The Power of SMS: Transitioning From Outbound Calling to Inbound Messaging

If you’re a call center agent, you have probably come to the realization that outbound calling is quickly dying. There are a plethora of robocalls and scams in circulation that make getting in touch with a prospect by voice almost impossible. The exact people that you’re trying to reach are victims of mass spamming on a daily basis. If you’re lucky and get somebody to answer the phone, the interaction will most likely be less than pleasant. Junk calls have gotten so bad that a recent poll conducted by a Tennessee radio station showed that ninety-four percent (94%) of respondents reported that they don’t answer ANY unknown numbers. This statistic has seen a twenty-two percent (22%) increase since the last poll was conducted just one year prior.

There’s no question that everyone has been a victim of the ever-increasing amount of spam calls. So if calling isn’t an effective method of communication, how do you engage with your leads to get a better response? SMS is the answer (short message service).

The Solution: SMS

An effective SMS strategy can take your sales process to the next level by increasing efficiency, response rates, and customer satisfaction. But how is this done? Well, for starters, SMS campaigns allow the receiving party to engage with the message on their own time - not when you call them. Even though this is true, it’s unusual to get a delayed response using this channel. People are more comfortable when they feel like they’re in charge of the process and because of that, they respond faster and more often.

Additionally, communication through SMS allows the recipient to gather information such as your name, the company that you’re calling from, and what you’re offering before even deciding to speak with you. Unlike voice calls, the average open rate of a text message is around ninety-nine percent (99%). It’s for this reason that a well-planned SMS strategy can take your sales efforts to the next level.

Everyone Is Happy

Adopting an SMS strategy into your daily process is not only reliable and scalable but also improves customer satisfaction and agent morale. Agents are much happier knowing their message attempts are effective and don’t go unnoticed. With the correct procedures in place, text messaging can increase the number of closed deals and revenue your company is experiencing. It takes more than just sending an SMS message to make this work. The text must provide value and basic instructions for the recipient to know how to take action. Click here to request a copy of our SMS best practices document.

What Botsplash Can Offer

The Botsplash platform offers intuitive SMS functionality among other channels such as Google’s Business Messages, Voice and Video Calling, Web Chat, Facebook Messenger, and more. We offer industry-leading SMS features, some of which can be found below.

Document Collection and Exchange

What: Receive or Send documents with ease.

Why: Skip the hassle of scanning or attaching email documents or the daunting task of uploading files. Make it easy by sending documents as text MMS. With Botsplash, a visitor can send PDF, image, and video documents instantly as text messages. The active Agent on Botsplash can send attachments such as a product proposal or product quote as a text. Document collection and exchange is a great way to remove friction and makes it easy to share documents and files.

Scheduled Send

What: Our chat dashboard lets you schedule one message per customer/prospect to be delivered at a future date and time. Even better, if your physical time zone is different from the customer’s, you can choose the time zone that is relevant to them!

Why: Like many on-the-go conversations, there are frequent times that a customer may be away from their calendar and/or schedules as they request a call or text check-in. Scheduled send helps coordinate these check-ins! Schedule a text for a requested or intended time and the platform will take care of the rest for you.

TCPA Compliance

What: The FCC and individual states define laws on how and when it is acceptable to contact a customer. This applies to factors such as send times, consent, and so much more. Read here for additional information on TCPA and why it’s so important.

Why: With Botsplash, the message delivery (send) is controlled based on property state and/or phone area code to determine delivery eligibility.

Canned Responses

What: Canned responses are a collection of commonly used messages that are made readily available for future use. These could be made up of both team responses or individual responses.

Why: When you’re busy, it’s helpful and more efficient to have pre-written messages for use. Even more useful, our platform supports token replacement (replace some value to personalize to the customer) so that each message is unique and sounds like it comes from you. To learn more, read about the top canned messages in 2022.

Conversation Filtering

What: These are managed reports that provide insights into conversation keywords that can be flagged. One of which is consumer intent detection, in case the consumer is not interested in engaging immediately.

Why: Oftentimes, it is necessary to monitor and raise a red flag/area for concern if the support staff or licensed/certified agents mention or share any restricted content. Based on the intent of the consumer prospect, you can choose to deploy different flows and journeys.

Follow Up

What: Set up an appointment with a text reminder.

Why: Life is busy and many times people forget about appointments unless an email and/or a text reminder is received. With the follow up feature, we create an appointment on your calendar and also send a reminder 10 min before the appointment. Additionally, you can choose from your local timezone or the timezone of your prospect.

The use of SMS in your outbound contact strategy has never been easier with Botsplash on your side. Our customer support team will assist you with any integration needs so that the transition to our omnichannel communication platform is seamless. Beyond SMS you will experience a wealth of benefits that allow for greater control over your customer-facing conversations.

If all of this sounds interesting, we would love to schedule a no-obligation demonstration of our platform with you. We will work together to determine if Botsplash is the right fit for your business needs. We look forward to hearing from you and happy chatting!