Perfecting customer relationships is an ongoing process for every business. If your customers don’t trust you, the perfect product won’t be able to do anything. This trust starts with personalized communication, which is where a CRM with text messaging shines.
Such a system helps you learn about your customers and use that information in your messages. The resulting communication makes your customers feel like they belong.
They resonate with what you say, which is the first step to strong relationships. So, let’s explore the benefits and software options for a CRM with texting capabilities.
What Is a Customer Relationship Management System?
A customer relationship management (CRM) system that helps businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the lifecycle. But where does this information come from?
It pulls data from various sources like your website, phone calls, text conversations, emails, marketing campaigns, etc. As a result, you don’t have to look at each conversation and discover what stands out.
The CRM puts everything together in a single dashboard for easy access. Whenever you want to know something about a particular customer, simply search in the CRM. You can also group customers based on common preferences, behaviors, or demographics.
CRMs often allow you to filter customers using various tags. This makes it even easier to learn the data you need. You don’t have to read the data manually to decide your next step. CRM systems have advanced features like tracking and analytics that give you actionable insights.
Its main goal is to improve customer relationships by maintaining strong connections and streamlining processes.
You can even share the information across multiple departments. This way, employees don’t have to rely on each other. They can easily view the information from their respective dashboard.
All of this combines to help you save money. You can make data-driven decisions instead of making guesses. This takes away chances of errors and makes sure you don’t waste your resources. CRM systems aren’t even that expensive unless you want all the advanced features.
7 Reasons for Integrating Your CRM With Text Messaging
Statistics reveal that 72% of customers prefer a personalized message and even go as far as ignoring general texts. Businesses that want to be successful have to take this statistic seriously.
To do that, you must know your customers to their very core. That won’t be possible without integrating your texting tool with a CRM system. However, this isn’t the only reason for integrating your CRM with text messaging. Below, we’ll discuss seven reasons to help you judge the importance of this integration.
1. Tracking Customer Interactions
When you use the same platform for CRM and text messaging, you can track each interaction. Everything is in one place for you to view and analyze. You’ll get the same effect even if you integrate a separate CRM system with your text app. But why is this tracking so important?
Well, it’s the key to understanding customer behavior, identifying trends, and making data-driven decisions. Customers usually talk without a filter when they’re texting. You can even predict their future behavior by analyzing their way of texting and their behavior towards your brand.
2. Initiating Better Automation
Everyone knows that making your marketing efforts more efficient depends on automation. Giving instant responses increases customer engagement, while automatic messages take the burden off your shoulders. You have more time to spend on things like strategy and optimization.
However, managing the balance between robotic and personalized messages is hard. Automation does more harm than good if customers feel like they’re talking to a robot.
To maintain the balance, you must pull data from your CRM to personalize your messages. But don’t limit this personalization to names. Add other information that makes the customer feel like you know them.
For example, you can add something about the time they’ve remained your customer. The messaging app can easily pull this data from your CRM if you integrate the two.
3. Enhancing Customer Experience
Strong customer relationships aren’t possible without providing a positive experience. A CRM with texting capabilities promotes this in several ways.
Firstly, automating responses to common messages allows you to give instant replies. When you assure customers that you’ve received their message and will get back to them, they have peace of mind.
Besides, manual responses are also easy when everything is in one place. You don’t have to move back and forth between apps to craft your messages. Both of these things enhance customer experience.
Secondly, as we’ve been saying from the beginning, you can personalize messages. Customers who resonate with your texts feel like you’re talking directly to them. This creates a positive experience.
Thirdly, a two-way messaging feature offers convenience to your customers and keeps everything consistent. This, again, is a reason for a positive experience.
Lastly, CRM with texting ensures regular, timely conversations. This keeps your customers engaged, and you’re always at the top of their minds.
4. Avoiding and Resolving Conflicts
With tracking customer interactions comes the ability to quickly and efficiently resolve conflicts. You don’t have to take the blame on yourself or guess where things went wrong.
Let’s take an example situation where the customer claims you’ve sent them the wrong product. Instead of immediately providing explanations, you can cross-check whether the claim is correct.
For the sake of this example, let’s say analyzing the chat and order history revealed the claim to be wrong. Now, you can calmly explain the situation and provide proof.
However, the customer will be angry. So, using an accusatory tone won’t be wise. Instead, you can say something like this,
“Hi, [Customer Name!] I completely understand your frustration, but there seems to be a misunderstanding. Unfortunately, our systems show that you’ve received the correct order. Can you please share a picture of what you received so we can solve this matter together?”
Once they share the picture, you can share the proof and offer an incentive for the inconvenience.
5. Using Customers’ Preferred Method of Communication
It is no secret that text messaging is people’s preferred method of communication for contacting businesses. It’s easy, affordable, and convenient for the business and its customers.
They don’t have to wait for an Internet connection to contact you. That’s not the case with email marketing and social media. They don’t even have to follow a particular format to convey the problem. Since that’s where most people will be contacting you, it’s wise to integrate your CRM with text messaging. As a result, you’ll have a rich source of data.
6. Boosting Your Marketing Efforts
Successful text message marketing isn’t just about using fancy words and promoting your products. It’s about positioning your products and services to resonate with your customers. They should feel like you’ve launched the campaign specifically for them.
You can do this by highlighting a feature that solves your customer’s needs and problems. But for that, you must know about those needs and problems. Let’s say you own a beauty brand. Undoubtedly, most of your target audience will be females. If you send all your SMS marketing campaigns to male customers, you won’t find much success. There will only be a few people who buy from you.
On the other hand, targeting females with specific needs will work better in your favor. For example, you can target women with sensitive skin to sell your hypoallergenic foundation. That way, you’ll reach a wider audience.
