you all the SMS features you require without the hassle and expense of custom solutions.

Is SMS Messaging Really the Way to Go? Benefits and Use Cases of SMS Messaging from Salesforce

A great way to interact with your customers directly from your CRM is via SMS messaging from Salesforce.

Effective audience engagement is essential for any organization. When combined with your Salesforce CRM, SMS messaging from Salesforce can be a useful tool. Some of the main advantages of utilizing SMS from Salesforce are as follows:

Improved Customer Engagement

Building enduring brand-customer relationships requires interacting with consumers on platforms they use often. One of the most often-used channels is SMS, which has a 98% read rate. Businesses can use SSM from Salesforce to:

Reach your audience instantly: Approximately 88% of SMS texts are opened within the first 3 minutes of delivery. This ensures the text receives the attention it was meant to.

Increase response rates: SMS engagements are timely because of very low response times on average.

Enhance customer relationships: It's essential to send brief, to-the-point SMS messages consistently. An effective way to boost audience engagement is via SMS

Real-Time Communication

In corporate communication, timeliness and relevancy are crucial. Brands can communicate time-sensitive information to their contacts directly via SMS from Salesforce. This feature is very helpful for:

Appointment reminders: Automated reminders of forthcoming appointments can help cut down on no-shows.

Order updates: With SMS from Salesforce, you can enhance the customer experience by sharing crucial information or offering real-time updates regarding orders.

Deals and offers: Notify contacts by SMS about exclusive deals, discounts, or offers. This will motivate people to act quickly and drive revenues.

Event invites: To boost attendance and engage your audience, send out invitations and information about webinars, conferences, and other events.

Surveys and feedback: Use SMS-delivered surveys to get useful consumer inputs to enhance your offerings by leveraging actual data.

Billing reminders: Reminders for impending invoices and past-due payments can be sent via SMS to ensure that all transactions are completed on time and to prevent cash flow problems.

Product launches: Instantly notify your audience about new products by sending out announcements straight to their mobile phones.

Contract confirmations: Provide links to sign agreements and confirm via SMS, making closing deals much faster and easier

Provide payment links: Provide secure links via SMS so that customers can confidently complete purchases quickly.

Automation and Efficiency

The ability of Salesforce to automate SMS texts, campaigns, and workflows is one of its disruptive features. Automation saves time and significantly reduces human error. Here’s what you can do with SMS automation in Salesforce:

Schedule your SMS messaging: For optimal performance, send SMS from Salesforce at the right times.

Workflow integration: To automate processes like follow-ups and soliciting feedback, integrate SMS into current Salesforce workflows.

Consistency: Automated SMS texts from Salesforce drive consistent communication by accurately and quickly providing contacts with relevant information at the right time.

Personalized Communication

Personalization can have a huge impact. Businesses can add highly tailored content to text messages from Salesforce by leveraging customer data stored in the CRM. By leveraging tailored SMS content that is powered by CRM data, companies can:

Segment campaigns: Make sure your SMS texts are tailored to resonate with the various segments of your target audience.

Customize content: By utilizing Salesforce CRM data to tailor each message's content, the SMS texts become more relevant.

Drive customer satisfaction: Sending tailored messages to your customers can improve their experience by demonstrating your understanding of their needs and preferences.

Leverage Salesforce Customer Data

Unlock the power of Salesforce customer data with SMS to drive more targeted interactions. Advantages include:

Enhanced understanding of customers: Make use of customer data to drive relevant, meaningful engagement.

Data-powered decisions: Utilize CRM data to analyze SMS campaign performance and optimize your messaging strategy.

Powerful insights: For a comprehensive picture of customer engagement and behavior, connect the SMS data with CRM insights.

Easy to Use for Internal Staff

The adoption process goes more smoothly and effectively when SMS is integrated into a system that sales teams and other staff members are familiar with. Advantages consist of:

Salesforce native: Shorten the learning cycle for users by enabling SMS capability within the Salesforce UI.

Higher productivity: All correspondence with contacts is centralized, readily available, and analyzed for efficacy.

Additional Benefits of SMS from Salesforce

Apart from these significant advantages, SMS from Salesforce provides the following:

Cost-effectiveness: When compared to other conventional media used for marketing, SMS messages are incredibly affordable.

