How to Integrate Your CRM with Text Messaging

Integrating your CRM with a text messaging platform (like Messente) can help you take customer communication and marketing to another level. This blog explains the key benefits of connecting your CRM to SMS functionality and provides examples of what you can achieve once integration has taken place. It also covers incorporating Messente into your system using our SMS API or Zapier, an online automation tool.

Why integrate your CRM with a text messaging platform?

Connecting your CRM with a text messaging tool allows both applications to ‘speak’ to each other and share and sync data seamlessly. When it comes to customer relationship management, an SMS CRM integration enabling you to send individual text messages and bulk messages can offer many benefits.

Once an SMS CRM system is integrated, you can send SMS messages as part of your sales process in just a few clicks. If you're looking to enhance your marketing efforts, an SMS integration will enable you to communicate with customers directly from your CRM. 

With the ability to send text messages from inside your CRM, you can begin to centralize your communication channels to nurture relationships.

Many CRM systems support workflows, where you can send out automatic communications that are triggered upon a customer taking a specific action. For example, you might want to automatically send out a product review request one week after the customer makes their purchase. By integrating your CRM with text messaging, you can add SMS to your workflows.

Your CRM will sync with your text messaging platform and vice versa. So if you change someone’s contact details in your texting tool, the new information will also transfer across to your CRM. Having accurate records is crucial, especially if you regularly run customer reports from your CRM.

What you can achieve by integrating CRM with text messaging

We’ve covered one example of how you can use text messaging software once it’s linked up to your CRM tool - product review requests. There are plenty of other uses too, as follows:

If your business involves selling and despatching products, you can set up a series of SMS campaigns to be delivered to customers in stages after they’ve placed an order. The first text should be the order confirmation, followed by a shipping notification and then a delivery confirmation. You could also use SMS to notify individual customers about in-store collections like Boots (a British pharmacy chain) does.

Sending an appointment reminder ahead of time can reduce the risk of cancellations and no-shows. SMS is particularly effective for appointment reminders because texts grab attention - more so than an email. Texts are very noticeable, and most people have their phone with them throughout the day - looking at them regularly. In fact, the average consumer checks their phone 47 times a day.

Many businesses use SMS for delivering account verification PIN codes because it’s the most accessible communication channel - it’s a built-in app on every mobile phone. There’s no need to download an app as you do with WhatsApp or Messenger. Plus, SMS delivery is very reliable as it relies on a cellular connection rather than wi-fi.

4. Mass text marketing campaigns

Integrating your CRM with text messaging means you can easily send targeted, personalised campaigns promoting your products or services. If you have access to detailed customer insights through your CRM, you can identify and group specific customers so they can receive marketing messages tailored to their interests.

So, for instance, let’s say you run an office supplies business. You know from your CRM reports that you have over 150 customers who regularly buy printer cartridges. You may decide to run a special offer in this category that you know will appeal to these customers who are likely to need (at some point) more ink for their printer. Once you’ve identified these people, you can segment them and send a marketing text blast to them all simultaneously - from within your CRM system. 

Messente integration via an API

Messente can be integrated with a whole host of CRM tools and other applications. Examples are Salesforce, Magento, Shopify, WooCommerce, and Pipedrive. One way to integrate is via our SMS API for transactional and marketing texts.

This requires a little technical know-how, but it’s something that a junior developer can do in a day. Our API supports various coding libraries like PHP, Python, Node, and Java. We provide detailed technical documentation and a Quickstart guide to make the process simple.

Further reading: learn how to integrate an SMS API via PHP.

Messente integration via Zapier

The easiest way to integrate your CRM with text messaging capabilities from Messente is via Zapier. This is marketing automation tool that connects your apps and helps you create automated workflows to boost productivity and leverage new communication channels in your sales process.

With Zapier, no coding experience is needed. It’s simply a matter of signing up to Zapier and Messente and connecting the two, which you’ll do in your Zapier account. Then you can select triggers and actions to enable you to send texts.

For argument’s sake, imagine you use Salesforce. Whenever a new customer record is added to Salesforce (the trigger), you could send a text message (the action). See this template in Zapier.

Integrate your CRM with text messaging capability today

Connecting your CRM with a text messaging tool boosts productivity and can indirectly increase revenue. Transactional texts containing PIN codes, appointment and payment reminders, and delivery updates can be easily automated, saving time for your customer service agents and allowing them to focus on more complex tasks. 

You could even set up two-way text messaging to increase customer engagement right within your CRM dashboard. And by utilising insights from your CRM tool and setting up automated text workflows based on triggers, you can provide customers with highly relevant and enticing marketing campaigns.

Getting started is easy. To begin, create a free account with Messente. This enables you to receive your API keys and set up a Sender ID. Then perform the integration using our SMS API or Zapier.

Have any questions about integrating your CRM with text messaging from Messente? Our team is happy to help - please get in touch.