The decision to send SMSes to these specific customers will come from your CRM.
7. Increasing Operational Efficiency
As mentioned earlier, CRMs allow you to share data across multiple teams. On top of that, a CRM with SMS capabilities allows team members to communicate with each other.
For example, the sales team can update order status on the CRM. From there, the order delivery team can pick up the information and process the order.
This communication also allows team members to share tasks and information to speed up operations. You can even set reminders for orders and tasks to help your staff work more efficiently.
Since everything is happening on a shared dashboard, managers can monitor employee behavior. As a result, they can make better decisions about their teams.
5 Options for the Best CRM With Text Messaging
Now that you know why you should have a CRM with messaging capabilities, you must be curious about the tools. If you search the market online, you’ll find many options, all claiming to be the best.
However, only a few are actually good. Besides, your ideal CRM will depend solely on your needs. Some tools work best for small businesses, while some work for specific industries. To help you judge, let’s discuss five of the best CRM with text messaging that cater to various needs.
1. Podium Is the Best Real Estate CRM With Text Messaging
People’s life savings are at stake when they sell, buy, or invest in real estate. They don’t trust businesses easily when they have so much to lose if they choose the wrong company.
Therefore, real estate businesses must work harder to gain their target audience’s trust. The need for personalization and knowing your customers to their core increases tenfold here. In this case, choose Podium, the best real estate CRM with text messaging.
It is actually a CRM with SMS functionality. It also allows seamless integration with your sales pipeline, which makes personalization all the more easy. With its two-way texting feature, you can help your customers contact you easily, enhancing their experience.
Apart from SMS, it also has a web chat widget for customers who don’t want to contact you through text. Another area where Podium excels is its focus on customer reviews.
As mentioned, you need your audience’s trust to run a successful business. By using Podium to ask for reviews and showcasing them, you can get new customers. Moreover, you can use the insights from these reviews to improve your services.
2. Choose Microsoft Dynamics 365 for the Best CRM With AI Text Messaging
Even though people often resent AI, it can do wonders for your sales pipeline. Using the AI-powered insights from Microsoft Dynamics 365 sales CRM, you can optimize sales processes for maximum efficiency. It even has actionable AI recommendations to help you use the software.
Its dedicated SMS editor makes it easy to write and edit messages in the tool. Moreover, its personalization capabilities never fail to impress.
Based on your needs, you can choose from three options: hybrid, cloud-based, and on-premise. Since each varies in price, you should research which suits you the best.
However, this is one of the more expensive options. Only go for it if you need a CRM with AI text messaging.
3. Keap CRM Is Best for Small Businesses
Small businesses often struggle to automate their processes properly. However, when it comes to customer communications, Keap CRM makes it easy.
It’s a CRM with email and text messaging that allows you to automate trigger-based messages. These triggers are usually customer history and behavior, but you can also set others.
However, just because it’s for small businesses doesn’t mean it’s light on the features. In fact, you get everything you need for successful mobile marketing. This includes bulk messages, list segmentation, personalization, built-in compliance, customizable opt-in options, pre-saved templates, easy integrations, and in-app reporting features.
4. Agile CRM Is the Best for Personalization and Automation
Another software option fit for small businesses, Agile CRM’s popularity lies in its personalization and automation capabilities. You can set keyword-based messages and tag-based personalization to make sure your customers resonate with them.
Moreover, its team chat feature empowers your sales team and other employees for efficient work processes. Another standout feature is its list segmentation capabilities that go beyond demographics.
It even offers a free account for up to 10 users. You can easily upgrade to its paid version if you need more than that. And even that isn’t too expensive.
5. Zoho CRM Works Best for Growing Enterprises
For the last option on this list, we have Zoho CRM. If you own a rapidly growing enterprise business in the US or Canada, this CRM is your best bet.
Since it’s cloud-based, you can customize it to fit your needs. However, you’ll have to bring in technical help for that. A standout feature is its omnichannel communication capability, which helps you keep everything consistent and enhance customer experience.
However, the most unique feature is integration with voice calls. With this feature, you can text customers important details while on call with them! That makes Zoho the best CRM with phone call text messaging as well.
Frequently Asked Questions About CRM Systems With SMS
After learning the benefits and exploring the software options, let’s answer some frequently asked questions.
How does text messaging integrate with CRM?
Text messaging integrates with CRM by allowing businesses to seamlessly manage and enhance customer interactions through a preferred communication channel.
The result is a unified view of customer data, enabling efficient and personalized messages.
The features that emerge are two-way communication, contact management, analytics and reporting, etc.
What are the benefits of using text messaging in CRM?
The benefits of using text messaging in CRM include immediate and personal communications. The CRM system has everything you need to know about your customers.
When you use that information in your conversations, you can make the customer feel listened to. They’ll feel like you know them. As a result, they’ll be more open with you and eventually become a loyal customer.
Can CRM send text messages?
Yes, a CRM can send text messages. This can either be a CRM system with text messaging or a separate system with SMS integration. The one you choose will depend on your needs.
If you can afford an all-in-one solution, it’s best to go for it. However, for businesses with limited resources, using the integration capabilities also works wonders.
Integrate Your CRM With Texting for an Enhanced Customer Relationship
Strong customer relationships are the pillars of a successful business. Forming such relationships is the goal of CRM with text messaging. You have complete information about your customer and can reach them using their preferred communication channel.
Using this information can help you personalize your communications. Text message marketing is a powerful tool in terms of reach and effectiveness. At Beambox, we can help you market your business with SMS.
You can use Beambox WiFi marketing platform to build a list and run multiple campaigns. Additionally, you can use Beambox to get more reviews online and manage your reputation. Start your trial today!