Two-way communication: SMS from Salesforce enables prompt message responses from your audience. It allows for real-time communication, which enhances customer support.

Analytics and reporting: You will get comprehensive data regarding the efficacy of your campaigns, which will enable you to optimize and streamline your approach.

Best Practices for SMS from Salesforce

It's critical to adhere to best practices when executing SMS campaigns from Salesforce in order to optimize engagement with your audience. This ensures the efficacy and compliance of your SMS campaigns.

Obtain Explicit Consent

Obtaining your contact's clear consent is one of the fundamentals of successful SMS messaging. This is a smart practice for fostering trust and making sure your SMS messages are read.

Regulatory Compliance

Businesses must obtain explicit consent from contacts before sending them SMS texts in order to avoid heavy penalties and legal ramifications under the TCPA in the United States and the GDPR in the EU.

Convenient Opt-in

An indication of trust is when recipients intend to text back the business. Make the opt-in process simple and clear, including the kinds of communications that will be sent and how often they will occur.

Convenient Opt-out

Give contacts the freedom to withdraw at any moment. To enable recipients to unsubscribe from all future communications, allowing them to simply reply "STOP" to any of your messages is a good idea. Trust and compliance are maintained by making it easy to opt out.

Call to Action

It's critical to include a call to action in your SMS campaigns. By giving the recipient instructions on what to do next, it boosts engagement and produces the intended results.

Actionable Language

Clear instructions set the tone for immediate action. "Click here," "Reply now," or "Buy today" leaves very little room for misinterpretation.

Relevance

Ensure that the Call To Action is relevant to the SMS. For instance, if you're offering a discount, include a link to buy the product with a unique promo code.

Urgency

Clear instructions create the stage for quick action. The phrases "Click here," "Reply now," and "Buy today" are quite unlikely to be misunderstood.

Monitor and Analyze Performance

Refining SMS campaigns requires ongoing observation and use of the lessons learned.

Key Metrics

Open rate, click-through rate, response rate, and opt-out numbers are fundamental metrics that should be tracked because they indicate the performance of your campaigns.

A/B Testing

To determine what works best, experiment with various message formats, call-to-actions, and sending schedules. This might help you understand what your customers like and do.

Customer Feedback

Utilize feedback to improve your strategy. Think about what could be altered to improve your SMS messaging from Salesforce if a large number of contacts frequently opt-out following a certain message.

GirikSMS Salesforce Integration

The leading Salesforce text messaging app from GirikSMS integrates seamlessly with Salesforce. The efficacy of your Salesforce text messaging campaigns is significantly enhanced by its powerful SMS features.

Easy Integration

GirikSMS is a 100% native Salesforce messaging app. As a result, SMS campaigns can be handled easily if one is already familiar with the Salesforce system. It simplifies work and ensures consistent customer interactions because everything is centralized in one place.

Advanced Features

Schedule your messages, automate processes, and personalize every message. Content with Salesforce data is the focus of the GirikSMS Salesforce integration. That not only simplifies things but also increases the efficacy of your SMS messaging from Salesforce.

Global Reach

GirikSMS ensures the global reach and reliability of your SMS campaigns. You can be certain that the message is consistent and compliant wherever in the world.

Comprehensive Support

GirikSMS provides complete support round the clock regardless of where you are to assist you in overcoming any challenges you might face with your SMS communications.

SMS from Salesforce: Enhancing Customer Engagement!

By sending time- and context-relevant SMS messages, SMS from Salesforce lays the groundwork for improving interactions with your audience. Communication workflow automation improves efficiency and consistency.

Real-time interaction is made possible via SMS provided through Salesforce, particularly when it comes to staying informed about orders, appointments, promotions, and other services for enhancing the customer experience. Salesforce customer data can be used to personalize every interaction which drives engagement translating to higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

SMS from Salesforce is an excellent tool for promoting a brand's offerings, fostering relationships, and making good use of your Salesforce data. GirikSMS, a 100% native to Salesforce text messaging solution is available to support your SMS strategy with all the features and assistance you require to take your business forward.

Want to take GirikSMS for a test drive? Sign up for a 30-day free trial now.