How To Introduce Texting to Your Entire Sales Team

This is my email inbox right now.

Yes, this is me making a confession: I am not one of those highly organized, inbox-zero people. In my defense, I’m not quite sure they exist.

In fact, they may be more urban legend than reality. The average adult American has 500 unread emails in their inbox. 

It’s not surprising, then, that text messaging has become a secret weapon for sales teams. When sales teams text their prospects, they are practically guaranteed to reach them. It’s quick, efficient, and highly effective.

In this article, we’re going to show you how your entire sales team can use our business texting service to close more deals.

How Not to Add Texting to Your Sales Process

Sometimes it’s helpful to know what not to do when introducing a new element to your sales process. Here are four common mistakes we see made by organizations of all sizes.

1. Letting Reps Text From Their Personal Phones

Texting is a personal, casual communication channel. That said, there are so many reasons you shouldn’t let employees text from their personal phones, including:

• A lack of insight or control of the conversation (which means more risk of miscommunication) 
• Your customer privacy is at risk if your employee loses their phone or it gets stolen
• If a sales rep leaves, they have a list of current customers on their phone

2. Using Texting Only for Outbound Communication

Plenty of sales teams stop at triggering texts to go out to prospects automatically, with no option for replies or interactions.

Take Bohemian Guitars as an example of what to do. The team there set up texting so their customers had an easy way to reach them with questions or orders. 

The personal nature of their customer interactions led to a 98% increase in sales, and customers have easier, faster access to all the information they need as they make decisions. 

3. Sticking to a Script, Not a Template

Stiff, unnatural scripts are one of the worst things you can give your sales team. Instead, teach your reps how to text. 

This comes down to something we call “conversational customer engagement.” It’s a method for helping customers take part in personalized conversations. 

When you open the floor for discussions and questions around products or the customer experience itself, customers feel more valued and involved in the process.

4. Ignoring Prospects

You can’t sit in front of your inbox 24/7. You need an away message for the moments when you’re not in the office 

An away message is an automatic text message that is sent whenever you’re not available, whether that’s during a set window or all the time. 

These messages help your prospects feel heard and cared for even when you can’t tend to them personallyーafter all, no one likes to send a text that never gets a reply.

How to Introduce Your Entire Team to SimpleTexting

Now that you know how to use texts to take your sales team to the next level, let’s talk about putting it into action with these six easy steps.

1. Provide Reps With Their Own Number

With multi-number and team member features, you can assign your sales reps their own individual number for texting. 

This will help you keep conversations organized and help your team focus on their own interactions. 

2. Invite Your Team Members

Adding your sales team to your account is quick and easy.

Use the Team tab in your SimpleTexting account to invite your team members, set their role in the account as a member or manager, and decide which numbers and contact lists they will be able to access. 

3. Import Contacts

Of course, you’ll need someone to text. If you have existing lists of contacts, you can import them into your account.

You can also decide which lists you want prospects to join as they opt in to receive your texts. 

Need to edit or adjust your lists? Bulk actions allow you to merge, delete, or export lists that you’ve imported, and you can decide which metrics you want to see from your main Contacts page.

4. Provide Training on How to Use the Inbox

Although texting doesn’t take too much training, your team will still need to know how to navigate the tools and features of their inbox. 

Want to help your people learn the easy way? Send them the link to our Help Center articles or this guide to our SMS inbox.

You and your team will have access to articles and videos that will walk you through the inbox (and more) step by step. 

5. Download the Mobile App

Want to make your sales messaging portable? Download the SimpleTexting mobile app to manage your inbox and keep an eye on your team’s customer interactions on the go.

6. Bonus Step: Integrate With Your CRM

We know that the ability to monitor your team’s interactions with customers in one place is crucial to providing a great customer experience. 

With our new API messages endpoint, you can bring messages to and from your customers into your CRM. This allows you to maintain one central database for all your contacts.

Add Texting, Close More Deals

Texting your sales prospects means less wasted manpower, time, and resources. 

We’ve already talked about how fast and effective texting is, but here’s the important part: for your team, those things translate to more successful sales. That’s all that matters.

Getting set up with an online platform just sweetens the deal by allowing your entire team to stay organized and keep sales interactions all in one place.

Use the tips and steps in this article, and you’ll be an SMS expert in no time. Ready to get started? Take SimpleTexting for a 14-day test drive, totally free.